Summary

In his first report, the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, conveys to the General Assembly that trade policy has primarily focused on economic frameworks and has either ignored or marginalized people’s human rights concerns. At the same time, human rights policy has provided a powerful sociopolitical critique of trade but does not offer an institutional alternative to the existing regime. Neither approach has adequately responded to climate change. The present report blends trade and human rights perspectives and provides principles and an institutional map that can improve understanding of the right to food anew in political, economic and ecological terms.