Accounting for Hunger. The Right to Food in the Era of Globalisation

287 Pages·2011·1.712 MB·English

by  Olivier De Schutter,Kaitlin Y. Cordes

ACCOUNTING FOR HUNGER
The challenge of global hunger is now high on the agenda of
governments and international policy-makers. This new work contributes
to addressing that challenge, by looking at the obstacles which stand in
the way of implementing a right to food in the era of globalisation.
The book has several functions: to describe the current situation of
global hunger, to consider how it relates both to the development of
food systems and to the merger of the food and energy markets, and
to explain how the right to food contributes to identifying solutions
at the domestic and international levels. The right to food, it argues,
can only be realised if governance improves at the domestic level,
and if the international environment enables governments to adopt
appropriate policies, for which they require a certain policy space. The
essays in this book demonstrate how improved accountability at the
national level and reform of the international economic environment
in the areas of trade, food aid and investment go hand in hand in
the move towards full realisation of the right to food, while reforms
at the domestic level are key to effectively tackling hunger (including
reforms that improve accountability of government offi cials). The current
regimes of trade, investment and food aid, as well as the development of
biofuels production—all of which contribute to defi ne the international
context in which states implement such reforms—should be reshaped
if these national efforts are to be successful. The title—Accounting for
Hunger—emphasises the point that accountability at both the domestic
and international levels must be improved if sustainable progress is to
be achieved in combating global hunger. The implication is that the
extraterritorial human rights obligations of states (their obligations to
respect the right to food beyond their national territories, for instance
in their food aid, investment or trade policies) and the strengthening of
global governance of food security (as is currently being attempted with
the reform of the Committee on World Food Security in Rome) have a
key role to fulfi l: domestic reforms will not achieve sustainable results
unless the international environment is more enabling of the efforts of
governments acting individually.
Volume 36 in the series Studies in International Law
Studies in International Law
Recent titles in this series
The International Court of Justice and Self-Defence in International
Law
James A Green
State Liability in Investment Treaty Arbitration: Global Constitutional
and Administrative Law in the BIT Generation
Santiago Montt
Reappraising the Resort to Force: International Law, Jus ad Bellum
and the War on Terror
Lindsay Moir
International Law and Dispute Settlement: New Problems and
Techniques
Edited by Duncan French, Matthew Saul and Nigel White
The Democratic Legitimacy of International Law
Steven Wheatley
Refl ections on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples
Edited by Stephen Allen and Alexandra Xanthaki
Contracting with Sovereignty: State Contracts and International
Arbitration
Ivar Alvik
Multi-Sourced Equivalent Norms in International Law
Edited by Yuval Shany and Tomer Broude
The Distinction and Relationship between Jus ad Bellum and Jus in
Bello
Keiichiro Okimoto
International Humanitarian Law and Terrorism
Andrea Bianchi and Yasmin Naqvi
Promises of States under International Law
Christian Eckart
The Militarisation of Peacekeeping in the Twenty-First Century
James Sloan
Accounting for Hunger: The Right to Food in the Era of Globalisation
Edited by Olivier De Schutter and Kaitlin Y Cordes
For the complete list of titles in this series, see the
‘Studies in International Law’ link at
www.hartpub.co.uk/books/series.asp
Accounting for Hunger
The Right to Food in the Era of
Globalisation
Edited by
Olivier De Schutter
and
Kaitlin Y Cordes
OXFORD AND PORTLAND, OREGON
2011
Published in the United Kingdom by Hart Publishing Ltd
16C Worcester Place, Oxford, OX1 2JW
Telephone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: http://www.hartpub.co.uk
Published in North America (US and Canada) by
Hart Publishing
c/o International Specialized Book Services
920 NE 58th Avenue, Suite 300
Portland, OR 97213-3786
USA
Tel: [phone] or toll-free: (1) 800 944 6190
Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: http://www.isbs.com
© The editors and contributors severally, 2011
The editors and contributors have asserted their right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988, to be identifi ed as the authors of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means, without the prior permission of Hart Publishing, or as expressly
permitted by law or under the terms agreed with the appropriate
reprographic rights organisation. Enquiries concerning reproduction
which may not be covered by the above should be addressed to Hart
Publishing Ltd at the address above.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data Available
ISBN: 978-1-84946-226-6
Typeset by Forewords Ltd, Oxford
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall
Acknowledgements
The editors would like to thank Okeoma Moronu and Julia Szybala for
their assistance in editing footnotes.
Kaitlin Cordes would like to thank Andrew Idrizovic for his constant
help and support.
v
Contents
Acknowledgements v
Author Biographies ix
1. Accounting for Hunger: An Introduction to the Issues 1
Olivier De Schutter and Kaitlin Cordes
Part I: Addressing Power Imbalances in the Food Systems
2. The Impact of Agribusiness Transnational Corporations on the
Right to Food 27
Kaitlin Y Cordes
3. The Transformation of Food Retail and Marginalisation of
Smallholder Farmers 65
Margaret Cowan Schmidt
4. Biofuels and the Right to Food: An uneasy partnership 95
Ann Sofi e Cloots
Part II: Trade and Aid: An Enabling International Environment 135
5. International Trade in Agriculture and the Right to Food 137
Olivier De Schutter
6. How to Phase Out Rich Country Agricultural Subsidies Without
Increasing Hunger in the Developing World 193
Jennifer Mersing
7. Invoking the Right to Food in the WTO Dispute Settlement
Process: The Relevance of the Right to Food to the Law of the
WTO 211
Boyan Konstantinov
8. Food Aid: How It Should Be Done 239
Loreto Ferrer Moreu
Index 265
vii
Author Biographies
Olivier DE SCHUTTER is the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to
food since 2008. A professor at the Catholic University of Louvain and
at the College of Europe, he is a regular Visiting Professor at Columbia
University. In 2004–8, he was General Secretary of the International
Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). His publications are in the areas
of economic and social rights, economic globalisation, and fundamental
rights in the EU.
Kaitlin Y CORDES holds a juris doctor from Columbia University
School of Law, where she was a James Kent Scholar, a Harlan Fiske
Stone Scholar, and a Managing Editor of A Jailhouse Lawyer’s Manual.
She earned a bachelors of art in political science and international
studies from Northwestern University. A human rights advocate, she has
worked with a number of social justice and human rights organisations,
most recently with Human Rights Watch. In 2009–2010, she served as
an adviser to the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier
De Schutter. After law school, she clerked for Justice Virginia A. Long
of the Supreme Court of New Jersey.
Ann Sofi e CLOOTS has a Candidate in Law and a Master in Law from
Katholieke University Leuven (KUL), as well as an LLM from Columbia
University School of Law, where she was a Harlan Fisk Stone Scholar,
an honorary Fulbright fellow, and a BAEF fellow. She has interned at
the Permanent Representation of Belgium with the United Nations in
Geneva (Human Rights Council). Since January 2009, she has worked
as an associate at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, Brussels in its
corporate and competition practice. She is a member of the Brussels Bar.
Margaret COWAN SCHMIDT earned a bachelor’s degree from the
University of Michigan and a juris doctor from Columbia University
School of Law. While in law school, Ms Cowan Schmidt studied at the
European University Institute in Florence and was a case law editor for
the Columbia Journal of European Law. Ms Cowan Schmidt is currently
an associate in the Washington, D.C. offi ce of an international law fi rm,
where her practice ranges from regulatory matters to litigation. Ms
Cowan Schmidt has also been an active participant in her fi rm’s pro bono
practice, where she has represented asylum applicants, worked on an
amicus brief to be submitted to an international human rights tribunal,
ix
x Author Biographies
and provided legal research and analysis to several other human rights
and development organisations.
Boyan KONSTANTINOV graduated from Sofi a University in Bulgaria
(LL.B. 2001) and Columbia University School of Law (LL.M. 2008), where
he was a Fulbright Scholar and Columbia Human Rights Fellow. He
has several years of experience in the NGO sector, working in capacity
development in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Boyan is currently consulting for UNDP’s Bureau for Development
Policy, working on international trade, intellectual property rights, and
access to essential medicines.
Jennifer L MERSING graduated from the College of William & Mary
with a B.A. in International Relations and from Columbia University
School of Law with a J.D. She is currently an associate in the Energy,
Infrastructure, and Project Finance Practice Area at a large law fi rm.
Prior to law school, she worked as a Junior Research Fellow in the
Trade, Equity and Development Project at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace.
Loreto Ferrer MOREU earned a degree in law and a degree in economics
from Carlos III University (Madrid), a Master in Development and
International Aid from Universidad Complutense (Madrid), and a Master
of Arts in Human Rights from Columbia University (New York). She has
served as a technical advisor to the Spanish Agency for International
Development Cooperation (AECID), and worked as a Political Affairs
Offi cer with the United Nations Department of Political Affairs, Americas
Division. She currently works as a project manager at ALMACIGA, an
NGO based in Madrid, working on issues related to the human rights
of indigenous peoples in Latin America. Since 2006, she has also worked
as an independent consultant on issues related to the human rights of
indigenous peoples.
1
Accounting for Hunger: An
Introduction to the Issues
OLIVIER DE SCHUTTER AND KAITLIN Y CORDES
APPROXIMATELY ONE BILLION people will be hungry in
2011, up from 923 million at the beginning of 2008, 854 million
in 2005 and 820 million in 1996.1 Almost all of these people
whose calorie intake is too low to meet their basic physiological needs
are located in developing countries—about 98%, according to the UN
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). In these countries, at least
2.5 billion individuals today lack the essential micronutrients that are
needed to lead a healthy and active life.2 Defi ciencies of vitamin A and
zinc still rank among the leading causes of death through disease in
developing countries, where, together, these defi ciencies in newborn
children and infants account for 9% of under-fi ve deaths.3 Between
one-fi fth and one-quarter of child deaths can be attributed to low birth-
weight and childhood underweight.4
1 See Food & Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), ‘The State of Food Insecurity in
the World: Economic Crises—Impacts and Lessons Learned’ (2009) 11 (estimating number
of hungry people at 1.02 billion). In 2010, the fi gure was considered to be slightly lower,
thanks to the recovery of the global economy after the fi nancial and economic crisis of
2008 and 2009 (see (FAO), ‘The State of Food Insecurity in the World: Economic Crises—
Addressing Food Insecurity in Protracted Crises’ (2010) 9). However, at the end of 2010,
the fi gure is probably above the mark of one billion because of the impacts of the food
price spikes of all staple foods except rice.
2 One-third of the 8.8 million child deaths worldwide is attributable to malnutrition. RE
Black, LH Allen, ZA Bhutta, LE Caulfi eld, M de Onis, M Ezzati, C Mathers and J Rivera,
‘Maternal and Child Undernutrition: Global and Regional Exposures and Health Conse-
quences’ (2008) 371 Lancet 243.
3 Ibid, 253.
4 It was estimated in 2004 that 35% of child deaths could be attributed to childhood
underweight and maternal low body-mass index leading to intrauterine growth restriction
and low birthweight. See SM Fishman, LE Caulfi eld, M de Onis, et al, ‘Childhood and
Maternal Underweight’ in M Ezzati et al (eds), Comparative Quantifi cation of Health Risks:
Global and Regional Burden of Disease Attributable to Selected Major Risk Factors (Geneva,
World Health Organization, 2004) 39–161. The fi gure would now be around 22%, as the
prevalence of stunting has declined in most regions. See Black, above n 2, 254.
1