scholarly journals Roles and capacity of duty bearers in the realization of the human right to adequate food in Uganda

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (48) ◽  
pp. 5493-5509
Author(s):  
PM Rukundo ◽  
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JK Kikafunda ◽  
A Oshaug ◽  
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...  

The right to adequate food recognised under international law provides a strong foundation for eradicating hunger and malnutrition in all nations. Uganda ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) in 1987 and thereby committed itself to ensure the realization of the right to adequate food recognised under Article 11 of the Covenant. This study analysed the roles and capacity of duty bearers in the realization of the right to adequate food in Uganda. Structured interviews were held with purposefully selected duty bearers from 11 districts in the country between February and July 2007. Districts were selected by criterion based sampling. Relevant policies, budgets, and legislation were also reviewed, particularly with state obligations on human rights, and capacity of duty bearers in mind. Although this right is expressly recognised in the Food and Nutrition Policy of 2003 in which a multi-sectoral approach is proposed, sector-specific roles are not explicitly defined in Uganda’s institutional and policy framework. Most duty bearer (63%) considered the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) as being responsible for the delays in implementing the relevant actions for the right to food. The Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) reported receiving inadequate budget resources to support the right to food. Only 20% of duty bearers had knowledge of the General Comment 12, which is an important United Nations instrument that defines and elaborates on the human right to adequate food. Duty bearer’s knowledge of the right to food in the national Constitution had a significant (X2 = 0.003; P<0.05) positive correlation (R=0.283) with membership status to an ad hoc Uganda Food and Nutrition Council (UFNC). A proposed Food and Nutrition Bill had taken over 10 years without being presented to the National Parliament for the process of enactment into law. As such, most of the support for this right came from development partners. Whereas the ministry of health and MAAIF are line ministries in the implementation of food and nutrition policy, the right to food roles of the various duty bearers in Uganda need to be well defined. Capacity development is also needed, particularly related to integrating right to food sector-specific roles into the theoretical development and practical implementation of food and nutrition security programmes at all levels in the country.

Author(s):  
Juan Manuel Goig Martínez

La alimentación adecuada constituye un derecho humano. Así lo han reconocido oficialmente la gran mayoría de los Tratados Internacionales sobre derechos humanos. Pero existe una gran diferencia entre que un Estado reconozca oficialmente la alimentación como un derecho fundamental en su constitución, o lo haga como un principio rector, puesto que ello dotará al derecho a la alimentación adecuada de una mayor protección, o lo convertirá en un principio de actuación de los poderes públicos. Se puede exigir a los gobiernos garantizar el ejercicio efectivo del derecho a la alimentación de conformidad con las disposiciones constitucionales para otros derechos humanos. Pero, la capacidad de la invocación indirecta de otros derechos humanos para lograr la protección efectiva del derecho a la alimentación en el plano nacional dependerá, en definitiva, de la interpretación jurídica que se haga de la Constitución.Adequate food is a human right. Thus the vast majority of treaties have officially recognized it human rights. But there is a big difference between that a State officially recognizes food as a fundamental right in the Constitution, or do it as a guiding principle, since this will provide the right to adequate food of greater protection, or the It will become a principle of action of the public authorities. You may require Governments to ensuring the effective exercise of the right to food in accordance with the constitutional provisions for other human rights. But the indirect invocation of other human rights capacity to achieve effective protection of the right to food at the national level will depend, ultimately, of the legal interpretation that is made of the Constitution.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Michelle Jurkovich

This chapter focuses on one case of an economic and social right, the right to food. It mentions the development of an alternative model of advocacy, called the buckshot model, which explains the trajectories of campaigns in terms of the right to food. It also discusses international anti-hunger activism, which cites the fore advocacy surrounding the human right to food. The chapter emphasizes how the fulfillment of other human rights is either impossible or substantively meaningless without the realization of the right to food. It points out that more people die from hunger and related causes globally than in all wars, civil and international, combined.


2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 1190-1244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aravind R. Ganesh

AbstractModern global food supply chains are characterized by extremely high levels of concentration in the middle of those chains. This paper argues that such concentration leads to excessive buyer power, which harms the consumers and food producers at the ends of the supply chains. It also argues that the harms suffered by farmers are serious enough as to constitute violations of the international human right to food, as expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and more specifically, in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. World competition law regimes cannot ignore these human rights imperatives. To a certain extent, these imperatives can be accommodated under existing consumerist competition law theories by the interpretive mechanism of conform-interpretation. However, when one comprehends the truly global scale of modern food supply chains, it becomes obvious that conform-interpretation alone will not suffice. Instead, the protection of a minimum level of producer welfare congruent to those producers’ right to a minimum adequate level of food must find a place among the aims of any credible theory of competition law. Moreover, the same globalized nature of these food supply chains means that current doctrines of extraterritorial jurisdiction of competition control have also to be revised.


2020 ◽  
pp. 109-130
Author(s):  
Michelle Jurkovich

This chapter considers the puzzling role of international law around the right to food and examines why the existing law has been unable to generate norms within the advocacy community. It explores the reasons why international anti-hunger organizations rarely legitimate the right to food in legal terms and how this case can challenge the understanding of the relationships between norms, human rights, and law. It also provides a conceptual discussion of the distinction between formal law and norms, underscoring the importance of not conflating the two concepts. The chapter argues that many international anti-hunger organizations still do not conceptualize food as a human right, making international human rights law less relevant. It looks at the hunger case that suggests there is nothing automatic about law generating norms among activists or society at large.


2021 ◽  
pp. 125-145
Author(s):  
Francesco Alicino

With this article the Author focuses the attention on today's multiple facets of the food crises, which prevents from characterizing countries as low-income and undernourished or high-income and only concerned with people overweight or obese. This will allow to underscore the multi-sectorial aspects of the right to food, including the environmental foodprint. It, on the other hand, explains the function of the judiciary, which will lead to the broader notion of both the adequate food and the food system while sharpening their sustainability. For these same reasons, today's food system may offer a valuable space for learning to eliminate, or at least reduce, the unreasonable discriminations and unsustainable social injustice.


2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 492-506
Author(s):  
Margret Carstens

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), after 28 years of conflict with the Argentine state, finally ruled in favor of the rights of the indigenous communities of Salta, Argentina. The Court condemned Argentina for violating the right of these indigenous communities to their cultural identity, a healthy environment, and adequate food and water. The Court ordered specific action in Argentina for the restitution of those rights, including urgently needed access to food and water, reforestation and the recovery of indigenous culture. Lhaka Honhat is a landmark judgment for the IACtHR sets a precedent concerning the direct justiciability of Article 26 of the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR). This is the first ruling by this Court to independently analyze the human right to a healthy environment. “Lhaka Honhat” establishes clearer rules for State actions concerning the principle of prevention of environmental damage caused by private individuals and establishes guidelines for restitution and compensation for the violation of indigenous (collective) rights when their natural resources are affected. A more comprehensive reading of the scope of protection under Article 26 in future court cases is likely.


2010 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier De Schutter

AbstractThis article identifies the emergence of the right to land in international human rights law, and which measures of implementation are called for to ensure the full realization of this right. In certain contexts, the right to land may be seen as a self-standing right, whether it is protected as an element of the right to property, whether it is grounded on the special relationship of indigenous peoples to their lands, territories and resources, or whether it is a component of the right to food. In other cases, the right to land may be said to be instrumental to the right to food: it is protected as an indispensable means through which people can produce food, for their own consumption or as a source of income allowing them, in turn, to purchase food. In making the case for the explicit recognition of the right to land in international human rights law, this article recalls the current pressures on land; it examines the protection of landusers in their existing access to natural resources; and it discusses whether agrarian reform may be seen as a component of the progressive realization of the emerging human right to land.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 319
Author(s):  
Claudio Schuftan

This review introduces the tenth anniversary issue of the Right to Food and Nutrition Watch, titled “The World Food Crisis: The Way Out” (which can be downloaded here in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese) It presents an alternative civil society perspective on the development of better food policy and better governance at local, national, regional and global levels. This year’s peer-reviewed Watch takes stock of the decade since the 2007/2008 major world food crisis and examines challenges and opportunities that can be anticipated in the near future. It features ten thematic essays on pivotal issues and developments around the human right to adequate food and nutrition such as trade rules, climate change and emergencies, complemented by supportive national and regional reports from all regions of the world --from Haiti to Somaliland, Yemen and France to Nepal. Authors and contributors include academics, public interest civil society, peasant organizations and indigenous peoples’ leaders.


1970 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-47
Author(s):  
Sai Teja Vangala ◽  
Anshuman Singh

Right to food is a basic human right. In India, with increase in population the demand for food is on the rise. Providing adequate food to the teeming millions has been a challenge for the government. This paper explores the origin of right to food while placing the emphasis on the realisation of the right in its true sense. It argues that the state has failed to secure adequate food to its citizenry because of its misplaced priorities and lack of political will. It calls for strengthening of public distribution system and buffer stock to guarantee adequate food security to people.


2007 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 566-573 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Rideout ◽  
Graham Riches ◽  
Aleck Ostry ◽  
Don Buckingham ◽  
Rod MacRae

AbstractWe offer a critique of Canada's approach to domestic food security with respect to international agreements, justiciability and case law, the breakdown of the public safety net, the institutionalisation of charitable approaches to food insecurity, and the need for ‘joined-up’ food and nutrition policies. We examined Canada's commitments to the right to food, as well as Canadian policies, case law and social trends, in order to assess Canada's performance with respect to the human right to food. We found that while Canada has been a leader in signing international human rights agreements, including those relating to the right to food, domestic action has lagged and food insecurity increased. We provide recommendations for policy changes that could deal with complex issues of state accountability, social safety nets and vulnerable populations, and joined-up policy frameworks that could help realise the right to adequate food in Canada and other developed nations.


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