The right to food is a human right. It protects the right of all human beings to live in dignity, free from hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition. The right to food is not about charity, but about ensuring that all people have the capacity to feed themselves in dignity. 
 
The right to food is protected under international human rights and humanitarian law and the correlative state obligations are equally well-established under international law. The right to food is recognized in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), as well as a plethora of other instruments. Noteworthy is also the recognition of the right to food in numerous national constitutions.
 
As authoritatively defined by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Committee on ESCR) in its General Comment 12

“the right to adequate food is realized when every man, woman and child, alone and in community with others, has physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement” (General Comment 12, 1999, para 6).

Inspired by the above definition, the Special Rapporteur has concluded that the right to food entails:

“the right to have regular, permanent and unrestricted access, either directly or by means of financial purchases, to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and which ensures a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear.” (A/HRC/7/5, para 17).

It is generally accepted that the right to food implies three types of state obligations - the obligation to respect, protect and to fulfil. These types of obligations were defined in General Comment 12 by the Committee on ESCR and endorsed by states, when the FAO Council adopted the Right to Food Guidelines (Voluntary Guidelines) in November 2004.

The obligation to respect requires governments not to take any measures that arbitrarily deprive people of their right to food, for example by measures preventing people from having access to food.  The obligation to protect means that states should enforce appropriate laws and take other relevant measures to prevent third parties, including individuals and corporations, from violating the right to food of others. The obligation to fulfil (facilitate and provide) entails that governments must pro-actively engage in activities intended to strengthen people’s access to and utilization of resources so as to facilitate their ability to feed themselves. As a last resort, whenever an individual or group is unable to enjoy the right to adequate food for reasons beyond their control, states have the obligation to fulfil that right directly.

To sum up, the right to food means that governments must not take actions that result in increasing levels of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition. It also means that governments must protect people from the actions of powerful others that might violate the right to food. States must also, to the maximum of available resources, invest in the eradication of hunger. 

Furthermore, under article 2(1), 11(1) and 23 of the ICESCR, states agreed to take steps to the maximum of their available resources to achieve progressively the full realization of the right to adequate food. They also acknowledge the essential role of international cooperation and assistance in this context.

Under article 2(2) of the ICESCR, governments agreed to guarantee that the right to food will be exercised without discrimination on grounds of race, colour, sex, language, age, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. The principle of non-discrimination is a cardinal principle of international law. It plays a major role in the full realization of the right to food not only at normative level, but also at practical level. As such, the Voluntary Guidelines recommend establishing food insecurity and vulnerability maps and the use of disaggregated data to identify

“any form of discrimination that may manifest itself in greater food insecurity and vulnerability to food insecurity, or in a higher prevalence of malnutrition among specific population groups, or both, with a view to removing and preventing such causes of food insecurity or malnutrition.” (Guideline 13)

Thus, identification of vulnerable, disadvantaged and marginalized groups and action towards removing the factors determining vulnerability are paramount towards the realization of the right to food.

In 2002, the Committee on ESCR elaborated General Comment 15 on the right to water. In the words of the Committee: “the right to water is a prerequisite for the realization of other human rights” (para 1). Perhaps, the intrinsic link between the right to water and the right to adequate food is nowhere so evident as in the case of peasant farmers. It is crucial to ensure sustainable access to water resources for agriculture in order to realize the right to food. The Committee stresses the special attention that should be given in this context to disadvantaged and marginalized farmers, including women farmers (para 7).

What is the State of Hunger in the World Today?

In 1996, at the World Food Summit in Rome, governments reaffirmed the right to food and committed themselves to cut by half the number of people suffering from hunger and malnutrition by 2015. Thus, the 1996 Rome Declaration set the hunger reduction target at 420 million undernourished by 2015. Five years later, the 2002 World Food Summit was held to measure progress. It had become evident that little action has been taken with respect to the 1996 commitments.

Whereas the normative framework of the right to food is clearly established in international law, in the past years, regression rather than the progressive realization of the right to food can be observed in practice. An infamous record has been broken in 2009: more than 1 billion people are undernourished worldwide. Asia and the Pacific is the region with the largest number of hungry people (642 million), followed by Sub-Saharan Africa (264 million). The latter has the largest prevalence of undernourishment relative to its population size 32 % (FAO, 2009).

UN experts and agencies, as well as several NGOs have repeatedly pointed out that the current political economy of food fails to protect the most in need in society. Recently, three concomitant crises – the food, economic and environmental one – reinforced this argument. Statistics clearly highlight that existing inequalities between the world’s regions and the vulnerability of the poorest members of developing countries are deepening.

Many women, men and children affected by chronic undernourishment suffer from what the FAO calls ‘extreme hunger’. This means that their daily ratio of calories is well below the minimum necessary for survival. Many people die on a daily basis from starvation. Malnutrition, also called the ‘hidden hunger’, refers to deficiency of calories, proteins or nutrients. Thus, malnutrition necessarily encompasses undernourishment; however it stretches beyond the latter since it might be that a person receives enough calories but not enough nutrients. Malnutrition is quieter than famine, in the sense that it does not attract the attention of the media for example, nonetheless it has no less tragic implications for those suffering of this disease. Malnutrition heightens vulnerability to other illnesses and almost always has serious physical and mental effects – the lack of brain cell development, inadequate growth. Serious malnutrition can also be hereditary, as many malnourished mothers give birth to malnourished babies. A vicious circle ensues.

“to work to reverse the decline in domestic and international funding for agriculture and promote new investment in the sector, to improve governance of global food issues in partnership with relevant stakeholders from the public and private sector, and to proactively face the challenges of climate change to food security.”