Research Brief: The rights to food and food sovereignty in UNDROP

RESEARCH BRIEF

This research brief was first published by the Geneva Academy, you can find it here.

Peasants and other people working in rural areas, including fisherfolk, pastoralists and herders feed between 70 and 80 per cent of the world population, but they represent 80 per cent of those suffering from hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition. It therefore comes with no surprise that the rights to food and food sovereignty are at the heart of the rights-based struggles of rural communities, that violations of these rights have been at the core of the call for elaborating UNDROP, and that these rights are central in the UN Declaration.

In UNDROP’s article 15, states recognized the right to adequate food and the fundamental right to be free from hunger, as well as the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas to produce food and to adequate nutrition. They also recognized their right to food sovereignty, for the first time in an international instrument adopted by the UN General Assembly.