Sustainable Development and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

The Right to Food and the Fight Against Hunger (MDG 1)

Between 2008 and 2012 we published a series of books and journal articles to promote the right to food as a tool to fight hunger and malnutrition (MDG 1). With the same objective, we drafted three studies published by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

In Human Rights and Desertification, we explored the complementarity of international human rights law and the UNCCD to help States reaching MDG 1, through better protecting the right to food of people whose livelihood is threatened by desertification.

In The Fight for the Right to Food: Lessons Learned, we documented and analyzed the experiences of the UN's first Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, looking at key practical challenges to the realization of MDG 1, through experiences in eleven countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America.

 In The Right to Food and Access to Justice (also available in French, Spanish and Portuguese), we summarized the findings of our book Droit à l’alimentation et accès à la justice and analyzed where victims of violations of the right to food can access effective remedies, and how access to justice can support the fight against hunger at national, regional and international levels.

In The Food Crisis and Food Security: Towards a New World Food Order? we analyzed the impact of the 2008 food crisis on MDG 1, and how the crisis might have led to a new world food order, in which the right to food would be one of the three pillars to fight hunger, together with food assistance and food security.

In The Right to Food and Global Strategic Frameworks, we provided guidance on how the right to food could best be integrated into the two main global frameworks designed to fight hunger and malnutrition – the Comprehensive Framework for Action developed by the UN High Level Task Force on Global Food Security, and the Global Strategic Framework for Food Security and Nutrition developed by the World Food Summit on Food Security.

ESCR and the MDGs

In 2012, we organized two expert meetings on ESCR and the MDGs with the participation of several UN Special Procedures. The MDGs were described as a missed opportunity to integrate HR into development programming. The debate also focused on the need to better include HR within the post-2015 framework.

We also submitted a contribution to the Post-2015 High Level Panel of Eminent Persons created by the UN Secretary General, asking the Panel to include greater attention to ESCR, access to justice and legal empowerment of the poor in shaping the post‐2015 agenda.

We then published an academic journal article on the contribution of UN Special Procedures to the HR and development dialogue during the MDG period (also available in Spanish and Portuguese).

ESCR and the SDGs

The practical manual #ESCR AND #SDGs, the 100-page long publication No One Will Be Left Behind and the 6-page long Research Brief on ESCR and SDGs look at the role of UN human rights mechanisms in monitoring the SDGs that seek to realize ESCR. They describe the convergence between the SDGs and ESCR, and highlight that they should be seen as mutually reinforcing: ESCR can offer a legal basis and guidance in the implementation of SDGs, and the SDGs can increase support for the realization of ESCR.

These publications also underline that the weakness of the 2030 Agenda lies in its accountability framework, based on voluntary national reviews and peer-reviewed soft guidance. In that context, UN human rights mechanisms can give the SDGs a strong legal basis and provide a means of accountability via independent mechanisms.

Via their unique expertise in monitoring the realization of ESCR in UN Member States, in promoting equality and non-discrimination and in pushing for the adoption of laws, policies and programmes that target the most vulnerable, UN human rights mechanisms can also ensure that no one will be left behind in the realization of the SDGs.

These publications do not only highlight the need to fully integrate human rights in the implementation and monitoring of SDGs, but also provide a set of very concrete recommendations to states, UN human rights mechanisms, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the High Level Political Forum to do so.