Right to Food an Instance to Human Rights
DEPARTMENT OF LAW, UNIVERSITY OF KERALA
UGC SPONSORED
NATIONAL INTERDISCIPLINARY SEMINAR ON
REALISATION OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC RIGHTS
PAPER ON TOPIC
RIGHT TO FOOD: AN INSTANCE OF
HUMAN RITHS
Submitted by
Sajisivan.s
3rd Semester LLm
Department of Law
Kariyavattom campus
RIGHT TO FOOD: AN INSTANCE OF HUMAN RITHS
The human right to food has its contemporary origin within the U.N. Universal Human Rights framework. Ensuring the right to adequate food and consequently the right to be free form hunger is specifically enshrined in a number of Human Rights instruments. It is obvious that without adequate food people cannot lead a health, active lives. They are not employable. They cannot take care of their children and thus children become unhealthy and illiterate.
Since its inception, the United Nations had identified access to adequate food as both an individual right and a collective responsibility. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed that “every one has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of himself and his family, including food[1]. Two decades later the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966 developed these concepts more fully, stressing ‘the right to every one to adequate food’ and specifying “the fundamental right of every one to be free from hunger”[2]
Right to food means?
The essential question that arises here, what is the distinction between the right to be free form hunger and right to adequate food? As can be seen there is inherent inconsistency within these definitions. On the one hand they talk about the right to food as “a right to be free form hunger and on the other hand they express the right to food as a right to adequate food for health and well being”[3]
While the right to free form hunger means that the State has an obligation to ensure, at the very least, that the people do not starve, the right to adequate
UGC SPONSORED
NATIONAL INTERDISCIPLINARY SEMINAR ON
REALISATION OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC RIGHTS
PAPER ON TOPIC
RIGHT TO FOOD: AN INSTANCE OF
HUMAN RITHS
Submitted by
Sajisivan.s
3rd Semester LLm
Department of Law
Kariyavattom campus
RIGHT TO FOOD: AN INSTANCE OF HUMAN RITHS
The human right to food has its contemporary origin within the U.N. Universal Human Rights framework. Ensuring the right to adequate food and consequently the right to be free form hunger is specifically enshrined in a number of Human Rights instruments. It is obvious that without adequate food people cannot lead a health, active lives. They are not employable. They cannot take care of their children and thus children become unhealthy and illiterate.
Since its inception, the United Nations had identified access to adequate food as both an individual right and a collective responsibility. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed that “every one has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of himself and his family, including food[1]. Two decades later the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966 developed these concepts more fully, stressing ‘the right to every one to adequate food’ and specifying “the fundamental right of every one to be free from hunger”[2]
Right to food means?
The essential question that arises here, what is the distinction between the right to be free form hunger and right to adequate food? As can be seen there is inherent inconsistency within these definitions. On the one hand they talk about the right to food as “a right to be free form hunger and on the other hand they express the right to food as a right to adequate food for health and well being”[3]
While the right to free form hunger means that the State has an obligation to ensure, at the very least, that the people do not starve, the right to adequate