1. Reconciling Trade with the Right to Food International Human Rights Organization for the Right to Food

2. Reconciling Trade with the Right to Food The Human Right to adequate Food (Art. 11 of International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights)  = physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or the means to its procurement”  Food must be adequate in terms of quantity, quality and cultural acceptability  Obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the right to food  Imply obligations towards people in other countries: “extraterritorial state obligations” (ETO)

3. Reconciling Trade with the Right to Food Right to Food and Trade  General Comment: Strategies to realize the Right to Food (RtF) must involve production, processing, distribution, marketing and consumption of food  Vulnerable producers need access to local markets and fair prices to have sufficient incomes and adequate food  Vulnerable consumers need permanent physical and economic access to food

4. Reconciling Trade with the Right to Food Human Rights prevail over Trade Rules  Article 103 of UN-Charta: Obligations of the Charta (including Human Rights) prevail over other international obligations of states  The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: any treaty in conflict with general international law is to be considered void  The UN-HRC: “States should make every effort to ensure that […] international trade agreements do not have a negative impact on the right to food”

5. Reconciling Trade with the Right to Food Case based Impact Assessments  Have specific trade policy measures contributed to violations of the right to food of specific groups of people?  Challenges: verify causal links between specific policy measures and hunger and distinguish between different actors like World Bank, IMF, WTO and bilateral FTAs  Three levels of analysis: 1) macroeconomic and political context, 2) community and 3) Human Rights analysis

6. Reconciling Trade with the Right to Food Case studies  Small rice producers in Ghana, Honduras and Indonesia wiped out of markets by import surges → forced reduction of tariffs and support + US dumping  Small chicken and tomato producers in Ghana wiped out of markets → tariffs reduced through IMF and locked in through Stand Still Clause of the EPA towards EU  EPAs, increased EU milk quota and new export subsidies threaten incomes of small milk farmers in Zambia and Uganda

7. Reconciling Trade with the Right to Food WTO Rules work against the Right to Food  Reduce policy space to shield vulnerable small producers from low-priced imports  Allow “non trade-distorting” subsidies that can also lead to dumping destructive to vulnerable producers  Promote export orientation and the neglect of domestic food producers which are most vulnerable to hunger  Increase reliance on imports and threaten permanent access to affordable food of poor consumers (volatility)

8. Reconciling Trade with the Right to Food Ending Fragmentation of International Law 1.Exception clauses and flexibilities in trade agreements to safeguard policy spaces to realize human rights 2.Human Rights Impact Assessments ex ante to guide negotiations and allow refusal in case of conflicts 3.Harmonization through interpretation: implementing trade agreements in coherence with human rights 4.Sunset Clauses: HRIAs ex post and eventual revisions

9. Reconciling Trade with the Right to Food Thank you very much!