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The International Food Security Treaty (IFST) is a proposed covenant between nations aiming to place the human right of freedom from hunger under the protection of enforceable national and international laws. [1]
The concept of freedom from hunger, also known as the right to food, was indirectly referenced in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union speech as one of the four fundamental freedoms inherent to all people worldwide, known as Freedom From Want. [2]
The right to food was further addressed by the United Nations, as stated by United States Congressman Tony P. Hall, who highlighted that it was recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a proclamation by the UN in 1948, and reinforced by the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. [3]
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted without a dissenting vote, explicitly stated in Article 25 that "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food..." [4]
The right to freedom from hunger was the sole human right described as "fundamental" in the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, which more than 170 nations have signed as of early 2023. Article 11 of the covenant establishes states' legal responsibility to recognize the right "of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food...and to recognize the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger." [5]
However, neither the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights nor the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides guidance on how the right to freedom from hunger can be protected by enforceable law. In response to this gap, the International Food Security Treaty (IFST) Campaign was initiated in 1993, proposing four principles to be incorporated into enforceable national and international laws. [6]
In 1996, the North American Right to Food Working Group, consisting of international lawyers and various non-governmental organizations in the US and Canada including the IFST Campaign, was formed to draft the IFST Principles into treaty form. The IFST Campaign participated in the Non-Governmental Organization Forum at the World Food Summit in Rome in November of that year.
In 2002, the International Food Security Treaty Association was established as a sister organization to the International Food Security Treaty Campaign, and in 2010, both organizations received non-profit status designations from the United States Internal Revenue Service as 501c(3) and 501c(4) respectively. [7] [8]
Starting in 2000, the International Food Security Treaty (IFST) Campaign, led by its founding director John Teton, began a series of presentations to raise awareness about the IFST. One of the notable appearances was sponsored by Harvard Law School's Human Rights Program, where Dr. Marc Cohen, a recognized expert on world hunger, also joined the presentation. [9]
Since then, the IFST has been presented at various prestigious venues, including law schools such as Yale, the University of California campuses at Los Angeles and Berkeley, and the University of Washington. It has also been presented at the public health programs at Johns Hopkins University and New York University, as well as at five briefings on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. The IFST was featured as an official side-event to the 2015 United Nations' Committee on World Food Security annual plenary session, sponsored by the Right to Food Team at the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization. [10]
The International Food Security Treaty (IFST) is a proposed international commitment to fulfill the human right to freedom from hunger and protect it through enforceable law. The draft Treaty, which is approximately 700 words in length, can be reviewed on the IFST website[i].In keeping with obligations inherent in the International Bill of Rights, each signatory nation commits itself to:
1) provide access to a minimum standard of nutrition recognized by the United Nations to all people within its borders unable to gain such access on their own; 2) contribute to a World Food Reserve and Resource Center as it is able, to assist any nation needing emergency help to provide such access; 3) establish and enforce a law prohibiting activities denying or intending to deny the minimum standard of nutrition to any person within its borders; and 4) support United Nations food security enforcement actions in nations whose governments are unable to enforce such law on their own, or who are found unwilling to do so through formal United Nations investigations.
In addition, the IFST adopts the reporting and optional protocol process for implementing and enforcing the right to food, which is currently used under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
[iv] and its Optional Protocol. [11]
The International Food Security Treaty (IFST) has received endorsements and support from various prominent figures in the fields of international law, human rights, hunger expertise, politics, and religion, including:
Maurice Strong, former UN Under-Secretary General, who referred to the IFST as "the centerpiece of a whole system by which the capacity of the earth to feed its people is translated into a real commitment to do something...Initiatives like this—you could equate it to abolishing slavery...need to be championed by small groups of people who have strong (convictions) and are prepared to prevail against a general mood of apathy." [i][ii].
Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate Economist.
Dianne Feinstein, United States Senator, who has written, "(The IFST) could become a major element in stimulating global action to eradicate starvation and in strengthening the international justice system."
Barbara Lee, US Congresswoman, who has stated "The [IFSTC] is on the vanguard of the effort to end world hunger through rule of law."
John Shattuck, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.
Jeff Merkley, Member of the United States Senate.
Richard J. Deckelbaum, MD, Professor of Nutrition and Director of the Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia University Medical Center.
Robert S. Lawrence, MD, Professor Emeritus at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Founding board member and Past President of Physicians for Human Rights.
The Very Rev. William Lupfer, former Dean of Trinity Episcopal Church in Portland, Oregon, USA.
Frances Moore Lappé, co-founder of the Small Planet Institute and Food First, and winner of the 1987 Right Livelihood Award.
Juan Somavia, former Ambassador from Chile to the UN and Coordinator of the 1995 United Nations World Summit on Social Development.
Hon. David MacDonald, former Canadian Secretary of State and Emergency Coordinator for the African Famine.
Peter Kostmayer, former President of Population Connection.
Dr. Robert Muller, former Chancellor of the United Nations University for Peace and United Nations Assistant Secretary-General.
A letter signed by numerous organizations devoted to eliminating hunger expressing support for the International Food Security Treaty may be found online.[i] . [12]
The Rome Declaration from the 1996 United Nations World Food Summit emphasized that "food should not be used as an instrument for political and economic pressure," but failed to address the need for legal enforcement of the human right of freedom from hunger. [i].
Similarly, the United Nations' Right to Food Team's 2004 publication "Voluntary Guidelines to support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Food in the context of national food security" does not mention enforcement[ii].
Despite these United Nations declarations, recent statistics from the World Health Organization in 2022 estimated that as many as 828 million people in the world are hungry[iii], which is roughly equivalent to the number estimated more than a quarter-century earlier at the time of the World Food Summit.
IFST proponents argue that while the percentage of the global population considered hungry has decreased, there's little cause to cheer progress in hunger reduction when the raw numbers of seriously hungry people remains roughly unchanged from what it was more than a quarter-century ago. The lack of progress in substantially reducing the raw number of hungry people over the past quarter-century indicates a failure to enforce UN declarations and international laws related to hunger reduction. They view the non-enforceable declarations as initial steps toward much stronger legislation, much as US President Abraham Lincoln described the statement that "all men are created equal" in the American Declaration of Independence:
They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet, that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit...The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration, not for that, but for future use.[i]
As a result, the IFST has been designed to complement existing anti-hunger declarations and the Voluntary Guidelines by focusing on a narrower but highly ambitious objective of eliminating malnutrition and starvation through enforceable national and international laws. Proponents of the IFST also see it as a significant contributor to future regional, national, and international stability, aligning with the view expressed by US President Dwight Eisenhower that it is "madness to suppose that there could be an island of tranquility and prosperity in a sea of wretchedness and frustration."[i] [13]
While criticism of the IFST may arise as it progresses, its advocates know that the Treaty, like any proposal for significant changes in law, will encounter questions and criticisms along the way. Several of these have been anticipated and are addressed in an article on the IFST in the Yale Journal of International Affairs[i].
One potential criticism is that the IFST would be too expensive. However, proponents argue that any assessment of the Treaty must consider the economic benefits to the global economy from preventing the long-term impacts of malnutrition on millions of children, including the costs of caring for them and the lost productivity they may experience. Additionally, commitments to the Treaty would ensure that financing its expenses would be shared broadly among many signatories, rather than falling disproportionately on a few countries.
Furthermore, the IFST could spare countries the costs of military interventions that may become necessary due to the use of famine as a weapon. For example, in the 1990s, forces from many countries had to intervene to halt the weaponization of hunger during the Somali Civil War.
Human rights are moral principles, or norms, for certain standards of human behaviour and are regularly protected as substantive rights in substantive law, municipal and international law. They are commonly understood as inalienable, fundamental rights "to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being" and which are "inherent in all human beings", regardless of their age, ethnic origin, location, language, religion, ethnicity, or any other status. They are applicable everywhere and at every time in the sense of being universal, and they are egalitarian in the sense of being the same for everyone. They are regarded as requiring empathy and the rule of law, and imposing an obligation on persons to respect the human rights of others; it is generally considered that they should not be taken away except as a result of due process based on specific circumstances.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, it was accepted by the General Assembly as Resolution 217 during its third session on 10 December 1948 at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, France. Of the 58 members of the United Nations at the time, 48 voted in favour, none against, eight abstained, and two did not vote.
The Charter of the United Nations (UN) is the foundational treaty of the United Nations. It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the UN system, including its six principal organs: the Secretariat, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Trusteeship Council.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a multilateral treaty that commits nations to respect the civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, electoral rights and rights to due process and a fair trial. It was adopted by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2200A (XXI) on 16 December 1966 and entered into force on 23 March 1976 after its thirty-fifth ratification or accession. As of June 2022, the Covenant has 173 parties and six more signatories without ratification, most notably the People's Republic of China and Cuba; North Korea is the only state that has tried to withdraw.
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The right to work is the concept that people have a human right to work, or to engage in productive employment, and should not be prevented from doing so. The right to work, enshrined in the United Nations 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is recognized in international human-rights law through its inclusion in the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, where the right to work emphasizes economic, social and cultural development.
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) is a multilateral treaty adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (GA) on 16 December 1966 through GA. Resolution 2200A (XXI), and came into force on 3 January 1976. It commits its parties to work toward the granting of economic, social, and cultural rights (ESCR) to all individuals including those living in Non-Self-Governing and Trust Territories. The rights include labour rights, the right to health, the right to education, and the right to an adequate standard of living. As of February 2024, the Covenant has 172 parties. A further four countries, including the United States, have signed but not ratified the Covenant.
Economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) are socio-economic human rights, such as the right to education, right to housing, right to an adequate standard of living, right to health, victims' rights and the right to science and culture. Economic, social and cultural rights are recognised and protected in international and regional human rights instruments. Member states have a legal obligation to respect, protect and fulfil economic, social and cultural rights and are expected to take "progressive action" towards their fulfilment.
The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (VDPA) is a human rights declaration adopted by consensus at the World Conference on Human Rights on 25 June 1993 in Vienna, Austria. The position of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights was recommended by this Declaration and subsequently created by General Assembly Resolution 48/141.
The U.S. Department of State's Country Report on Human Rights Practices for São Tomé and Príncipe states that the government generally respects the human rights of its citizens, despite problems in a few areas.
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Human rights and climate change is a conceptual and legal framework under which international human rights and their relationship to global warming are studied, analyzed, and addressed. The framework has been employed by governments, United Nations organizations, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, human rights and environmental advocates, and academics to guide national and international policy on climate change under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the core international human rights instruments. In 2022 Working Group II of the IPCC suggested that "climate justice comprises justice that links development and human rights to achieve a rights-based approach to addressing climate change".
The Voluntary Guidelines to support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security, also known as the Right to Food Guidelines, is a document adopted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 2004, with the aim of guiding states to implement the right to food. It is not legally binding, but directed to states' obligations to the right to food under international law. In specific, it is directed towards States Parties to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and to States that still have to ratify it.
The Universal Declaration on the Eradication of Hunger and Malnutrition was adopted on 16 November 1974, by governments who attended the 1974 World Food Conference that was convened under General Assembly resolution 3180 (XXVIII) of 17 December 1973. It was later endorsed by General Assembly resolution 3348 (XXIX), of 17 December 1974. This Declaration combined discussions of the international human right to adequate food and nutrition with an acknowledgement of the various economic and political issues that can affect the production and distribution of food related products. Within this Declaration, it is recognised that it is the common purpose of all nations to work together towards eliminating hunger and malnutrition. Further, the Declaration explains how the welfare of much of the world's population depends on their ability to adequately produce and distribute food. In doing so, it emphasises the need for the international community to develop a more adequate system to ensure that the right to food for all persons is recognised. The opening paragraph of the Declaration, which remains to be the most recited paragraph of the Declaration today, reads:
Every man, woman and child has the inalienable right to be free from hunger and malnutrition in order to develop fully and maintain their physical and mental faculties.
This section provides an overview of the status of the right to food at a national level.
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