A Right to Food?

Should Londoners see access to safe wholesome food as a right or a privilege?

This theme, the Right to Food, is one of the principal positive legacies of the conflict resolution process generated by World War Two. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) proclaimed that "everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food…”. Nearly 20 years later, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) developed these concepts more fully, stressing "the right of everyone to … adequate food" and specifying "the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger".  This approach to food provision underpins the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union, and is integral to the mission of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations.

A recent speech (2005) delivered by the FAO leadership states:

Ensuring the right to adequate food and the fundamental right to be free from hunger is a matter of international law, specifically enshrined in a number of human rights instruments to which states around the world have committed themselves. http://www.fao.org/FOCUS/E/rightfood/right1.htm

This right, theoretically at least, entails a community obligation to funding access to food that is as self-evident, and binding, as the right to education or to healthcare. The consequence for disadvantaged or vulnerable Londoners should be that core funding should flow to voluntary sector organisations and community or social enterprises whose mission embraces making a reality of the right to food, for all.