Food as a Human Right
Reporting from the World Food Summit 2002, and highlighting some shocking obstacles to getting a declaration on tackling these issues, Peter Rosset reported on day one:
ROME—At 3:00 AM on Monday morning the United States stood alone among all nations of the world in blocking further discussion of the draft text of the declaration that governments will sign at the World Food Summit. What was leading the U.S. to stop the all night negotiating session? First, the U.S. wanted all references to “food as a human right” to be deleted, and second, the U.S. wanted strong language saying that genetically modified (GM) crops are a key way to end hunger. The Third World nations organized in the Group of 77 wanted mandatory language on the Right to Food, while Europe and Canada held out for the compromise of a voluntary Code of Conduct. No other nation felt strongly that GM crops should receive prominence.
— Peter Rosset, United States Behavior at World Food Summit: “Reprehensible”, Report from the 2002 World Food Summit: Day 1, June 10, 2002 [Emphasis Added]
And at the end of the summit:
The only positive thing in the official declaration was the proposal for a “voluntary” code of conduct on the Right to Food to be developed over the next two years. The United States, which had vehemently opposed the right to food in any form, finally accepted this version which is a) not mandatory and b) not immediate. Apart from that, the declaration is a disaster as far as ending hunger goes. It repeats the flaws of the 1996 Summit declaration which led to the failure to meet hunger reduction goals over the past five years, including an endorsement of free trade, a recommendation of more structural adjustment for the poorest countries, and a call for greater private investment. It also adds the golden goose that the U.S. wants—biotechnology—and drops a key victory from the 1996 declaration, land reform. All in all, a bad performance by governments.
— Peter Rosset, Report from the 2002 World Food Summit: Day 4, June 13, 2002
The U.S.’s position on opposing the right to food comes at odds with most others in the world. The world’s premier organization on food issues, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), is one example. As reported by Europaworld, an international development organization, Jacques Diouf, the FAO’s Director-General reiterated the link between hunger, poverty and basic rights, saying, “Failure to address the silent under-nourishment of millions of children and adults in peacetime should also be regarded as a violation of the right to food.”
Furthermore, because of the immediate urgency to address hunger, the issue of promoting food itself as a human right, and its denial as an abuse of rights, has been seen by many as paramount. This has been the cry for many years by the Institute for Food and Development Policy (or Food First for short), for example.