[afro-nets] Food for a binding thought

[Claudio Schuftan <claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn>]

Food for a binding thought
--------------------------

Human Rights Reader 132

IF A STATE HAS RATIFIED A TREATY, IT IS LEGALLY BOUND TO IMPLE-
MENT IT: A REITERATION. Part 1 of 2

1. This Reader keeps reminding you that the Rights to Health, to
Food, to Development are all Human rights (HR), not policy-
options-that-governments-can-choose-to-adopt-or-to-ignore! It is
thus not tolerable that governments observe only their commit-
ments to economic and trade agreements and ignore their interna-
tional commitments to people's rights. It is the realization of
this evidence (from the bad old days) that has taught us that
rights can only be secured through struggle (to be understood in
the sense of a "positive subversion"). (H. Pestalozzi)

1a. [As someone said in a literary parable: "There is only one
animal capable of dying of hunger without a fight. All beasts
attack and die fighting for their food. Only man lets himself
die of hunger without breaking the windows of a supermarket to
survive. Men who do not obey their instincts --or the sequence
of violations of their rights they are subjected to --die". (M.
Scorza, La Danza Inmovil, Plaza y Janes Literaria, Barcelona,
1983)

2. National institutions that look after HR do exist. But many
of them are controlled by those who wield political power; and
their mandate is often limited to civil and political rights.
But governments do have binding commitments on economic, social
and cultural rights as well!

3. On the other hand, local social movements, civil society or-
ganizations and NGOs committed to and working on the defense of
the rights of the oppressed, master neither the theory of the
international HR instruments nor the workings of their practical
application at the national level. At best, they have a cata-
logue of unanswered questions. In such a situation, it is easy
for them to fall in the irrelevance trap. (F. Nuscheler)

4. There certainly is a job to be done here since seeking re-
dress for HR violations can be done individually, but much bet-
ter with the support of a social movement or a civil society or-
ganization specialized in the protection of HR. The need for the
training of such institutions is unpostponable since almost no
mechanisms are currently in place to ensure compliance with any
legal norms on HR.

5. Additionally, the ignorance of HR principles and standards by
local judges makes it difficult for HR activists to get redress
using the judicial system. So, some training is needed here too.

6. But our problems do not stop there: Rules, regulations and
laws are ineffective without the will to enforce them. So it is
the non-governmental HR watchdog organizations on whose shoul-
ders this responsibility falls.

7. Most development debates still miss the preceding points. The
debate on the HR-based approach to development (HRBA) is still
nascent, vague and bland .as many a church congress (or a G8
summit.). What we need instead is to have leveled stinging cri-
tiques of the current trends in development work that are vio-
lating HR with impunity.

8. The HRBA holds up a mirror to society, a provocative and dis-
comforting mirror, allowing society to understand that these
problems are not 'accidents', but are a systematic consequence
of the deliberate social and economic choices being made which
benefit a few and marginalize many. (A. Shukla)

9. Moreover, some see a conflict between public health and the
HRBA to health: Public health aims for the best for the major-
ity, now and in the future. In HR, we struggle for the best for
each individual now. (U. Jonsson)

--
Claudio Schuftan
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
mailto:claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn

Mostly adapted from The Right to Food, CETIM, September, 2005,
D+C, Vol.32, No.11, November 2005, and D+C, Vol.33, No.2, Febru-
ary 2006.