Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
should monitor and undertake impact assessments of the trade rules they subscribe
to and revise those that conflict with human rights.
This extends to the agricultural commodities trading sector. Speculation must be
regulated. UNCTAD (2008) considers that staple food prices should not be subjec-
ted to speculation on the stok exhange, but should be ixed by international agree-
ments between producer countries and consumer countries. The UNCTAD method
of regulating these agreements through bufer stoks and Stabex could be a solution.
The complementary solution is to reform, drastically, the regulations for trading in
futures and options through normative decisions in order to control the worst ab-
uses.
Conclusion
Under Article 11(2) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights, governments have recognized the fundamental right of everyone to be free
from hunger. However, the reality is that the current food crisis represents a failure
to meet the obligations set out to ensure an equitable distribution of world food sup-
plies in relation to need. The food crisis also reflects the failure of national and inter-
national policies to ensure physical and economic access to food for all. The global
food crisis was not an unavoidable natural disaster: it was the result of deliberate
steps to downgrade the agricultural industry in countries most at need, deprioritize
global food production, and destabilize the global food market. There are lessons to
be learned from this, and we now have the opportunity to reframe the international
system to beter redress global food security through the implementation of a hu-
man rights based approah. he adoption of a human rights based approah to food
and agriculture will help to ensure that those most vulnerable in the face of the glob-
al food crisis will be beter protected and that their needs will be incorporated into
policy-making, thus upholding the right to food as a right for everyone.
he human rights-based approah to food and agriculture is not a complex vision
of utopia, however; it simply involves prioritizing human dignity and the prin-
ciples of participation, accountability, non-discrimination, transparency, empower-
ment, and the rule of law. But in doing so, a fundamental shift in the world order will
result, hallenging the hegemony of the international trading system, including the
WTO and the international financial institutions. People, rather than profits, would
take priority, and food production for the sake of feeding people would take preced-
ence over the skewed prioritization that policies based on comparative advantage
