Beyond commitment; The Right to Food as an obligation

Food is a human right, yet it is constantly violated as the global scale of hunger makes obvious. According to the latest Global Report on Food Crisis, more than 295 million people faced acute hunger last year. Sudan is currently experiencing the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. From Gaza and Sudan to Yemen and Mali, conflict and instability are driving hunger to record levels, pushing millions of families to the brink of starvation. 

Yet these numbers still do not capture the full picture. In several critical contexts, including Burundi, the occupied Palestinian territories, Sudan and Yemen, data gaps make it impossible to calculate complete scores, as this year’s Global Hunger Index notes. The authors assume the real situation is even more alarming than the figures suggest.  

Overall, the devastating hunger figures have barely changed over the past decade, despite world leaders’ pledge to end hunger by 2030. 

The persistence of hunger is not only a failure of policy or economics; it is a violation of this fundamental right. Too often, hunger is treated as something to be solved through more aid, better functioning global markets or improved agricultural efficiency. But this problem analysis lacks a deeper understanding: hunger results from inequality, exclusion and the lack of political accountability. People are not hungry because there is not enough food; they are hungry because their human rights are not protected.  

A human rights based approach shifts the focus from charity to obligation, from need to entitlement. Individuals are rights holders and states are duty bearers who are legally responsible for ensuring that that everyone has the right to food that must be healthy, of sufficient quality and quantity, and culturally acceptable. The right to food therefore encompasses more than just a daily caloric intake. The right to food is enshrined in and protected through international law, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. 

At its core, this approach is guided by key principles: participation, accountability, non-discrimination, transparency, human dignity and the rule of law. It means that those affected by hunger must have a voice in shaping the policies that concern them. Governments must be transparent in their actions and open to scrutiny. Decisions that affect the food of people cannot be made behind closed doors or driven solely by profit. 

When policies are built on these principles, hunger is no longer seen as inevitable but as unacceptable. A rights-based approach exposes the injustice behind hunger and makes clear that states have the obligation to correct it. Hunger is not caused by insufficient food production but by ineffective distribution. The fact that access to food continues to be obstructed, threatened or denied is the result of a lack of political will.