From:  Vivien Runnels

• SDOH list readers might be interested in acting around the Ontario and
other governments' approaches to food issues in a legal fashion.  Are there
any lawyers out there interested in pursuing this? Some assistance might
even be acquired from Agriculture and AgriFood Canada.

•  http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsummit/english/newsroom/focus/focus6.htm

• Selected text from this site is attached below.and there are other links
at this site.

•  • What –- if anything -- does the right to food oblige states to do for
their people? To what extent can it ever be realized? Is it enforceable in
law?


The road from Magna Carta

In human rights theory, there are two types of human rights -- those
respected simply through non-intervention, such as the right to worship,
and those that require resources in order to be realized. Some question
whether the latter are rights at all. So there is a sharp distinction
between a narrow interpretation -- the right to obtain food unhindered
through one’s own efforts -- and a broad interpretation -- the right to be
supplied with food when one cannot obtain it.

The narrow interpretation is not new. England’s Magna Carta of 1215 states
that no one shall be ‘amerced’ (fined) to the extent that they are deprived
of their means of living.

The broad interpretation guarantees adequate nutrition when work or land
are not available and therefore implies the use of resources to feed
people. A number of governments do not accept this interpretation. Indeed,
some have argued that spending time and money to promote the right to food
wastes resources better spent on the poor.

But regarding food security as a right helps focus on the crucial issues of
accountability and nondiscrimination, which also have their foundations in
human rights law. In sum, the right to food is all about good governance
and attention to the poorest and the most marginalized.

Jean Ziegler, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food,
questions the whole distinction between abstract freedoms and those that
require resources. "Even implementing civil and political rights does in
fact imply resources," he has written. "The cost of setting up and training
the police force, military and judiciary to implement international human
rights law is not insignificant."

Even under a narrow interpretation of the right to food, governments must
maintain an environment in which people can feed themselves. "People have a
responsibility to obtain their food, so you can’t automatically blame the
state for malnutrition," says FAO legal officer Margret Vidar. "But the
state can be responsible for a circumstance that causes it." For example,
people must have adequate wages or access to land to buy or grow food, she
points out. Unfair monopolies must not distort food markets or seed supply.
"The state must ensure fair play, or it could be violating the right to
food," she adds.

See you in court…

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights goes
further, saying that states must do everything possible to ensure adequate
nutrition -- and legislate to that effect. But hungry citizens can’t
prosecute their government under the Covenant, only under their country’s
own laws. If a country never passed any such laws, it has violated the
Covenant, but the citizen has no redress.

The United Nations monitors implementation of the Covenant through its
Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which is serviced by the
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. In 1999, the Committee
insisted that countries should pass laws protecting the right to food.

Would this work? Jean Ziegler has quoted examples where it has. For
example:

• Economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to food, are
constitutionally guaranteed in South Africa. In a landmark legal case,
Government of the Republic of South Africa v. Irene Grootboom and others,
the court ruled that the Government had violated the Constitution by not
making ‘reasonable’ provision for persons in desperate need. (That case
concerned housing, but the right to food enjoys a similar constitutional
protection -- so the finding is considered relevant).

• In 2001 in the Supreme Court of India, NGOs successfully forced public
corporations and state governments to accept responsibility for
malnutrition.


"It’s hard for the starving to sue," says Ms Vidar. "But NGOs and other
bodies can use the law in order to protect the poor. So let the Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, or its equivalent, be written into
national law, whether we adopt the Code of Conduct or not. The law can be
the bridge between the hungry and the food they need."


Rome Declaration on World
Food Security, 1996
“We, the Heads of State and Government ... reaffirm the right of everyone
to have access to safe and nutritious food, consistent with the right to
adequate food and the fundamental right of everyone to be free from
hunger.”






International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966
“The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone
to an adequate standard of living ... including adequate food ...” and
agree to take appropriate steps to realize this right.
Article 11(1)

Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, 1948
“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and
well-being of himself and of his family,
including food ...”
Article 25 (1)



Best wishes

Vivien Runnels (Ottawa)