2012 Committee Topic Guides
These
topic guides were provided by American Model United Nations with their permission.
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3a |
Third Committee Social, Humanitarian & Cultural |
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The Right to Food |
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For some countries, food shortages are an agricultural and development
issue. For all, however, hunger is a basic affront to human dignity that
should be addressed as a human rights issue. The United Nations defines the
right to food as “the right to have regular, permanent and free access,
either directly or by means of financial purchases, to quantitatively and
qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural
traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and which ensures a
physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified
life free of fear.” This definition defines the right to food as both an
individual right and a collective responsibility and has galvanized the
world to address hunger. International efforts to protect the right to food
have generated a long and complex debate over how the international
community can solve the problem. This debate has touched on climate change,
intellectual property rights, free trade and international obligations to
provide development assistance.
The United Nations has a long history in addressing the right to food. In
1976, at the World Food Conference, governments pledged to end hunger within
a decade. Over twenty years later, the international community came together
once again at the 1996 World Food Summit. The outcome of the summit, the
Rome Declaration, which was adopted by 112 heads of state, pledged to halve
the number of persons in the world who suffer from hunger by 2015. With the
adoption of the Millennium Declaration in 2000, the international community
again committed to reducing the number of people who suffer from hunger by
2015. In 2000, the Commission on Human Rights created a Special Rapporteur
on the Right to Food, who monitors and reports on situations detrimental to
food security. All of these issues have helped to elevate the concept of
food security on the global agenda. Despite this ongoing commitment, there
are major issues that still need to be addressed, as global food prices
continue to climb. Major spikes in global food prices occurred in 2008 and
2011, contributing to dramatically increasing hunger around the world.
This problem has prompted more recent action from the United Nations. In
response to soaring food prices in 2008, the Secretary General convened a
High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis. In partnership
with the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development, and the World Trade Organization, the
Task Force aims to support a comprehensive and unified response to the
global food crisis. The Task Force produced the Comprehensive Framework for
Action (CFA). The CFA outlines a plan of action that includes activities to
meet immediate needs and longer term actions to address structural factors,
such as investment in agriculture in developing countries, access to land
and water, post-harvest technologies, and sustainability, that all
contribute to food insecurity.
Following the formation of the High-Level Task Force, the General Assembly
hosted a thematic dialogue in 2009 on the global food crisis and the right
to food which was a high-level meeting of human rights specialists,
economists, and agro-ecologists. The GA reaffirmed that a rights-based
approach should guide efforts to promote food security. Under this type of
framework, the GA acknowledged that strategies that only focus only on
lowering food prices to eliminate hunger would not be sufficient. Rather,
social support schemes to ensure vulnerable populations were adequately
protected would need to be developed along with reforming global
agricultural policy. At the Dialogue, the General Assembly acknowledged the
complexity of the current crisis and that factors such as the volatility of
oil prices, climate change and inequities in the trading system have all
contributed to the current food crisis. These factors, along with
improvements in accountability and the need for good governance, should be
taken into consideration when designing agricultural reform.
Recently, two new issues have entered discussions on the right to food: the
effects of climate change and the concept on food sovereignty. Discussion on
the effects of climate change on food security and the right to food has
been limited in the GA to date, however the Food and Agricultural
Organization (FAO) has begun to examine the topic. In March 2011, the FAO
submitted a brief to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
Secretariat on the effects of climate change on food security. The brief
outlined potential steps that the UN and its Member States can take,
including promoting the development of new, change-resilient staple crops.
On the issue of food sovereignty, there is support for the democratic
control of agricultural policy and food production networks, particularly
for farmers themselves. The idea has gained significant support from
developing countries, as well as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to
Food. The costs of transforming agricultural systems are high, the potential
returns include greater sustainability and healthier ecosystems.
Questions to consider from your government’s perspective on this issue
include
Bibliography
“Boosting Agricultural Biodiversity Could Pay
Dividends for Rural Poor,” UN News Centre (20 May 2010).
www.un.org/news.
“Climate Change-Related Water Scarcity to
Affect Global Food Production – UN.” UN News Centre (9 June 2011).
www.un.org/news.
Food and Agriculture Organization, “Climate Change
and Food Security: A Framework Document.” (2008).
http://www.fao.org/forestry/15538-079b31d45081fe9c3dbc6ff34de4807e4.pdf.
Food and Agriculture Organization, “The State of
Food Insecurity in the World: Addressing Food Insecurity in Protracted
Crises.” (2010).
http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/i1683e/i1683e.pdf.
“Food Security Key to Achieving Global Anti-Poverty
Goals – Secretary-General” UN News Centre (6 July 2011).
www.un.org/news.
“Green Growth Critical to Asia-Pacific Food and
Energy Security, UN Says” UN News Centre (20 June 2011).
www.un.org/news.
High Level Task Force on the Global Food
Security Crisis. “Comprehensive Task Framework for Action.” (July 2008).
http://www.un.org/issues/food/taskforce/Documentation/CFA%20Web.pdf.
High Level Task Force on the Global Food
Security Crisis. “Progress Report: April 2008 – October 2009,” (2009).
http://www.un.org/issues/food/taskforce/pdf/COMPLETED%20UN%20HLTF%20PROGRESS%20REPORT%20April%2008%20to%20Oct%2009.pdf.
Oram, Julian A.“The TRIPs Agreement and its
Implications for Food Security.” (September 1999).
http://www.recrea.org/rrf/biopatents.htm.
Polaski, Sandra. “Rising Food Prices, Poverty, and
the Doha Round.” (May 2008).
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/polaski__food_prices.pdf.
UN Documents
A/65/281
A/64/170
A/RES/65/220
A/RES/65/178
A/RES/64/159
A/RES/56/155
A/RES/55/2
A/HRC/16/49
A/HRC/RES/16/27
A/HRC/RES/13/4
E/C.12/1999/5 – General Comment 12, Committee on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Rome Declaration on World Food Security
Additional Web Resources
http://www.foodsovereignty.org/-
International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty
http://www.un.org/issues/food/taskforce/index.shtml
– High Level Task Force on the Global Food Crisis
http://www.fao.org/righttofood/-
FAO on the Right to Food
http://www.srfood.org/
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
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3b |
Third Committee Social, Humanitarian & Cultural |
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Protecting Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism |
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Terrorism is not a new phenomenon. Protecting human life and security within
the context of terrorism presents a two-fold, and potentially contradictory,
challenge: first, States have an obligation to ensure the security and
well-being of their citizens by providing protection from terrorist threats,
and second, they must enact counter-terrorism measures that do not violate
human rights or the rule of law.
Bibliography
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