ABSTRACT

Human rights have received increased recognition and attention in recent years. This chapter focuses on the right to food as one of the internationally adopted human rights. It highlights the development of a human rights perspective on issues related to the alleviation of hunger and the promotion of access to adequate food and good nutrition over the last two decades - in academic debate and among human rights and development agencies and activists. It considers some of the factors that triggered the right to food among a group of food and nutrition policy analysts in the early 1980s, how the issue came to be put on the human rights agenda in the latter part of that decade, how it found its way on to the political development agenda only well into the 1990s - and, not least, how the concept matured in an interactive process. The discussion is limited to the development of a rights perspective on food and nutrition as derived from the normative framework under international human rights law, and does not enter into issues of humanitarian law. 1 Special emphasis is laid on relevant processes within the UN system in view of its role in standard-setting and in giving direction to, as well as monitoring, innovations and performance by states that are parties to binding conventions relevant to the right to food.