UN's Food Rights Advocate Warns Speculators
UNITED NATIONS, May 2 (OneWorld) - The global food crisis is likely to persist if speculative investment by the corporate world is not reined in soon, warned a top expert responsible for reporting to the United Nations on human rights violations.
The newly appointed UN rapporteur on the right to food told a news conference here Friday that currently many major investment firms were heavily investing in food commodities, such as corn, wheat, and cattle. "This is not a natural disaster. It's not an earthquake," he said. "This is a man-made crisis, and we know its causes on which we we must act." De Schutter, a Belgian national who teaches law at the University of Louvain and the College of Europe, emphasized in a statement that those involved in causing skyrocketing food prices do not actively intend to violate human rights. But failure to act to protect hungry people should be seen as a rights violation, he added. De Schutter urged governments to act quickly against such trends to prevent further escalation in the current food crisis. "Governments may not remain passive in the current crisis," he said. "Passivity would constitute a violation of the right to food by neglect."
De Schutter said he intended to raise the issue of the current food crisis and its causes at the upcoming meeting of the Human Rights Council due to take place May 22. He said he hoped the 47-member rights body would heed his calls for the member states to take practical actions to ensure access to food for all. The special rapporteur agrees with independent researchers that international trade imbalances between the rich countries of the industrialized North and the poorer agriculture-based societies in the South are also a major factor, in addition to phenomenal growth in population. "The subsidies (in the agriculture sector) in the developed countries are ruining the developing countries' producers," he said.
According to the UN estimates, currently more than 800 million people are in a state of food insecurity in the world. Most of them live in sub-Saharan Africa or in South Asia. It is estimated that the current increase in global food prices -- by 83 percent over the last three years -- will lead to at least 100 million more people facing hunger and starvation. The current food crisis has unleashed a wave of unrest in about 40 countries that also involved violent clashes with police by protesters. In pressing the UN Human Rights Council to convene a special session on the food crisis, De Schutter said the right to adequate food had been "for the moment totally absent" from the debate about economic and humanitarian aid to meet the current crisis. "If we had 100 million persons arrested in a dictatorial regime [or] if we had 100 million persons beaten up by police, of course we would be marching on the streets and we'd be convening special sessions of the Council," De Schutter said. "Every single one of these 100 million individuals deserves the same degree of attention from the international community as if the person had been arbitrarily arrested or detained for his or her political opinions." Earlier this week, UN chief Ban Ki-moon formed an international task force to prepare a global plan of action to tackle the rise in food prices. OneWorld TV: Sustainable Farming and Development
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