Focus on: Legislation and Accountability

In order to guarantee that every man, woman and child can realize their human right to adequate food, means must be available to hold states accountable for implementing policies that will progressively realize this right. All stakeholders must understand what the right to food means, and recourse mechanisms must be in place should the right be violated.

The Right to Food Guidelines (full text of the guidelines available on the Right to Food website) offer states practical guidance to develop effective institutional and legal frameworks to implement the right to adequate food and to establish independent monitoring mechanisms to implement these frameworks. In summary, the Guidelines recommend that states:

• ensure non-discriminatory physical and economic access to adequate food and to build an effective institutional framework to do so;
• review the legal framework for the progressive realization of the right to adequate food; and
• establish independent and autonomous mechanisms to monitor the progressive realization of the right to adequate food.

Guideline 5 recommends that states assess the performance of public institutions to improve coordination of government agency efforts. Full and transparent participation of all relevant parties should particularly include representatives of groups most affected by food insecurity. This guideline also recommends that a state entrust a specific institution with the overall responsibility for implementing the Right to Food Guidelines and take measures to combat corruptive policies in the food sector, particularly with regards to emergency food aid.

An adequate legal framework is essential if a state is to respect, protect and fulfil the right to adequate food without discrimination. Guideline 7 recommends that states include provisions in their domestic law, possibly at the constitutional level, to facilitate progressive realization of the right to adequate food. Such legal mechanisms allow vulnerable individuals and groups to seek remedies for violations of their right before administrative, quasi-judicial and judicial bodies.

States should also disseminate information about available entitlements and remedies and consider strengthening laws giving access to women heads of households, to poverty-reduction and nutrition security programmes and projects.