1. Human Right to Food
The human right to food1 is recognized and protected in a wide range of both declaratory and legally binding international instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,2 the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,3 the Convention on the Rights of the Child4 and the Universal Declaration on the Eradication of Hunger and Malnutrition.5 As a result, all States are obliged to progressively implement the right to food and provide guarantees against hunger and starvation, even in times of emergency,6 by ensuring the accessibility and “availability of food in quantity and quality sufficient to satisfy the dietary needs of individuals, free from adverse substances and acceptable within a given culture.”7
This legal obligation carries several duties.8 The most basic and unequivocal duty, the duty to respect, requires States to refrain from any action that interferes with people's access to food – in other words, to ensure that their own policies and practices do not cause or contribute to starvation.9
Furthermore, egregious violations of the right to food – as are occurring today in Afghanistan – inevitably result in violations of the right to life, the most fundamental of human rights.10 The Human Rights Committee of the UN has established that:
The expression ‘inherent right to life’ cannot properly be understood in a restrictive manner, and the protection of this right requires that States… take all possible measures to reduce infant mortality and to increase life expectancy, especially in adopting measures to eliminate malnutrition and epidemics.11
The Northern Alliance, which represents Afghanistan at the UN, has clear obligations to respect the right to food in all territory over which it exercises effective control.12 The Taliban, as a de facto government, has similar obligations in territory remaining under its control.13 At minimum, actions by either party that cause hunger or starvation, for example by interfering with the distribution of food aid, violate the duty to respect the right to food. In addition, the US bears legal responsibility for violations resulting from both its direct control over Afghan airspace and parts of the country, and its decisive military and political support for the Northern Alliance.
1 The right to food also includes access to safe drinking water, as water, like food, is essential for the survival of human beings and indispensable to agriculture, a fundamental element of the right to food.
2 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, G.A. Res. 217A of 10 December 1948, UN Doc. A/810 (1948).
3 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, UN Doc. A/RES/2200 A (XXI), (1966).
4 Convention on the Rights of the Child, UN Doc. A/RES/44/736 (1989).
5 Universal Declaration on the Eradication of Hunger and Malnutrition, adopted on 16 November 1974 by the World Food Conference convened under G.A. Res. 3180 (XXVIII) of 17 December 1973, and endorsed by G.A. Res. 3348 (XXIX) of 17 December 1974.
6 General Comment 12 of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR Committee), U.N. Doc. E/C.12/1999/5.
7 Ibid., para. 8.
8 See Asbjørn , Eide, “Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as Human Rights” in Eide, Krause and Rosas, eds.,Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: A Textbook, (Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995).
9 “The obligation to respect existing access to adequate food requires States parties not to take any measures that result in preventing such access.” ESCR Committee, General Comment 12, para. 15.
10 “The right to life enunciated in article 6 of the Covenant has been dealt with in all State reports. It is the supreme right from which no derogation is permitted even in time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation.” CCPR General Comment 6, The Right to Life.
11 Ibid.
12 The ESCR Committee has established that under the ICESR: “Every State is obliged to ensure for everyone under its jurisdiction access to the minimum essential food which is sufficient, nutritionally adequate and safe, to ensure their freedom from hunger.” General Comment 12, para. 14. Afghanistan ratified the ICESR on January 24, 1983.
