Prospects and Challenges of Embedding the Human Right to Food Obligations into the Legal Framework for International Agricultural Trade Regulation

Abstract

Although many academic commentators have long argued that the World Trade Organization (WTO)-driven liberal rules of international agricultural trade regulation have a negative effect on the enjoyment of the human right to food, especially in developing countries, there is still a dearth of scholarship offering proposals to ameliorate the situation. This article fills this gap by presenting a discussion of the possible avenues for accommodating the food security-related human rights obligations of states in the extant legal framework for international agricultural trade regulation. It argues that such a development, among other measures, is a plausible response to the problem of food insecurity endemic in developing countries and which manifests in international agricultural trade regulation. The article contends that for the WTO to effectively address the human right to food concerns of developing countries, the free trade regulations, as practised in international agricultural trade, must be complemented with the human right to food as a supreme norm sine qua non lege. It is concluded that this eminently desirable outcome can be achieved through the assimilation of the human right to food into the ‘public morals clause’ of Article XX of the GATT, reading the human right to food into the Agreement on Agriculture, adopting some WTO Ministerial Conference proposals, re-configuring some WTO dispute settlement practices, and lastly, by adopting the proposal of the UN Special Rapporteur on the human right to food.