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Chapter 12 CESCR General Comment No. 12 (1999) on the Right to Adequate Food (Article 11 of the Covenant) Introduction and basic premises 1. The human right to adequate food is recognized in several instruments under international law. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights deals more comprehensively than any other instrument with this right. Pursuant to Article 11.1 of the Covenant, States parties recognize “the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions,” while pursuant to Article 11.2 they recognize that more immediate and urgent steps may be needed to ensure “the fundamental right to freedom from hunger and malnutrition.” The human right to adequate food is of crucial importance for the enjoyment of all rights. It applies to everyone; thus the reference in Article 11.1 to “himself and his family” does not imply any limitation upon the applicability of this right to individuals or to femaleheaded households. 2. The Committee has accumulated signiWcant information pertaining to the right to adequate food through examination of States parties’ reports over the years since 1979. The Committee has noted that while reporting guidelines are available relating to the right to adequate food, only few States parties have provided information sufWcient and precise enough to enable the Committee to determine the prevailing situation in the countries concerned with respect to this right and to identify the obstacles to its realization. This General Comment aims to identify some of the principal issues which the Committee considers to be important in relation to the right to adequate food. Its preparation was triggered by the request of Member States during the 1996 World Food Summit, for a better deWnition of the rights relating to food in Article 11 of the Covenant, and by a special request to the Committee to give particular attention to the Summit Plan of Action in monitoring the implementation of the speciWc measures provided for in Article 11 of the Covenant. Original notes omitted. 3. In response to these requests, the Committee reviewed the relevant reports and documentation of the Commission on Human Rights and of the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities on the right to adequate food as a human right; devoted a day of general discussion to this issue at its seventeenth session in 1997, taking into consideration the draft international code of conduct on the human right to adequate food prepared by international non-governmental organizations ; participated in two expert consultations on the right to adequate food as a human right organized by the OfWce of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), in Geneva in December 1997, and in Rome in November 1998 co-hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and noted their Wnal reports. In April 1999 the Committee participated in a symposium on “The substance and politics of a human rights approach to food and nutrition policies and programmes,” organized by the Administrative Committee on Co-ordination/ Sub-Committee on Nutrition of the United Nations at its twenty-sixth session in Geneva and hosted by OHCHR. 4. The Committee afWrms that the right to adequate food is indivisibly linked to the inherent dignity of the human person and is indispensable for the fulWllment of other human rights enshrined in the International Bill of Human Rights. It is also inseparable from social justice, requiring the adoption of appropriate economic, environmental and social policies, at both the national and international levels, oriented to the eradication of poverty and the fulWllment of all human rights for all. 5. Despite the fact that the international community has frequently reafWrmed the importance of full respect for the right to adequate food, a disturbing gap still exists between the standards set in Article 11 of the Covenant and the situation prevailing in many parts of the world. More than 840 million people throughout the world, most of them in developing countries, are chronically hungry; millions of people are suffering from famine as the result of natural disasters, the increasing incidence of civil strife and wars in some regions and the use of food as a political weapon. The Committee observes that while the problems of hunger and malnutrition are often particularly acute in developing countries, malnutrition, under-nutrition and other problems which relate to the right to adequate food and the right to...

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