MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

“A massive violation of the right to adequate food”

UN Olivier de Schutter

The Human Rights Council should convene to discuss the current global food crisis because it is important to view the problem of soaring prices as “a massive violation of the right to adequate food,” a United Nations expert on the subject said this week.

Speaking in New York, the newly appointed UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier de Schutter, called for a special session of the HRC so that the Council can "speak with one single voice." Mr. 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 Human Rights Council," Mr. de Schutter said. "Every single 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." The Special Rapporteur, who took over the role last week from his predecessor, Jean Ziegler, added that "governments cannot remain passive in the current crisis," and called for a range of measures to tackle the issue. He said that States should increase their support to humanitarian agencies and provide cash transfers to the neediest segments of populations in food-insecure countries. In the longer-term he called for greater financial support for small-scale farmers, action to combat climate change, and the phasing out of "market-distorting" agricultural subsidies. Mr. de Schutter said that the world needed to do much more "not only to respond to this crisis but to prevent further similar crises from occurring. I would not want in 10 years' time to see another crisis of this amplitude. This is not a natural disaster. It's not an earthquake. It's a crisis which is man-made," he said. Earlier last week the UN announced that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had assembled an international task force which would prepare a global plan of action to tackle the global rise in food prices.