Have you ever heard the expression: “Qui dort dîne”? This French phrase literally translates to “who sleeps eats,” suggesting that in the absence of food, sleep can make you forget the feeling of hunger. It also captures the international community’s current dormant approach to addressing hunger, malnutrition, food related inequalities, and unsustainable agricultural practices. Currently, there are 820 million people suffering from food insecurity, signaling the dire need to mitigate this global issue.

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted in 1948, asserts an unequivocal right to food in international law, stating “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food.” However, realizing this fundamental human right necessitates sufficient food availability, equitable access, and meeting individual dietary needs. Although global hunger has been on a steady decline, there are no international enforcement mechanisms to safeguard the human right to food. This is surprising given how crucial the right to food is in maintaining the right to health and achieving basic social and economic outcomes.

The right to food is a legal obligation for states and is linked to international trade – The right to food is inextricably tied to international trade, a connection that has historically taken precedence over health or environmental concerns. The only binding legal instrument concerning food safety and security was produced during the final round of negotiations of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), known as the Uruguay Round. This Round took place between 1986 and 1994 and involved 123 countries. Following from the same Uruguay Round, the Marrakesh Agreement also established the World Trade Organization (WTO) in January 1995. Simultaneously, states decided to enforce standards that mandate a minimum quality of food that could be traded internationally by establishing the Codex Alimentarius, which sets international food standards, codes of practice, and maximum residue limits of pesticides and veterinary drugs in food. The aim of the Codex Alimentarius is to establish harmonized standards at the international level that would protect consumer health and above all, foster international trade.

This approach will soon cause more harm than good – More recently, the Sustainable Development Goals were launched in 2015 as a piece of ‘soft’ law that aims to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.” More than 20 per cent of children under five are stunted, while around seven per cent suffer from wasting, and six per cent are overweight. Likewise, approximately one in eight adults are obese, and one third of women of reproductive age are anemic. These indicators belie the steady decline in global food insecurity.

Health issues are very complex and require a number of resources in order to achieve beneficial outcomes. Although enough socio-economic progress has been made in order to lift millions out of poverty, the continued prevalence of malnutrition and inequalities within many countries is alarming.  Perhaps our collective failure to uphold the right to safe, sufficient, and appropriate food is due to the original assumption that the solution will come from trade and economic growth.

Why linking the right to health to economic performance is problematic – Linking the right to food to economic growth and trade performance has had some success in the past. However, it has shifted control over food systems from the hands of small farmers to the domain of large corporations. In doing so, societies have progressively alienated themselves from both traditional agricultural knowledge and from nature itself. In our crusade against hunger, we have authorized the creation of food systems that deepen socioeconomic inequalities, destroy entire ecosystems, and encourage the mass-production of cheap low-quality food that is detrimental to people’s health when consistently consumed over time. This reliance on cheap, heavily processed food has brought about a range of negative health outcomes and has lined the pockets of exploitative corporations. Unfortunately, there are countless others who are even worse off, as they are totally deprived of consistent access to any food whatsoever.

Framing the right to food as a social, health, and environmental challenge instead of a social, health, and economic one – A country’s particular food system has a tremendous effect on both the health of its communities and that of their environment. At the local scale, inadequate policies foster inequalities in access to food, expose populations and ecosystems to pollution, and hinder environmental sustainability. Ignoring traditional knowledge of Indigenous peoples also has a detrimental effect on sustainability, and the social fabric. This is because food is increasingly being recognized as the common denominator of many important health, environmental, and social issues. International organizations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization, and certain NGOs are trying to foster alternative means of production, such as agroecology, as they are recognizing that the nature of food production greatly impacts our ability to ensure the right to food.

The next World Health Assembly will take place in May, but discussions concerning the right to food do not occupy much of the agenda. If governments are serious about eliminating hunger and malnutrition, they must update their understanding and enforcement of the right to food under international law.