Abstract
The global surge in prices of food commodities in 2007–2008 led governments to identify gaps in the global governance of food security as a major obstacle to the realization of the right to food. The reform of the Committee on World Food Security, completed at the end of 2009, was to remedy that: its objectives were to introduce more consistency across policy areas, and to serve as an inclusive platform for a modest form of monitoring by peer review, and for collective learning. The reform is an ambitious one. But it is most remarkable for its recognition that unless food security policies are informed by the views of the victims of hunger and permanently tested and revised, they shall fail: participation and experimentalism are therefore key components of the new mechanism that has been established. Combating hunger and malnutrition is a complex task, and it can only be achieved through multiyear strategies and coordinated efforts at different levels and in different sectors: this chapter explores whether the reform, that has now entered its implementation phase, can meet the challenge it has set for itself.
Olivier De Schutter was appointed the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food in March 2008.
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- 1.
Comm. on World Food Sec. [CFS], Reform of the Committee on World Food Security para. 4, U.N. Doc. CFS:2009/2Rev. 2 (Oct. 2009).
- 2.
The notion of global public goods emerged a decade ago in the work of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to highlight the need for greater cooperation across States in a context of increased interdependencies. See Providing Gobal Public Goods: Managing Globalization (I. Kaul, P. Conceiçãio, K. Le Goulven & R. U. Mendozaeds., 2003). The developments discussed in this chapter to a certain extent reflect the recognition that food security has acquired such a status in international discourse: the global food price crisis of 2008 was a major turning point in this regard.
- 3.
These evolutions are reflected in the real value of the FAO’s extended Food Price Index, which the FAO has updated since 1990 (base 100) based on the weighted average of a total of 55 commodity price quotations falling into six groups (meat, dairy, cereals, oils and fats, and sugar). Between 2000 and 2005, the Food Price Index increased moderately at a rate of 1.3 % per year. The rate of increase then reached 15 % in 2006, and continued to climb in 2007 and 2008, resulting in a peak in June 2008 (224); the average price level in 2008 was 200. For the latest food price indexes, see U.N. Food & Agric. Org. [FAO], FAO Food Price Index, available at http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/wfs-home/foodpricesindex/en/.
- 4.
For a sample of these critical views of the “Green Revolution”, see Elenita Dano, Unmasking the New Green Revolution in Africa: Motives, Players and Dynamics (2007); Eric Holt-Gimenez & Raj Patel, Food Rebellions! Crisis and the Hunger of Justice (2009); Vandana Shiva, The Violence of the Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture, Ecology, and Politics (1991).
- 5.
See, e.g., Ha-Joon Chang, Bad Samaritans: Rich Nations, Poor Policies, and the Threat to the Developing World Secrets 22–23 (2007).
- 6.
See Johan F.M. Swinnen, Anneleen Vandeplas & Miet Maertens, Liberalization, Endogenous Institutions, and Growth: A Comparative Analysis of Agricultural Reforms in Africa, Asia and Europe, 24 The World Bank Econ. Rev. 412, 418–19 (2010). On seeds specifically, see e.g., Jagtar S. Dhiman et al., Improved Seeds and Green Revolution, 11 J. of New Seeds 65, 65 (2010) (describing the role of the Punjab Agricultural University in the development of improved varieties/hybrids of crops, and in the supply of these varieties to farmers).
- 7.
Michael Lipton, Why Poor People Stay Poor: A Study of Urban Bias in World Development (1977).
- 8.
See, e.g., Martin Meredith, The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence 279–80 (2005).
- 9.
For a strong indictment of these policies, see Robert H. Bates, Markets and States in Tropical Africa (1981); see also Anne O. Krueger, Maurice Schiff & Alberto Valdés, The Political Economy of Agricultural Pricing Policy (1991); World Bank, World Development Report 1983 (1983); Anne O. Krueger, Maurice Schiff & Alberto Valdés, Agricultural Incentives in Developing Countries: Measuring the Effect of Sectoral and Economywide Policies, 2 World Bank Econ. Rev. 255 (1988); Anne O. Krueger, Government Failures in Development, 4 J. Econ. Persp.9 (1990) (denouncing the naïveté of the often idealized view of the State among development economists). The comparative studies coordinated by Krueger, Schiff, and Valdés review the distortions in agricultural subsidies that, in many developing countries, negatively impacted farmers in the 1960s and 1970s, until into the mid-1980s.
- 10.
For assessments, see Beyond Economic Liberalization in Africa: Structural Adjustments and the Alternatives (Kidane Mengisteab & B. Ikubolajeh Logan eds., 1995); The Impact of Structural Adjustment on the Population of Africa (Aderanti Adepoju ed., 1989); Structural Adjustment & Agriculture: Theory & Practice in Africa & Latin America (Simon Commander ed., 1989); Jane Harrigan & Paul Mosley, Evaluating the Impact of World Bank Structural Adjustment Lending: 1980–1987, 27 J. Dev. Stud. 63 (1991).
- 11.
See Howard Stein, World Bank Agricultural Policies, Poverty and Income Inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa, Cambridge J. Regions Econ. & Soc’y 1, 1 & 9 (2010). Stein concludes that:
The market approach to agriculture has exacerbated poverty in rural areas and likely contributed to worsening income equality … Richer farmers have access to credit, storage, and transportation. In contrast, poor farmers were penalized in the new system due to the removal of fertilizer subsidy, a lack of infrastructural support and access to extension and few marketing and storage options. Poor farmers are also less able to bargain effectively with private traders or use transportation or storage capacities to improve the timing and location of their sales.
Id. Other assessments have been more positive: see, e.g., Lawrence H. Summers & Lant H. Pritchett, The Structural-Adjustment Debate, 83 Am. Econ. Rev. 383, 385 (1993) citingMaurice Schiff & Alberto Valdes, The Plundering of Agriculture in Developing Countries (1992). In this well-known paper, Summers and Pritchett summarize and debate the findings of the World Bank Review of Adjustment Lending. See World Bank, Country Econ. Dep’t, Policy and Research Series No. 22, Adjustment Lending and Mobilization of Private and Public Resources for Growth (1992).
- 12.
See David Hallam, U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization [FAO], The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets: 2009 (2009).
- 13.
Comparing the data available for nineteen Sub-Saharan African countries for the period 1980–2000, Stein concludes that “nearly 75 % of all countries witnessed a worsening of income distribution with an overall mean decline for the total sample of 14 % to around 50.” Stein, supra note 11, at 2. He notes that the increase in inequality particularly affected the rural poor—small-scale farmers who suffer structural disadvantages in the agricultural markets. Id.
- 14.
World Bank, World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development 41 (2008).
- 15.
For a review of these obstacles and what would be required to overcome them, see Reforming Agricultural Trade for Developing Countries, Key Issues for a Pro-Development Outcome of the Doha Round (Alex F. McCalla & John Nash eds., 2007); see also Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, Mission to the World Trade Organisation, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/10/005/Add.2 (Dec. 22, 2008).
- 16.
As Hafez Ghanem notes:
Because global production levels are technically sufficient and because world food prices have long been low and stable, investment in agriculture has been steadily declining since the 1970s. As a result, the rate of growth of agricultural capital stock (ACS) in the world fell from 1.1 % in 1975–1990 to 0.50 % in 1991–2007.
Hafez Ghanem, World Food Security and Investment in Agriculture, Int’l Econ. Bull. (2009).
- 17.
John G. Ruggie, International Regimes, Transactions, and Change: Embedded Liberalism and the Postwar Economic Order, 36 Int. Org. 379 (1982).
- 18.
See HA-JOON CHANG, KICKING AWAY THE LADDER: DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE (2002); Ha-Joon Chang, Bad Samaritan: The Guilty Secrets of Rich Nations & the Threat to Global Prosperity (2007); Erik S. Reinert, How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor (2007).
- 19.
See JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ & ANDREW CHARLTON, FAIR TRADE FOR ALL: HOW TRADE CAN PROMOTE DEVELOPMENT 17 (rev. ed., 2007) (“To date, not one successful developing country has pursued a purely free market approach to development. In this context it is inappropriate for the world trading system to be implementing rules which circumscribe the ability of developing countries to use both trade and industry policies to promote industrialization”).
- 20.
The expression was coined by the economist John Williamson, who has since repudiated it. John Williamson, The Washington Consensus Revisited (Development Thinking and Practice Conference, Sept. 3–5, 1996).
- 21.
Keeping the Promise: United to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals, G.A. Res. 65/1, para. 37, U.N. Doc. A/RES/65/L.1 (Sept. 22, 2010).
- 22.
If we take into account not only its own growth performance but also its indirect impact on growth in other sectors, agriculture is 3.2 times more effective at reducing the number of very poor people (defined as those living below a USD one-per-day PPP poverty line) in low-income and resource-rich countries, at least in the absence of strong inequality. See Luc Christiaensen, Lionel Demery & Jesper Kuhl, The (Evolving) Role of Agriculture in Poverty Reduction—An Empirical Perspective (United Nations University, World Institute for Development Economics Research, Working Paper No. 2010/36, 2010).
- 23.
Irma Adelman, Beyond Export-Led Growth, 12 World Dev. 937 (1984).
- 24.
Report of the Study Group of the International Law Commission, Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties Arising From the Diversification and Expansion of International Law, para. 8, U.N. Doc.A/CN.4/L.702, (July 18, 2006); B. Simma, Self-Contained Regimes, 16 Netherlands Yearbook Int’l Law 111 (1985).
- 25.
Pascal Lamy, World Trade Organization [WTO], Humanising Globalization (Jan. 30, 2006). See also the speech of Pascal Lamy upon being conferred the doctorate honoris causa by the University of Geneva at its 450th anniversary on June 5, 2009: Pascal Lamy, World Trade Organization [WTO], Globalization and Trade Opening Can Promote Human Rights (June 5, 2009).
- 26.
See, on these difficulties, Olivier De Schutter, International Trade in Agriculture and the Right to Food, in ACCOUNTING FOR HUNGER: THE RIGHT TO FOOD IN THE ERA OF GLOBALISATION 137 (Olivier De Schutter & Kaitlin Cordes eds., 2011); Olivier De Schutter, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Briefing Note 4, World Trade Organisation and the Post-Global Food Crisis Agenda (Nov. 2011).
- 27.
See Alisa DiCaprio & Kevin P. Gallagher, The WTO and the Shrinking of Development Space: How Big is the Bite?, 7 J. World Investment & Trade 781 (Oct. 2006). For a general assessment of the compatibility between WTO disciplines and human rights, see Sarah Joseph, Blame it on the WTO? A Human Rights Critique (2011); James Harrison, The Human Rights Impact of the World Trade Organisation (2007).
- 28.
The Appellate Body of the WTO takes the view that commitments under the WTO framework cannot be treated “in clinical isolation” from general international law. Appellate Body Report, United States—Standards for Reformulated and Conventional Gasoline (United States v. Brazil and Venezuela), WT/DS2/AB/R (May 20, 1996).
- 29.
Kéba M’Baye, Le Droit au Développement Comme un Droit de l’Homme, Leçon Inaugurale de la Troisième Session d’Enseignement de l’Institut International des Droits de l’Homme (July 3, 1972), reproduced in 5 Revue des Droits de l’Homme 503 (1972).
- 30.
United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Res. 4 (XXXIII) (Feb. 4, 1977).
- 31.
The Secretary-General, Report of the Secretary-General: The International Dimensions of the Right to Development as a Human Right in Relation with Other Human Rights Based on International Co-Operation, including the Right to Peace, Taking into Account the Requirements of the New International Economic Order and the Fundamental Human Needs, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/1334 (Jan. 2, 1979).
- 32.
United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Res. 36 (XXXVII) (March 11, 1981).
- 33.
Declaration on the Right to Development, G.A. Res. 41/128, U.N. Doc. A/RES/41/128 (Dec. 4, 1986) (adopted with only one negative vote from the United States and eight abstentions).
- 34.
For an excellent and well-informed account of the history, by one key actor in this process, see Stephen P. Marks, The Politics of the Possible. The Way Ahead for the Right to Development (Dialogue on Globalization, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, June 2011).
- 35.
The Reform Document of the Committee on World Food Security states that “The CFS will strive for a world free from hunger where countries implement the voluntary guidelines for the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security”. CFS, supra note 1, at para. 4.
- 36.
On the use of indicators to measure compliance with human rights, see Maria Green, What We Talk About When We Talk About Indicators: Current Approaches to Human Rights Measurement, 23 Hum. Rits Q. 1062, 1062–1097 (2001); Todd Landman, Measuring Human Rights, Practice and Policy, 26 Hum. Rits Q. 906, 906–931 (2004); Gauthier de Beco, Measuring Human Rights: Underlying Approach, 3 E.H.R.L.R. 266, 266–278 (2007); Bronwyn Anne Judith Welling, International Indicators and Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, 30 Hum. Rits Q. 933, 933–958 (2008); Ann Janette Rosga & Margaret Satterthwaite, The Trust in Indicators: Measuring Human Rights, 27 Berkeley J. Int’l L. 253, 253–315 (2009). A synthesis is provided by T. Landman & E. Carvalho, Measuring Human Rights (2010).
- 37.
See, for a review of the challenges and tools available, Accountability for Human Rights Violations by International Organisations (Jan Wouters et al. eds., 2010).
- 38.
See generally TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS (Olivier De Schutter ed., 2006).
- 39.
See e.g., United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, Paul Hunt, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right of Everyone to the Enjoyment of the Highest Attainable Standard of Physical and Mental Health, Addendum: Missions to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C. (20 October 2006) and Uganda (4–7 February 2007), U.N. Doc. A/HRC/7/11/Add.2 (March 5, 2008); United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Addendum: Mission to the World Trade Organization, (25 June 2008), U.N. Doc. A/HRC/10/5/Add.2 (Feb. 4, 2009).
- 40.
See especially, United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General, John Ruggie, Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the Issue of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises and Human Rights, Protect, Respect and Remedy: A Framework for Business and Human Rights, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/8/5 (April 7, 2008); United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General, John Ruggie, Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the Issue of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises and Human Rights, Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/17/31 (March 21, 2011). Referring to this framework, the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises were revised in 2011, strengthening their human rights component.
- 41.
See Olivier De Schutter, et al., Commentary to the Maastricht Principles on Extraterritorial Obligations of States in the area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 34 Hum. Rts. Q. 1084 (2012) (including the full text of the Principles).
- 42.
See id. at Principle 8(b).
- 43.
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Addendum: Guiding Principles on Human Rights Impact Assessments of Trade and Investment Agreements U.N. Doc. A/HRC/19/59/Add.5 (Dec. 19, 2011).
- 44.
Allen Buchanan & Robert Keohane, The Legitimacy of Global Governance Institutions, 20 Ethics & Int’l Aff. 405 (2006). In their contribution, Buchanan and Keohane refer to human rights as one of the substantive criteria that are relevant in assessing the legitimacy of global institutions: such institutions, they write, “must not persist in committing serious injustices. If they do so, they are not entitled to our support. On our view, the primary instance of a serious injustice is the violation of human rights”. Id. at 419. That refers to what they call the “minimal moral acceptability” of global institutions. My position places the bar higher: it is that global governance institutions should be assessed primarily by the contribution they make to the realization of human rights.
- 45.
On the idea of a focal point that allow actors to negotiate based on certain baseline expectations, see chapter 3 of Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (1960).
- 46.
Buchanan & Keohane, supra note 44, at 421. See also id. at 427 (“Because what constitutes appropriate accountability is itself subject to reasonable dispute, the legitimacy of global governance institutions depends in part upon whether they operate in such a way as to facilitate principled, factually informed deliberation about the terms of accountability”).
- 47.
Thomas Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights 169 (2002).
- 48.
See above, text corresponding to note supra 1.
- 49.
CFS, supra note 1, at para. 9.
- 50.
Id. at para. 11.
- 51.
See generally Annette Aurélie Desmarais, The Power of Peasants: Reflections on the Meanings of La Via Campesina, 24 J. Rural Stud. 38 (2008); Transnational Agrarian Movements Confronting Globalization (Saturnino Borras et al. eds., 2008).
- 52.
Steven Suppan, Food Sovereignty in an Era of Trade Liberalisation: Are Multilateral Means Towards Food Sovereignty Feasible?, Global Security & Cooperation Q. 9 (2003).
- 53.
On these developments, see Nora McKeon & Carol Kalafatic, Strengthening Dialogue: UN Experience with Small Farmer Organisations and Indigenous Peoples 17 (UN, Non-Governmental Liaison Service, 2009); Nora McKeon et al., Peasant Associations in Theory and Practice (United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 2004).
- 54.
See Jessica Duncan & David Barling, Renewal Through Participation in Global Food Security Governance: Implementing the International Food Security and Nutrition Civil Society Mechanism to the Committee on World Food Security, 19 Int’l J. Soc. Agric. & Food 143, 144 (“By including civil society actors as official participants on the Committee, the CFS is championing a model of enhanced participation at the level of international policy-making, finding new ways to engage those civil society actors who have been located, previously, at the margins of official food security debates”).
- 55.
See Comm. on World Food Sec. [CFS], Proposal for an International Food Security and Nutrition Civil Society Mechanism for Relations with CFS, CFS:2010/9 (2010).
- 56.
CFS, supra note 1, at para. 5.
- 57.
Id. at para. 6.
- 58.
For initial proposals made in this regard during the reform process of the CFS, see United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, Coordinating, Learning, Monitoring: A New Role for the Committee on World Food Security (2009).
- 59.
On “double-loop learning”, see especially Chris Argyris, Single-Loop and Double-Loop Models in Research on Decision Making, 21 Admin. Sci. Q. 363 (1976); Ch. Argyris, Reasoning, Learning and Action: Individual and Organisational (1982); Chris Argyris, Knowledge for Action: A Guide to Overcoming Barriers to Organizational Change (1993).
- 60.
The first version of the Global Strategic Framework for Food Security and Nutrition was adopted at the 39th session of the CFS, held in Rome between 15 and 20 October 2012.
- 61.
There is an ample literature on learning in organizations on which this paragraph draws, and to which my contribution to the reform process of the CFS was heavily indebted. See in particular for a discussion of various learning-based theories of governance, Reflexive Governance: Redefining the Public Interest in a Pluralistic World (Olivier De Schutter & J. Lenoble eds., 2010). For an illustration of the how such an approach can shed light on the approach of an international organization, see Experimentalist Governance in the European Union: Towards a New Architecture (Ch. F. Sabel & J. Zeitlin eds., 2010). While learning can consist in one actor simply improving the instruments he uses to pursue certain objectives, “double-loop” learning consists, as already noted, in the objectives themselves being re-examined (see above, text corresponding to supra note 60); “triple-loop” learning would consist in an actor rethinking the core values by which he defines his identity and project. On “triple-loop” learning, see Joop Swieringa & André F.M. Wierdsma, Becoming a Learning Organization (1992).
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Schutter, O. (2014). The Reform of the Committee on World Food Security: The Quest for Coherence in Global Governance. In: Lambek, N., Claeys, P., Wong, A., Brilmayer, L. (eds) Rethinking Food Systems. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7778-1_10
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