9 March 2009

Report by Amalia Rasheed

Panel discussion on the realisation of the right to food.

The HRC held a panel discussion on the realisation of the right to food. In her statement, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Navi Pillay delivered a statement on the occasion of International Women’s Day. She said that women continued to be the majority of the poor and disenfranchised, deprived of economic and social rights as well as civil and political rights. In many countries laws still restrict women’s access to financial independence.

Opening the panel discussion on the Realisation of the Right to Food, Ms. Pillay said that efforts to tackle the global food crisis need to be directed particularly at protecting and empowering the most marginalised segments of society. Stronger institutions with better accountability, sustainable investments in agricultural production and research were needed, targeted support to, and empowerment of the poor were all building blocks of a successful strategy, she said.

Food is not a simple commodity and agriculture is not only a business. Both represent the means of the world’s survival and that of future generations. It is necessary to put people first and to ensure that the international community supported them both in the realisation of their rights and in tackling the root causes of the crisis.

Panelist Paul Nicholson, of La Via Campesina, said that [study of] the causes of the crisis showed that 70 percent of hunger was rural and was caused primarily by food export, industrial modes of production, and the privatisation of market control, so that multinational corporations are free to use food as a speculative commodity, leading to unnaffordably high prices for the consumer. What is needed he said, is a change in policy on the rights of peasants and consumers.

Andrea Carmen,  a panalist from the International Indian Treaty Council, spoke on the indigenous peoples’ perspective on the right to food. She said they see it as being closely connected  to their right to land and resources and that it is linked to culture, languages and the relationship with Mother Earth. Environmental contamination was a violation of human rights experienced directly in this context. Food sovereignty was a precondition for the food security of indigenous peoples, closely tied to their ability to design strategies and manage their natural resources. She noted that indigenous peoples who had access to their traditional land and practices were able to maintain their health, however a disproportionate number are not in that position and suffer high levels of economic deprivation.

Jean Ziegler, a panellist from the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee, said that, while over 100 thousand people suffering from hunger, 963 million were severely undernourished. Agro-fuel speculation along with food commodities are contributors to the crisis. Through future contracts and stock market speculation, major speculators had pushed prices up.

Olivier De Schutter, Special Rapporteur on the right to food, said the problem was not so much the lack of food, as a lack of purchasing power for the poor. Assurance of the right to food improved a community's sustainability, and by adopting national strategies and framework laws, Governments would be under pressure to remain on track in this regard. He put forward a number of recommendations in his report regarding structural reforms that were needed.

In the interactive dialogue that followed, delegations highlighted the increasing difficulties faced in the present global food crisis by those fighting against poverty and hunger as well as the increased challanges faced in the efforts to attain food security in developing countries and to achieve the objective to halve the numbers of undernourished people by 2015 and other Milleneum Development goals. Achieving food security, particularly for those most vulnerable, will require strengthening the agricultural sector in developing countries through international cooperation, the empowerment of small and medium scale farmers, technical assistance and sharing technology, knowledge and experience. The Human Rights Council was called to review policies or measures which had a negative impact on the realisation of economic, social and cultural rights including the right to food.

NGO representatives also spoke. Amnesty International called on the Council to address national and international systemic issues related to the respect and fulfilment of the right to food, including situations in which governments deliberately violated the right to food as a tool of political coercion. Sudan, where thirteen international NGOs had been expelled, was mentioned as a recent example. This event had a devastating effect on the delivery of humanitarian assistance with the expected consequence of up to 1.1 million people soon facing starvation, disease and death. Europe-Third World Centre, in a joint statement with several NGOs said that the most vulnerable victims — small scale farmers — were up against international trade which favoured the law of the strongest transnational corporations. The policy of most states runs counter to their obligations of human rights, the report stated, further aggravating the consequences of the crisis. Farmers had experienced political, economical and spiritual oppression throughout history. Giving them their rights could only be for the benefit of all people in the world.