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2010 December 22 - 2011 January 4 [AGRICULTURE]

UN: respect food sovereignty

The U.N. General Assembly on December 21 adopted a resolution recognizing the need to give special consideration to the right to food sovereignty.

Food sovereignty is a concept that food and agricultural affairs are a basic right that should not be affected by international trade pacts.

The resolution “The Right to Food” reaffirms that “hunger constitutes an outrage and violation of human dignity,” and notes “the need to further examine concepts such as, inter alia, ‘food sovereignty’ and their relation with food security and the right to food.”

The resolution was adopted unanimously. However, prior to the General Assembly, a U.S. representative said, “The United States does not recognize any change in the current state of conventional or customary international law regarding rights related to food. We do not treat the right to food as a formal enforceable obligation.”

Where does the call for food sovereignty come from?

The 1994 conclusion of the GATT Uruguay Round trade agreement and the 1995 inauguration of the World Trade Organization (WTO) promoted trade liberalization favorable to developed countries and multinational corporations, resulting in an increase in starvation and poverty throughout the world, especially in Africa. Through this experience, the concept of food sovereignty has become common place worldwide.

The U.N. Human Rights Council in 2008 reported that trade liberalization based on neoliberalism has accelerated widespread starvation, and advised that each country exercise its food sovereignty in order to regulate multinational corporations dominating the world’s food and water supplies.

Discussion on Japan’s entry into the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) is now taking place. The need is to establish world trade rules with support for food sovereignty, not market-driven free trade.