Introduction

As a consequence of soaring food prices and widespread protests in more than 40
countries this year, hunger has finally attracted the public attention it deserves.
Governments and Intergovernmental Organisations (IGO) have at last recognized that
we are facing a “Global Food Crisis”. The crisis has not come overnight. Already before
the drastic increase of food commodity prices, more than 850 million people had been
affected by chronic undernourishment, and about 25,000 people died from hunger every
day. The food crisis is a permanent one. According to estimates, the number of hungry
people might have increased by 100 million in the last few months as an immediate
result of increased food prices.

A range of international conferences – like the High Level Conference on World Food
Security of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the G8 Summit – make
it clear that hunger has reached the top of the international agenda. Since April 2008,
the reaction of the international community to the food crisis has been coordinated by
the High Level Task Force on the Global Food Crisis (HLTF), which was initiated by UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and which is composed of all UN organisations dealing
with food and agriculture issues, as well as the World Bank, the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). In July 2008, the HLTF released a
Comprehensive Framework of Action (CFA) which is meant to set out the joint position
of HLTF members on proposed action to overcome the food crisis.

FoodFirst Information and Action Network (FIAN), the international human rights
organisation for the right to food, has decided to publish this position paper on the CFA
for the following reasons: a) As it apparently reflects the consensus of the UN and
Bretton Woods institutions, the CFA may have a major impact on food and agriculture
policies internationally. b) Although the CFA contains various positive recommendations,
others are highly ambiguous and problematic from the perspective of the human right to
food. c) The CFA was developed and decided almost without consultation of Civil
Society Organisations (CSO). FIAN is convinced that a broad debate on the policies and
recommendations of the HLTF is necessary to ensure that these policies really serve
their declared goal.

Executive Summary

FIAN International welcomes the high priority given to resolving the food crisis. We
share the declared objective to give greater attention to agriculture in public policies and
to increase support especially to smallholder farmers. The call of the CFA on developing
countries to increase public spending in agricultural and rural development to at least 10
percent, and to increase the percentage of Overseas Development Aid (ODA) to be
invested in food and agricultural development from currently 3 percent to at least 10
within the next five years, points in the right direction. We also share the view that social
protection systems must be strengthened, particularly in times of soaring food prices.

However, FIAN has considerable doubts as to whether the analysis and the
recommended actions provided in the CFA are sufficient and adequate to address the
huge immediate problems we are facing. Lessons learned through many years of
struggle for the human right to food, have led to the conclusion that the majority of
actions suggested in the CFA will not contribute to the realisation of the human right to
food for all, required by international law. They will rather contribute to cementing
existing power structures which are the source of violations of the human right to food
worldwide. In our analysis of the CFA, we identify severe errors and shortcomings
mainly in four areas:

1. Although the CFA repeatedly mentions that adequate food is an internationally
recognized human right, it fails to draw the necessary conclusions. It lacks any
reference to legal remedies for the victims to claim the realization of this right. It
fails to recognize that not only states but also IGOs and therefore the members of
the HLTF, have obligations under the right to food. It neglects basic human rights
principles, such as accountability, non-discrimination, participation and
empowerment. And instead of recognizing demonstrations by hungry people as a
legitimate means to claim the right to food, the CFA conflates social movements
with criminal groups “ready to harness popular frustrations into a challenge
against the state and its authority”. The disregard of basic democratic principles
is underlined by the fact that the decision on the CFA has not been taken by
governments, let alone parliaments, and relevant CSOs have never been
consulted in a meaningful way. And finally, the CFA fails to apply a human rights
approach in its recommendations for the proposed fields of action, such as social
protection, the promotion of agriculture and international trade.

2. Although the CFA recommends strengthening social protection systems, the
concrete proposals have a very narrow and exclusive focus, which implies a high
risk that many of those most in need will be excluded. By recommending a
narrow targeting and regular screening “to filter out those who have graduated
beyond the eligibility threshold”, it fails to recognise that the ultimate goal of any
social protection system is to guarantee the human right to food for all. The
approach taken by the CFA sacrifices effectiveness to the altar of efficiency.
Universal programmes or basic income programmes, which would avoid such
pitfalls and still provide reasonably targeted cash transfers without selection, are
not even mentioned. By proposing food for work programmes and other
alternatives to unconditional assistance, the CFA tries to ensure that even the
poorest have to “pay” in one way or another for transfers which are a matter of
life or death.

3. Although the CFA claims to provide targeted support to smallholder farmers, it
does not recommend any convincing action to remedy existing and avoid future
discrimination of this very group which is especially vulnerable to hunger. It fails
to address gender issues as well as the question of how disempowered
segments of society gain the right to be heard in the formulation of national
policies. The CFA does not mention the ongoing worldwide process of land
grabbing and massive violent dispossession of rural communities due to heavy
investments in extractive industries, tourism, large infrastructure projects,
industrial development projects and last but not least agrofuels. The need for
comprehensive and redistributive agrarian reforms in order to fulfil the right to
food of the poor is completely ignored. Neither does the CFA address the
discrimination against smallholder farmers arising from the domination of the
whole food supply chain by a few transnational companies (TNCs) which have
considerably increased their profits during the last year, often at the expense of
their suppliers.

4. Although the CFA suggests a review of trade and taxation policies, it already
foresees the result: more liberalisation at all levels. Past experience with the
impacts of trade liberalisation on small scale farmers provides ample ground for
expecting that the proposed tariff reductions and financial support, especially for
imports, will suffocate any efforts in developing countries to revive domestic small
scale food production. The CFA condemns export restrictions as one of the main
reasons for the food crisis, without distinction or consideration of circumstances
which might justify the use of such instruments in a given country in order to
secure stable domestic food prices for the poor. The announcement of the HLTF
of a general lobbying for trade liberalisation, under the leadership of the World
Bank and the IMF, raises high concern that the CFA might even lead to further
violations of the right to food instead of avoiding them.

Based on this analysis and its experience in the struggle for the right to food, FIAN
recommends to the HLTF members:

• To enable a broad consultation process on the CFA at the international and national
level prior to its implementation, involving all sectors of the society affected by the
food crisis, and to ensure a human rights based monitoring of the implementation of
the adapted CFA.

• Not to use the CFA as a reference document for food policies prior to such broad
and truly participatory consultation process at the international level.

• To assess the impact of their current policies and activities, particularly those of the
World Bank and the IMF, on the human right to food and report on an annual basis to
the UN Human Rights Council.

• To respect the role of social movements in defending the right to food and in policy
formulation and to counter any attempts to criminalise social movements.

• To make sure that their work on social transfers is from now on based on human
rights and to stop propagating narrow selection mechanisms and conditionalities for
cash transfers.

• To promote the introduction of nation wide food indexed social cash transfers and
pilot projects on universal social cash transfers in all countries affected by the food
crisis.

• To identify, in consultation with the affected groups, immediate measures to protect
rural communities’ access to land and natural resources and to assist governments
in implementing these measures.

• Not to support any production of agrofuels on large plantations. A moratorium on
agrofuels production should be considered to allow time for regulatory structures to
be put in place to safeguard economic, social and environmental rights.

• To support national land planning processes which are truly participatory in order to
facilitate redistribution of land to small-scale food producers.

• To subject all new large-scale development projects to a human rights assessment
following the “Basic principles and guidelines on development-based evictions and
displacement” submitted by the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Right
to Housing in 2006.

• To support the transition from an agriculture that heavily depends on fossil energy
and chemical inputs, to an agriculture based on agro-ecology and improved local
knowledge.

• To support the work of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) and its special
procedures, particularly the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, in investigating
the role of the private sector in the current food crisis.

• To support the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights (UNHCHR) to commission
Human Rights Impact Assessments on trade policies and agreements and on the
role of speculation.

• Not to make any trade related recommendations without prior Human Rights Impact
Assessment and broad consultation with CSOs in the affected countries. Under no
circumstances shall trade liberalisation be a condition for international support for
developing countries.

• To submit food aid and financial support for imports to human rights criteria in order
to make sure that they do not endanger market access of local food producers.

Right to adequate food – not just a rhetoric ornament

To be free from hunger is a fundamental human right. The right to adequate food is
enshrined in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in Article 11 of the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and in other
binding international treaties. We welcome that this fact is recognized in the CFA.

Unfortunately, a closer look reveals that the references of the CFA to the right to food
are merely of a rhetorical nature. In its concrete analyses and recommendations on
issues like social protection, the promotion of smallholder farming, development
cooperation and trade, the HLTF ignores important aspects and obligations related to
the right to food, as laid down in the General Comment N° 12 of the UN Committee on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In particular, no reference is made to legal or
other remedies for victims of violations of the right to food. Other important human rights
principles, like accountability, non-discrimination, participation and empowerment, are
not given due attention either. The CFA does not address existing power relations in
society, including gender relations.

To realize the right to food for all is neither identified as an overall goal of the CFA, nor
as an obligation of the international community and the members of the HLTF itself. It
thereby ignores that the UN General Assembly, in its resolution 60/165 of December
2005, invited “all relevant international organisations, including the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund, to promote policies and projects that have a positive
impact on the right to food, to ensure that partners respect the right to food in the
implementation of common projects, to support strategies of Member States aimed at
fulfilment of the right to food and to avoid any actions that could have a negative impact
on the realization of the right to food.” In its recommendations on “global information and
monitoring systems” the CFA lacks any reference to the right to food and related
obligations or indicators, but rather focuses attention on whether states have followed
the recommendations of the CFA. The CFA does not make any suggestion as to how
HLTF members can ensure that their actions are compatible with the human right to
food.

It is especially worrisome that the CFA fails to recognize hungry people as rights
holders. The protests of social movements against policies and actions that create
hunger are legitimate to claim the realization of the human right to food. In fact, the
HLTF expresses “particular concern” about “organized political or criminal groups ready
to harness popular frustrations into a challenge against the state and its authority”. Such
statements pave the way for the criminalisation of social movements and for further
human rights violations. According to a report presented by the Special Representative
of the General Secretary on Human Rights Defenders in 2007, human rights defenders
working on land rights and natural resources are the second most vulnerable group in
danger of being killed because of their work. The most vulnerable group are defenders
of labour rights. It is incomprehensible that the CFA addresses neither the existence of
modern slavery in agriculture nor the fact that millions go hungry because they do not
earn a living wage.

The lack of attention to the principle of participation is a general problem of the CFA and
the HLTF. The CFA, according to its authors, reflects the consensus between its
member organisations, most of them being IGOs where governments make the
decisions. However, the staff members of these organisations have not been elected
democratically by the people. Even the governments who are supposed to govern the
UN organisations have not been involved in the decision on the content of the CFA, let
alone parliaments or CSOs of the member countries. Social movements that represent
victims of violations of the right to food have not been involved in the formulation of the
CFA. All in all, these shortcomings raise serious doubts on the legitimacy of such a
document, which is meant to guide the reaction of the international community to the
food crisis. If the CFA is implemented, it will have serious impacts on national policies
and national budgets. Worldwide, CSOs are struggling to ensure that national policies
and budgets will be democratically legitimised and subjected to a human rights impact
assessment. The HLTF is undermining these efforts.

8
Social Protection: an important part of the Human Right to Food

We welcome that the CFA puts significant emphasis on the promotion of safety nets and
social protection systems in order to combat hunger. Among other measures, the CFA,
in the short run, recommends school feeding programs, as well as the adjustment of
pensions and social protections programmes with regards to soaring food prices. In the
long run, it recommends designing and implementing social protection policies and
programs, to move towards more efficient programs and to identify alternatives to
unconditional assistance.

Many proposals made are well known and point in the right direction, but are
nevertheless fundamentally flawed. Their main problem is that they neither see the
victims of hunger and undernourishment as rights holders, nor the nation state and
donor community as duty holders. To the contrary - the CFA displays considerable
mistrust in the “legitimacy” of many of the hungry and malnourished to receive transfers.
In footnote 12, the CFA is quick to assure the reader that “the right to food is not the
right to be fed.” And that “only if an individual is unable, for reasons beyond his or her
control, to provide for themselves, does the State have obligations to provide food or the
means to purchase it.” Even though these phrases are formally correct, they are
misplaced in the context of the ongoing global food crisis which manifested itself in
undernourishment (taking the lives of 25,000 persons per day) even before the current
“food crisis” arose. The victims of this ongoing crisis do not suffer hunger out of their
own free will due to lack of will to work or religious beliefs. They are “unable to provide
for themselves for reasons beyond their control”. The consequence is clear: the victims
of both the current and permanent food crisis do have a right to have access to
adequate food – and states are obligated to provide for each and every one of them.

Almost all current social transfer programmes in the countries affected by the food crisis
are not meant to fulfil rights of the recipients. Many, if not most, social protection
programmes are far too complicated to lend themselves to a rights-based
implementation. In Sub-Saharan Africa, India and rural China, where the large majority
of the victims live, such programmes are either absent (Africa),function badly or very
badly. What is in place in Africa is a huge number of diverse foreign initiated pilot
projects run by private or IGO initiatives, while reliable long term international transfers
into central programmes (which are imperative for Africa) are absent. In India, starvation
deaths continue due to an inappropriate social protection system despite the Supreme
Court’s efforts. In China, rural minimum income programmes were only introduced a few
years ago and are completely inadequate, both financially and administratively. In all of
these cases, coverage of the rights holders and the size of transfers are entirely
insufficient.

While the CFA avoids the human rights question of reaching each and every victim of
hunger and undernourishment and how this process can be institutionalized, it shows
great concern when it comes to targeting, efficiency, inclusion errors and conditionality:
“Systems should be able to allow for regular beneficiary screening” and “… should be
able to filter out those who have graduated beyond the eligibility threshold”. Experience
has shown that such minimalist approaches do not allow for effective programmes
implementing human rights, even if “expanded”. Correct selection, precise means and
“filtering out” sound nice in theory, but remain an illusion in those places where most
victims live. In reality, the introduction of such complexities tends to exclude many rights
holders and sacrifices effectiveness to the altar of efficiency, while at the same time
9
reinforcing power relations in society. Universal programmes or basic income
programmes, which would avoid such pitfalls and still provide reasonably targeted cash
transfers without selection are not even mentioned.

To “identify alternatives to unconditional assistance” is number three of the four
proposed actions regarding social systems in the CFA – after expansion and efficiency.
According to the CFA cash transfers, for example, should best be given to hungry
people in exchange for the fulfilment of specific conditions, as is the case in food for
work programs. In reality there is nothing wrong with unconditional assistance. When it
comes to fundamental transfers to guarantee a minimum food income, transfers have to
be unconditional as the human right to food is unconditional. The proposal of conditional
cash transfers usually brought forward by the World Bank, displays the same mistrust
against the poor as does the proposal of narrow targeting. It is scandalous to impose
that even the poorest have to “pay” in one way or the other for transfers which are a
matter of life or death for them. Such arguments deny the human right to food.

10
Promotion of Smallholder Farmers – not without addressing unequal
structures

For a long time, the eminent role of smallholder farmers with regards to food security
has been largely ignored by the international community. We appreciate that the CFA,
like other recent reports made by international organisations, has put emphasis on the
need to increase support mainly for smallholder farmers in order to overcome the food
crisis. For the HLTF, the current food crisis offers a “particular opportunity to dramatically
increase smallholder productivity and production.” Public investments, while generally
supporting an enabling environment for farms of all sizes, are seen as particularly
important to provide a “level playing field” for smallholders to realize their comparative
advantages in agricultural production. The CFA suggests well-targeted interventions to
ensure access to agricultural inputs (e.g. seeds, fertilizers), rehabilitation of
infrastructure, and methods to decrease post harvest losses. This would boost yields
and increase rural household welfare as well as aggregate local food supply. In addition,
the CFA proposes significantly increased investments in agricultural technology
research and infrastructure, as well as policies to boost and sustain the productivity of
smallholder farmers with due attention to environmentally sustainable practices (e.g.
conservation agriculture, and water and soil conservation).

The main problem is, however, that it is not clear how the HLTF aims to ensure that the
recommended actions really benefit the smallholder farmers. This shortfall becomes
obvious in the confusing definition of the private sector. As a general statement, the CFA
claims that the private sector “has become the driving force for agriculture and rural
growth”. However it is not clear what is meant by private sector. On the one hand
“smallholder producers represent a large part of the private sector”. On the other hand
“the private sector faces many risks when dealing with smallholders”. Experience shows
that while governments and international organisations have often emphasized their
intention to support mainly small farmers, this group has, in reality, been heavily
discriminated against and neglected to the benefit of large and commercial farms. The
CFA does not explicitly address this discrimination and social exclusion but suggests
that general support of agriculture will automatically increase smallholder productivity
and production and enable smallholders to realise their comparative advantage. The
CFA neither addresses land conflicts between large-scale and small-scale farming nor
the threats that small farmers are facing when large-scale commercial farming is
expanded.

In fact, land and water, the most important agricultural inputs, are almost totally left out
of the CFA. The land issue is briefly mentioned in connection with agricultural land loss
due to urbanization and the shift of land use to non-agricultural uses. It also mentions
that 85 percent of farms measure less than two hectares, and the average farm size is
getting smaller. What it is not mentioned is that there is a worldwide process of land
grabbing and massive, violent dispossession of rural communities due to heavy
investments in extractive industries, tourism, big infrastructure projects like dams,
airports, highways, etc, industrial development projects and last but not least agrofuels.
Widespread, forced evictions of rural communities documented by human rights
organizations clearly indicate that land tenure insecurity is one of the most urgent issues
to be tackled in order to immediately secure the livelihoods of the rural population. In
reality, not only is the average size of land decreasing, but of equal concern is the
growing concentration of access to and control over land and water in a few hands, a
problem which is totally omitted by the HLTF.
11

The CFA does not recommend any actions to secure land and water rights of the
marginalized, nor does it recommend solutions for those peasants who already lack access
to land, a group which constitutes approximately one quarter of the hungry people worldwide.
Landlessness is not a problem for Internally Displaced People (IDP) only, as is suggested by
the CFA. Highly unequal distribution patterns of land ownership remain a historical problem in
several regions of the world, mainly in Latin America, Southern Africa, and South East Asia.
This can only be solved through comprehensive and redistributive agrarian reforms. In reality,
however, trends towards the (re)concentration of land and the reversal of agrarian reform
processes can be clearly observed in regions of the world where there used to be more
egalitarian access to land, such as China, some federal states of India, and countries in West
Africa. The proposal of giving landless, rural people access to small cultivation plots for
market or kitchen gardens, as stated in the CFA, reveals the unwillingness of HLTF to
address structural economic injustices behind the food crisis as manifested by the unequal
distribution of land.

One of the main reasons why smallholder farmers are currently unable to benefit from
increased commodity prices is the unjust distribution of natural resources like land and
water and the control of the whole supply chain by a few companies, who were able to
increase their profits considerably over the last year. It is therefore highly problematic
that the CFA does not discuss the role of the private sector and the increasing
concentration throughout the whole food supply chain - from the production, trade, and
processing, to the marketing and retailing of food. According to a report by the former
Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, just 10 corporations (which include Aventis,
Monsanto, Pioneer and Syngenta) control one-third of the commercial seed market and
80 percent of the pesticide market. Monsanto alone controls 91 percent of the global
market for genetically modified seed. Another 10 corporations, including Cargill, control
57 percent of the total sales of the world’s leading 30 retailers and account for 37
percent of the revenues earned by the world’s top 100 food and beverage companies.
Given growing corporate control in the agribusiness, and food and water sectors, the
Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights stated that “the
global reach of TNCs is not matched by a coherent global system of accountability”. This
lack of accountability is also manifested in the current practice of international financial
institutions (IFI) like the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC). In the
fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, IFC’s investments across the agribusiness value
chain—from farm to retail store—exceeded $1.3 billion. The IFC has so far resisted
reporting on development impact of individual projects. In addition, there is no
accountability for what is being financed by intermediaries and its impact on the human
right to food. It is naïve to believe that the global food crisis can be solved without
addressing this heavy concentration of market power and injustice as well as the role of
public and private finance.

12
“Free Trade” is not “Fair Trade”

The CFA asserts that the price hikes for agricultural commodities will increase the global
food bill to 1,035 billion USD in 2008, 215 billion USD more than in2007. At the same
time the food bill for Low-Income Food-Deficit Countries (LIFDC is expected to soar by
40 percent. The HLTF fears that the food crisis, balance of payment problems and social
unrest caused by this development might undermine general confidence of countries in
stable prices, as well as their ability to purchase food on international markets in the
future: “This could threaten continued progress toward a fair and equitable international
trade system as countries consider refocusing on national food self sufficiency based
solely in domestic production and stocks…”. The CFA stresses “the need for countries
not to retreat from their commitment to more open and fair trade system”. As a result,
the CFA proposes to rapidly complete the WTO Doha Round and to continue
liberalisation policies at all levels: to reduce import tariffs, trade distorting subsidies and
to minimize export restrictions. In order to mitigate the impact of soaring prices and to
rebuild confidence in the international food markets, the HLTF recommends mobilizing
external support for additional imports in the form of grant based humanitarian aid,
official development assistance (ODA) or balance of payment support, mainly through
the IMF and the WB, to develop regional and global mechanisms for food stock sharing,
and to improve analysis and oversight of food commodity and futures markets.

Various statements in the CFA make it clear that, for the HLTF, “fair trade” equals “free
trade”. In other words, the CFA uses open minded fair trade language in order to defend
a dogmatic free trade approach. Although it recommends reviews of trade and taxation
policies regarding their impact on different stakeholders, the outcome of the review
obviously is not meant to question liberalisation. All trade related proposals, such as the
reduction of import tariffs, subsidies and export restrictions, follow the same neo-liberal
pattern. Although a possible negative impact on specific countries or sectors of societies
is mentioned, the CFA fails to draw a conclusion and propose actions. There is not even
a discussion under what circumstances the use of a specific instrument such as import
tariffs is useful. The dogmatic approach is illustrated by the fact, for example, that the
CFA recommends a reduction of tariffs even for agrofuels although it recognizes the
negative impact of increased agrofuels production on food security.

Evidence of numerous studies shows that tariff reduction, among other factors, has often
caused import surges of food and thereby heavily reduced local market access, incomes
and food security of smallholder farmers. For example, in the cases of rice farmers in
Ghana, Honduras and Indonesia, as well as tomato and chicken farmers in Ghana, the
right to food has clearly been violated through the reduction of import protection and
support to small producers. While tariff reductions might be appropriate as a temporary
measure to secure necessary food imports in LDCs in times of soaring food prices, it is
usually not an adequate strategy for food security and the realisation of the right to food
in the long run. Further trade liberalisation would rather increase imports and thereby
suffocate current efforts to revive domestic and smallholder led food production. It would
also increase import dependency of poor countries and make them even more
vulnerable to price fluctuations in the international markets. The increased volatility of
prices is demonstrated by the recent decline in prices for food staples. For the same
reason, the proposed increase of food aid, and the support for additional imports through
ODA or balance of payment is a double edged strategy. On the one hand, these
measures can be necessary, in the short run, to compensate LDCs for budget losses, to
stabilize domestic food prices and to bridge supply shortage. On the other hand, they
13
bear the risk of being misused as instruments of dumping, create a very negative impact
on the farming sector and threaten domestic food supply in the long run, as was also
experienced with monetized food aid.

Export restrictions appear to be heavily overestimated as a factor for the price hikes. In
most cases, export restrictions were introduced as a reaction to price increases. At least
in some cases this measure was taken in a legitimate endeavour to avoid excessive
exports of staple foods, which would have led to food price hikes on the domestic market
and threatened the right to food of consumers in their own countries. Additionally, one
must consider that export taxes can be an important source of income for the state, with
an increasing importance in times of high food and energy import bills. Although export
restriction can have, and certainly have had, a negative impact on the supply in
international markets, they should always be judged in a differentiated manner and
depending on the specific context. The prohibition of export restrictions within the
framework of the WTO or regional or bilateral trade agreements would substantially
undermine states’ ability to protect and fulfil the human right to food of their populations
and must therefore be rejected.

Altogether, the trade related recommendations of the CFA are totally unacceptable from
the right to food perspective. The HLTF, in a dogmatic and undifferentiated manner,
recommends and announces lobbying for trade liberalisation as a means of hunger
reduction. By doing so, the UN and Bretton Woods agencies would even contribute to
violations of the right to food instead of preventing them. We remind the international
community that the UN Human Rights Council, on March 26, 2008 urged “that all States
should make every effort to ensure that their international policies of a political and
economic nature, including international trade agreements, do not have a negative
impact on the right to food in other countries”. To respect and protect the right to food in
trade policies is an obligation not only of individual states but of intergovernmental
organisations as well.

14
Recommendations from a Right to Food Perspective

Based on this analysis of the CFA and 20 years of experience in the struggle for the
human right to food, FIAN recommends the following to the UN organisations involved in
the HLTF:

On Human Rights mechanisms and principles:

• HLTF members have to enable a broad consultation on the CFA involving the social
groups most affected by the food crisis, prior to any implementation. The
identification of the causes of the food crisis, the definition of public policies and
programs needed to realize the right to food, and their implementation at the
international and national level, must involve, from the start, all sectors of civil
society, and national human rights organizations. Prior to such a broad based
consultation process, the CFA should not be used as a reference document for food
policies.

• The implementation process, at the national and international level, should be
monitored from a human rights perspective. This monitoring must equally involve all
relevant sectors of the society, especially those affected by the food crisis. The
results of monitoring should be reported to the HRC and to the HLTF.

• HLTF members must respect the role of social movements in defending the Right to
Food and in policy formulation. They should counter any attempts by state and
private actors which aim to criminalise social movements. Social movements and
other CSOs must, in a meaningful manner, be involved in the formulation of any
strategy to overcome the food crisis and to realize the right to food.

• The members of the HLTF should assess the impact of their current policies and
activities on the human right to food and report, on an annual basis, to the UN
Human Rights Council. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, the Office
of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and CSOs should be encouraged to
comment on these reports. Specialized agencies of the UN should also be required
to report on their contribution to implement the right to food in individual countries as
part of reporting by states under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Convention on the Right of the Child (CRC) and
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
(CEDAW). The same applies to donor countries in their reporting to treaty bodies
and under the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) procedure of the Human Rights
Council.

• The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank and other International
Finance Institutions (IFIs) which directly support private investments in agriculture
and extractive industries should introduce reporting on development impacts of their
activities on a project by project level, giving special attention to the right to food and
the right to just and favourable working conditions. IFIs providing funding to financial
intermediaries, that in turn provide financial services to agriculture, should request
these intermediaries to report on the impact of the right to food.

15
• Monitoring should aim to assess state compliance with its obligations under national
and international law to respect, protect and fulfil the right to food. Special attention
needs to be given to the effects on international cooperation and trade and
investment agreements on the ability of states to comply with obligations. Monitoring
of the Right to Food should be conducted by national human rights institutions and
the FAO. The FAO and the OHCHR should assist states in reporting to HR treaty
bodies and regional HR systems.

On social security systems:

• HLTF members have to make sure that their work on social transfers is hereto on
based on human rights, in particular economic, social and cultural rights. Victims are
not to be considered (only) as “stake holders”, but as the crucial rights holders. HLTF
members should therefore stop propagating conditional cash transfers as experience
has shown that they do not guarantee access for all those in need.

• HLTF members should instead promote the introduction of nation wide food indexed
social cash transfers in all countries affected by the food crisis. They should
propagate pilot projects on universal social cash transfers and invite the UN High
Commissioner on Human Rights (UNHCHR) to commission empirical studies on the
human rights aspects of such universal income transfers (basic income),other social
cash transfers and on food transfers as a means to guarantee access to food even in
the light of rising food prices. In addition, HTLF members should give special
attention to the fact that those who are hungry, their organisations, support groups as
well as NGOs must have access to institutional mechanisms allowing them to
enforce states’ obligations.

On the promotion of smallholder farmers:

• HLTF members should support peasants, small farmers, indigenous peoples,
fisherfolk and other food producing rural communities demanding Food Sovereignty
as a way to realize the human right to adequate food. At the core of this proposal is
the peoples’ right to participate in decision making and define their own food,
agriculture, livestock and fisheries systems vis-à-vis the dictates of a food system
increasingly controlled by a few corporations. The HLTF should also cooperate with
national and international human rights institutions in order to promote policies and
institution building that will strengthen the legal position of the hungry and make the
right to food a legally enforceable right.

• Specialized agencies of the UN, like the FAO, should, in consultation with the
affected groups, including women’s rights groups, identify immediate measures to
protect rural communities’ access to land and natural resources; and should assist
governments in implementing these measures. Increased attention should be given
to the realization of the right to just and favourable conditions of work in the
promotion of agricultural production as well as to the proscription of modern slavery.

• Agrofuels production must not harm the enjoyment of human rights. Any discussion
about standards for sustainable agrofuel production must take into account the
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obligations of States and of the community of states under the main human rights
treaties and the relevant ILO conventions as well. A moratorium on agrofuels
production should be considered to allow time for regulatory structures to be put in
place to safeguard economic, social and environmental rights.

• The HLTF should endorse the Final Declaration of the International Conference on
Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD) in 2006 and contribute to
implement the principles adopted therein.

• The Human Rights Council, as well as HLTF members, should encourage states to
subject all new large-scale development projects to a human rights assessment
following the “Basic principles and guidelines on development-based evictions and
displacement” as submitted to the UN Commission for Human Rights by the then UN
Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Housing, Miloon Kothari, in 2006. HLTF
should emphasise the right of indigenous communities to free prior and informed
consent as a condition for mining, agriculture, energy and infrastructure development
on their territories (as guaranteed under ILO 169 and emphasised by the UN General
Assembly in its 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples), especially in
the context of the promotion of private investment in agriculture.

• HLTF members should identify how the transition from agriculture heavily dependent
on fossil energy and chemical inputs to agriculture based on agro-ecology and
improved local knowledge could be hastened.

• HLTF members should support the work of the UN Human Rights Council and its
special procedures, particularly the work of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to
Food, in investigating the role of the private sector in the current food crisis.

On international trade and food aid:

• The HLTF members should support the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights
(UNHCHR) in conducting empirical studies on the impact of specific trade policies
and speculation on international commodity markets on the right to food of different
stakeholders in countries most affected by the food crisis. These studies should be
undertaken by independent researchers with due attention to related studies of civil
society organisations.

• The HLTF members should refrain from making any trade related recommendations
without prior Human Rights Impact Assessment. Theses studies should be
discussed with the governments and a broad range of CSOs in the affected
countries. In a broad consultation process, trade related proposals should be
developed on how to overcome the food crisis and to protect and fulfil the right to
food. Under no circumstances shall trade liberalisation be a condition for
international support to developing countries to overcome the food crisis. IFI must
never limit the policy space of governments to adopt trade and agriculture policies
that are necessary to realize the right to food.

• Any increase of food aid and financial support for imports should be applied with
great caution, follow strict criteria and be monitored by independent bodies including
UN organisations and civil society organisations. It must be assured that these
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imports never undermine market access by domestic smallholder farmers or threaten
the current efforts of reviving domestic food production.

September 23, 2008