The war in Ukraine shows the high stakes risk of concentrating food production to just a few countries – the latest in a series of overlapping food crises. Jennifer Clapp is member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems. Hilal Elver is former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.
BY HILAL ELVER Originally published in Middle East Eye (Apr 5, 2022) Countries in the Middle East and North Africa region will be particularly impacted by wheat shortages. A month has passed since Russia invaded Ukraine, and we are only beginning to truly understand what this lawless attack means for the world order. Alongside the refugee crisis and potential gas shortages, the most dire global spillover consequence is the disruption of global food systems, with devastating impacts in parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, where millions are already facing starvation. Even before the war, humanitarian agencies were scrambling to […]
Hilal Elver, Michael T. Roberts, Diana R.H. Winters, and Melissa Shapiro | last updated Nov. 22, 2021. On US Election Day 2021, the state of Maine voted in favor of a constitutional “right to food”—a historic development for a country that has long refused to recognize the human right to food. Will the US finally acknowledge that this right actually exists? Maine is officially the first US state to recognize a right to food. On Election Day this year, more than 60% of voters agreed that Maine should amend the state constitution “to declare that all individuals have a natural, […]
BY HILAL ELVER Originally published in Project Syndicate Special Edition Magazine Spring 2021: “Back to Health: Making Up for Lost Time” (Jul 13, 2021) The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the fragility and inequity of globalized industrial food systems. Transforming them will require leaders to prioritize the vulnerable over the powerful, enhance resilience, establish transparent value chains, and provide everyone with affordable access to the foods needed for a healthy diet. SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA – The year 2020 was unforgettable for all of us, and tragic for many. No one had imagined that a lethal virus originating in horseshoe bats could […]
By Hilal Elver Originally published in Welt Sitchen, 23 June 2020 Unilateral economic sanctions hit the wrong people and increase poverty. In times of a pandemic, this is criminal and sanctions should be lifted, says Hilal Elver, the former UN special rapporteur on the right to food. The corona virus has been the greatest public health threat in the world for over a century. Even before the pandemic, long-term conflicts, extreme weather events and economic shocks threatened famine in several countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. In addition, the population in many countries such as Zimbabwe or Iran is suffering […]
By Tomaso Ferrando (Originally published by Critical Legal Thinking on 26 Sept. 2019. Access the article here.) Four years after the Lombardia regional council in Italy approved the first law on the ‘Recognition, Protection and Fulfilment of the Right to Food’ in the European context, time seems to be ripe to put food at the centre of analogous political and legislative processes across the European Union. After the establishment of a Right to Food Observatory in Spain, the Good Food Nation consultations in Scotland and the announcement by the Liberal Democrat party of a Fairer Share for All, the last act of support was that of […]
Hilal Elver & Alyssa Brierley | last updated 13 Sept. 2019 — Forest fires are dramatic signs of global warming and the fires currently burning in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest at an astonishing rate have received a great deal of attention in recent weeks. We should be concerned for several reasons. First, when large amounts of forest are lost to deforestation and fires, the world loses an important tool in helping to fight climate change.[3] The Amazon rainforest serves as one of the planet’s largest carbon sinks that help to regulate global warming by absorbing millions of tons of carbon each […]
Hilal Elver & Melissa Shapiro | last updated 09 Sept. 2019 — Our consumption of meat, and red meat in particular, has been under intense scrutiny as of late. The year began with a headline-making report from the EAT-Lancet Commission, which called for a 50% reduction of global red meat and sugar consumption by 2050 as part of the “Great Food Transformation.” This summer, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) followed suit, finding that the switch to plant-based diets presents a critical step for mitigating and adapting to climate change. Now, this narrative, or at least some version of […]
On 18 October 2018, during day three of the 45th Session of the CFS, the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Hilal Elver, joined several CFS stakeholders and leaders in the Plenary Hall at FAO Headquarters in Rome, Italy to convene a Global Thematic Event (GTE). The GTE’s purpose was to reflect upon The Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security (the Guidelines) (RtF Guidelines or Guidelines), which had been adopted by a consensus of the FAO Council in 2004. The RtF Guidelines are a tool to […]
The Green New Deal resolution proposed by dozens of Democrat lawmakers would represent the first major effort on the part of the United States to address the threat of climate change as dynamic, multi-dimensional, and ubiquitous, and for that alone, it deserves praise. The Green New Deal recognizes the scope of climate change’s impacts on health and wellbeing, calling for alternative agriculture practices and sustainable food systems. Thus far, those critiquing the text have warned that its policies and programs are too ambitious, which mostly means that they are too expensive if carried out as projected. Such assessments miss the […]