Right to adequate nutrition

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The right to food , more correctly called the right to adequate nutrition , is anchored as a human right under international law in Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ( UN Social Covenant ). The right to “adequate nutrition” is found there in Article 11, Paragraph 1 as part of the right to an adequate standard of living , and in Paragraph 2 once again emphasized as the “fundamental right of everyone to be protected from hunger ”. It is also included in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights . The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Food is Hilal Elver . Several states have enshrined the right to adequate nutrition in their constitutions .

The right to adequate nutrition is considered to have been violated if human dignity is violated through permanent deprivation of food or nutritional basics . Conversely, the United Nations Social Committee General Comment No. 12 states : “The right to adequate food is realized when every man, woman and child, individually or collectively, has physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or have the means to procure them. ”In view of the estimated 1,000,000,000 starving people worldwide and over 24,000 starvation deaths per day by the food and agriculture organization FAO, this is likely to be one of the most massively violated human rights over many decades. While the number of starving people is declining in China , according to the FAO, it is stagnating in India and growing in Africa . The Democratic Republic of the Congo has the highest proportion of undernourished people in its population at 70 percent . However, due to the lack of empirical information, all figures should be used with caution.

Contractual and state obligations

As with other human rights, especially the other economic, social and cultural rights, the understanding of the state obligations arising from the international right to food is still in a process of legal and international legal interpretation. Although the social pact came into force in 1976, this process basically only began after the fall of the 1990s. The UN Charter also states in Articles 55 and 56 u. a. raising the standard of living as a fundamental task of the United Nations and all member states. In 1999 the UN Social Committee stated in its General Comment 12 that the contracting states derive from the social pact obligations in several respects.

  1. States must respect the right to adequate nutrition for all people, i.e. they must not deny anyone food, including access to food, for example by expropriating land from small farmers without compensation.
  2. You need to protect the right to adequate diet from harm by third parties. As a consequence, this means not only that they have to stop mouth robberies and theft , but also have to prevent companies , large landowners , etc. from preventing access to food and basic nutritional basics.
  3. According to Article 2 of the Social Covenant, the contracting states have a duty to mobilize all resources to ensure access to food for all in a progressive manner. This is not to be understood in an apodictic way as an obligation to permanent social benefits; What is decisive is the totality of the measures taken by the state and their result, namely freedom from hunger and the existence of an adequate standard of living.

Some of these contractual and state obligations - such as aid deliveries in acute emergency situations or the lifting of restrictive provisions - can be fulfilled immediately and without major investment of possibly scarce tax resources. The implementation of other obligations, on the other hand, may require political changes - such as legislation, infrastructure measures , land reforms , the breeding of locally and ecologically adapted seeds or the development of local markets - and therefore take more time. Referral from intergovernmental organizations such as B. the World Bank , that generally the growth of the economy must be promoted and awaited, cannot be regarded as sufficient for the fulfillment of the state obligations.

"In order to determine which acts or omissions constitute a violation of the right to food, it is important to distinguish between the inability and the unwillingness of a State party to comply with its obligations," the Social Welfare Committee noted in its legal comment. The inability of the state to provide access to food for poor people must be demonstrated, according to the committee.

Further details and interpretations for understanding the right to adequate nutrition can be found in the Voluntary Guidelines on the Human Right to Food, adopted by the World Food Summit in Rome in 2003 . In addition, new specific interpretations can be expected in the future through fundamental judgments of the constitutional courts in the human rights treaty states.

It must be underlined that the right to food is by no means just an issue for the poor and poorest countries. This is evident from the growing number of so-called food panels in many industrialized countries. This also applies to the Federal Republic of Germany , in which around 1.5 million people are now supplied by such food outlets. In this respect, the voices are increasing that the Federal Republic is thereby violating the human right to food. It cannot be ruled out that the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) will deal with this issue in the future.

Implementation and enforceability

Whether or not a hungry person can go to court depends on the laws of their country. The right to adequate food is by no means directly enforceable everywhere, even if the government concerned has ratified the UN social pact . Because a human rights treaty initially only obliges the states, and they must first implement it. In contrast to other human rights treaties, the social pact does not provide for an individual complaint procedure that would at least enable victims to lodge a political complaint with the United Nations.

The UN Human Rights Commission has appointed a special rapporteur in the interests of better enforcement of the right to adequate nutrition. The Swiss Jean Ziegler was the first to hold this office (2000–2008), whose mandate has to be renewed every few years. His successor Olivier De Schutter was in office from 2008 to 2014, until he was replaced by Hilal Elver in 2014. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Nutrition reports to the Human Rights Commission at its annual meeting in the spring of the existing problems and proposed solutions. In addition, the contracting states report on the status of the implementation of food law in five- yearly state reports . The administrative and legal strategies that are suitable for the better implementation of this right have long been known and worked out. It all depends on the political will of the governments, both in developing and industrialized countries .

Understanding of nutrition: entitlement or grace ?

The understanding of food as a basic human right and justice and hunger as a violation of human rights has not yet anywhere in the awareness enforced. In many cases starvation is perceived as a blow of fate caused by external circumstances such as extreme climate fluctuations , drought or war . Awareness of this is likely to vary greatly from country to country. Human rights organizations like FIAN try to spread the awareness of freedom from hunger as a fundamental right internationally, for example with slogans like: "Hunger is not fate, hunger is made" .

The “right” awareness is of fundamental importance for the strategies adopted and thus the chances of realizing the right to adequate nutrition and overcoming the structural hunger that occurs. The assessment of hunger as a stroke of fate suggests a charitable approach, whereas nutrition as a legal claim requires far-reaching political and structural changes - not only in the countries concerned, but also internationally.

Worldwide there are by far sufficient logistical and material resources available or can be mobilized in a short time to overcome hunger both with the charitable variant through food aid and through the actual granting of a legal right to food. The second alternative is likely to meet with more political acceptance and more in line with the dignity of those affected.

See also

literature

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ : Frithjof Ehm, Food and International Law in Germany - A Contribution to the Right to Food and the Effects of International Law in German and European Food Law. ZLR 4/2013, pages 395-414.