The Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food is a Special Rapporteur appointed by the United Nations, who reports on the right to food. The mandate was established in 2000 by the former Commission on Human Rights [1] which appointed the first Rapporteur, Jean Ziegler. [2] In 2008 the second Rapporteur, Olivier De Schutter, was appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council, the successor to the Commission. [3] In 2014 the third Rapporteur, Hilal Elver was appointed. [4] In 2020, the current Rapporteur, Michael Fakhri , was appointed. [5]
The Rapporteur is expected to report both to the Human Rights Council and to the UN General Assembly (Third Committee) on the fulfillment of the mandate. The mandate includes: and to promote the full realization of the right to food and the adoption of measures at the national, regional and international levels," "to examine ways and means of overcoming existing and emerging obstacles," continue mainstreaming and taking into account gender and age perspectives, to submit proposals to realise Millennium Development Goal No. 1 to halve by the year 2015 the proportion of people who suffer from hunger, to work in close cooperation with all States, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, and the CESCR, and participating in and contributing to relevant conferences. [6]
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The first Rapporteur engaged in 12 country missions between 2002 and 2007. [7] The second Rapporteur engaged in 10 country missions between 2010 and 2012. [8]
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, commonly known as the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) or the United Nations Human Rights Office, is a department of the Secretariat of the United Nations that works to promote and protect human rights that are guaranteed under international law and stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. The office was established by the United Nations General Assembly on 20 December 1993 in the wake of the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights.
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world. The Council has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis. The headquarters of the Council are at the United Nations Office at Geneva in Switzerland.
Jean Ziegler is a Swiss former professor of sociology at the University of Geneva and the Sorbonne, Paris, and former vice-president of the Advisory Committee to the United Nations Human Rights Council. He was previously Member of the Swiss Parliament for the Social Democrats from 1981 to 1999. He has also held several positions with the United Nations, especially as Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food from 2000 to 2008, and as a member of the Advisory Committee of the UN Human Rights Council from 2008 to 2012. Ziegler has authored numerous works, is a lecturer, and is well known for this sentence: "A child who dies from hunger is a murdered child."
Special rapporteur is the title given to independent human rights experts whose expertise is called upon by the United Nations to report or advise on human rights from a thematic or country-specific perspective.
The right to food, and its variations, is a human right protecting the right of people to feed themselves in dignity, implying that sufficient food is available, that people have the means to access it, and that it adequately meets the individual's dietary needs. The right to food protects the right of all human beings to be free from hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition. The right to food implies that governments only have an obligation to hand out enough free food to starving recipients to ensure subsistence, it does not imply a universal right to be fed. Also, if people are deprived of access to food for reasons beyond their control, for example, because they are in detention, in times of war or after natural disasters, the right requires the government to provide food directly.
Olivier De Schutter is a Belgian legal scholar specialising in economic and social rights. He served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food from 2008 to 2014. He is a Professor of international human rights law, European Union law and legal theory at the University of Louvain (UCLouvain) in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, as well as at the College of Europe and at Sciences Po in Paris. He was a regular visiting professor at Columbia University between 2008 and 2012 and has regularly contributed to the American University Washington College of Law's Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. He is the first chair of the Belgian Advisory Council on Policy Coherence for Development and he co-chairs the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food), a group of experts from various disciplines and regions who work together towards developing proposals for food systems reform. A Member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights between 2015 and 2020, he was appointed the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, and took up his functions on May 1, 2020.
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.
This section provides an overview of the status of the right to food at a national level.
The United Nations Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order is a United Nations Independent Expert appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council under its special procedures mechanism, to report on the thematic field of the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order. The mandate was established by Human Rights Council resolution 18/6, chiefly supported by developing countries.
Maina Kiai is a Kenyan lawyer and human rights activist who formerly served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association from May 1, 2011, to April 30, 2017. Since 2018, he has headed Human Rights Watch's Alliances and Partnerships program.
The United Nations special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association works independently to inform and advise the United Nations Human Rights Council. The special rapporteur examines, monitors, advises and publicly reports on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association worldwide.
Agnès Callamard is a French human rights activist who is the Secretary General of Amnesty International. She was previously the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council, and the former Director of the Columbia University Global Freedom of Expression project.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran is a United Nations Special Rapporteur whose mandate is to monitor and investigate human rights violations in Iran. The current Special Rapporteur is Javaid Rehman. He is the sixth special rapporteur to Iran, following the tenures of Andrés Aguilar (1984–1986), Reynaldo Galindo Pohl (1986–1995), Maurice Copithorne (1995–2002), Ahmed Shaheed (2011–2016), and Asma Jilani Jahangir (2016–2018).
Yanghee Lee is a South Korean developmental psychologist and professor at Sungkyunkwan University. She is most noted for her work in international human rights organisations. Lee is highly recognized nationally, regionally, and internationally for her expertise in human rights. She has published numerous articles and books on human rights and children’s rights.
Michel Forst is a French national actively involved in the defence of human rights. Former Secretary General of the French national human rights institution, he was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders from June 2014 to March 2020.
Leilani Farha is a Canadian lawyer who is the Global Director of THE SHIFT, a housing initiative. Between June 2014 and April 2020, she was the United Nations special rapporteur on adequate housing.
Hilal Elver is a member of the Academic Council of the UN Least Developed Countries (2011-2021) and was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food from June 2, 2014, until May 1, 2020. She is also a research professor at University of California, Santa Barbara and a Global Distinguished Fellow at the Resnick Food Law and Policy Center UCLA Law School.
The Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, formally the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, is a Special Rapporteur who works for the United Nations and reports on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories. The mandate was established in 1993 by the former Commission on Human Rights. Francesca Albanese was appointed in 2022 to take up the post of Special Rapporteur as the first woman ever in the role.
Michael Fakhri is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food and an associate professor of Law and the University of Oregon.
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United Nations special rapporteurs bear mandates from the United Nations Human Rights Council and may hold the titles special rapporteur, independent expert or special representative of the Secretary-General, and are also referred to simply as mandate-holders. | ||
