The right to food
A/RES/72/173
funding shortfalls are forcing the World Food Programme to cut operations across
different regions, including Southern Africa;
37. Calls upon States to heed the urgent United Nations humanitarian appeal
to assist countries facing drought, starvation and famine with emergency aid and
urgent funding, and underlines that, if no immediate response is received, an
estimated 20 million people, most of whom are women and children, risk losing their
lives;
38. Invites all relevant international organizations, including the World Bank
and the International Monetary Fund, to continue to promote policies and projects
that have a positive impact on the right to food, to ensure that partners respect the
right to food in the implementation of common projects, to support strategies of
Member States aimed at the fulfilment of the right to food and to avoid any actions
that could have a negative impact on its realization;
39. Takes note with appreciation of the interim report of the Special
Rapporteur, 19 which contextualizes the dire situation of severe food insecurity in
several countries currently most affected by internal and international conflict and
discusses the existing regulatory architecture of human rights law and international
humanitarian law;
40. Recognizes the importance of giving due consideration to the adverse
impact of climate change and to the full realization of the right to food, takes note of
the Paris Agreement, adopted at the twenty-first session of the Conference of the
Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in
Paris from 30 November to 13 December 2015, 20 and welcomes the holding of the
twenty-second session of the Conference of the Parties in Marrakech, Morocco, from
7 to 18 November 2016;
41. Also recognizes the impact of climate change and of the El Niño
phenomenon on agricultural production and food security around the world and the
importance of designing and implementing actions to reduce its effects, in particular
on vulnerable populations, such as rural women, bearing in mind the role that they
play in supporting their households and communities in achieving food and nutrition
security, generating income and improving rural livelihoods and overall well-being;
42. Reiterates its support for the realization of the mandate of the Special
Rapporteur, and requests the Secretary-General and the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights to continue to provide all the human and financial
resources necessary for its effective fulfilment;
43. Welcomes the work already done by the Committee on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights in promoting the right to adequate food, in particular its general
comment No. 12 (1999) on the right to adequate food (article 11 of the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), 21 in which the Committee
affirmed, inter alia, that the right to adequate food is indivisibly linked to the inherent
dignity of the human person, indispensable for the fulfilment of other human rights
enshrined in the International Bill of Human Rights and inseparable from social
justice, requiring the adoption of appropriate economic, environmental and social
policies, at both the national and the international levels, oriented to the eradication
of poverty and the fulfilment of all human rights for all;
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19
20
21
17-22986
A/72/188.
FCCC/CP/2015/10/Add.1, decision 1/CP.21, annex.
See Official Records of the Economic and Social Council, 2000, Supplement No. 2 and
corrigendum (E/2000/22 and E/2000/22/Corr.1), annex V.
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