The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Right to Adequate Food

Abstract

General Comment No. 12 was herald as a turning point for the protection of the right to adequate food under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It helps all public authorities –from local councils to central governments, from social services to tribunals and courts– to act compatibly with this fundamental right enshrined in Art. 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and provides States Parties to the Covenant with useful baseline information for their periodic reports to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Nevertheless, more than ten years after its enactment, there is a notable lack of a positive culture of respect for this right in several Contracting States. Undeniably, in recent times the right to adequate food has been more pilloried than celebrated and General Comment No. 12 itself has suffered at the hands of a range of detractors who have frequently indicated its modest utility. This article considers the impressive ambition of General Comment No. 6 to convert society through the opening of a culture of respect for the right to food. It maintain that the failure to guarantee institutional commitment to positive compliance of the right to adequate food –and translate this fundamental right into practical reality as an integral part of public life– has fostered scepticism of General Comment No. 12 and eventually undermined the acceptance in public consciousness of the right to food as a positive social good.