Summary:
The Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng, examines how the lack of access to food and nutrition has an impact on growth, development and quality of life.
Description:
General Overview: food, nutrition and the right to health
Using the frameworks of intersectionality, anti-coloniality and anti-racism, as well as existing international human rights laws and standards, the Special Rapporteur examines how food systems and food environments affect health outcomes. Her analysis exposes how inequities in food and nutrition reflect power asymmetries at every level of society. The report discusses the extensive impact of food insecurity on global populations, noting that over 2.4 billion people lack regular access to adequate food.
Additionally, it defines malnutrition as including undernutrition, overweight, obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases. In this sense, the report points out how it disproportionately affects the most marginalized groups within societies, including Indigenous Peoples, women, children, and infants. Moreover, the practices of some corporations, particularly those in high-income countries, exacerbate these issues. These practices, often rooted in neocolonialism, racism, and extractive capitalism, include exploiting natural resources for food production and marketing unhealthy foods in lower-income countries.
For the purposes of FULL, the most relevant part of the report are the policy recommendations. The Special Rapporteur endorses three of the policies that are the focus of this database:
- front-of-pack nutrition labeling,
- marketing restrictions, and
- fiscal policies.
Key Insights
Specifically, it states the following regarding these policies:
- The States’ obligation to protect the right to health and health-related rights includes mandatory front-of-package nutrition labelling, and specifically warning labels. For this purpose, the States must require that third parties – in this case, corporations – convey accurate, easily understandable and transparent information about products with excessive critical nutrients. Then, individuals can make informed dietary decisions. (paragraph 74)
- Front-of-package nutrition labelling also contributes to the realization of the right to information and the right to benefit from scientific progress and its application. These rights include access to scientific knowledge and information. (paragraph 75)
- States are obligated to regulate marketing. This includes the reduction of children’s exposure to food and beverage advertising. Furthermore, the States must ensure that industry provides accurate and easy-to-read nutrition information when advertising its products. (paragraph 78)
- In relation to the right to health, “equity demands that poorer households should not be disproportionately burdened with health expenses as compared to richer households”. In this sense, raxation and subsidy strategies can redistribute the relative costs of foods. Then, this kind of measure produces equity and empowering decision-making. (paragraph 80)
- “States also have the immediate obligation to take ‘deliberate, concrete, and targeted’ measures towards fulfilling economic, social and cultural rights”. As an example, revenue collected from taxes is an important step. This measure allow “each State to comply with its obligation to progressively achieve the full realization of rights’ to the maximum of its available resources’ and ‘by all appropriate means'”. (paragraph 81)
The Special Repporteur has also mentioned that the measures adopted by Brazil, Colombia, Barbados, and Mexico (uploaded here on FULL) are good practices.