Food for a hare's thought (2)
-----------------------------
Human Rights Reader 47
STEPPING INTO THE NEW AGE OF THE RIGHT TO ADEQUATE NUTRITION: SNAIL
PACE PROGRESS?
(part 2 of 2)
The key issues to fight for:
23. What will become central in this urgently needed debate to be
followed by action is to understand that mainstreaming Human Rights
in nutrition work means the right to demand a whole series of things.
Among them:
* that economic and physical access to basic community-based nutri-
tion services is equally guaranteed for girls, women, the elderly,
minorities and the marginalized,
* that steps be taken to progressively achieve all Human Rights (the
right to adequate nutrition being only the point of departure for nu-
trition professionals),
* that the private sector (national and transnational) also be made
to comply with Human Rights dispositions,
* that expeditious and verifiable actions be undertaken towards real-
izing this right -starting now,
* that accountability, compliance and institutional responsibility be
required from relevant duty bearers in all processes under implemen-
tation aimed at improving nutrition,
* that administrative decisions in nutrition programs are in compli-
ance with Human Rights obligations,
* that governments' resilience to embark in meaningful nutrition in-
terventions be differentiated from their inability to comply,
* that - if unable to comply - the burden of proof be put on govern-
ments to convincingly show that there are reasons beyond their con-
trol to fulfill their right to adequate nutrition obligations,
* that national strategies on the right to adequate nutrition be
adopted defining clear, verifiable benchmarks,
* that the implementation of national nutritional strategies or plans
of action be transparent and decentralized, and include people's ac-
tive participation,
* that the same plans progressively also move towards eliminating
verty -the main determinant of malnutrition,
* that new legislation on the right to adequate nutrition be devel-
oped involving civil society representation in its preparation, en-
forcement and monitoring (!).
24. If the above demands are met, the added value of the rights-based
approach to nutrition will be such that:
* beneficiaries will become de-facto active claimants of their nutri-
tion rights,
* the respective imperatives will be made more forcefully (making
governments effectively liable),
* the process will underline the international and later national le-
gal obligations of states,
* the right to adequate nutrition will become the principal framework
used to make relevant program decisions,
* the process will move the debate from charity/compassion (where
there already is fatigue) to the language of rights and duties (ac-
countable to the international community) with its corresponding com-
pliance indicators that can be monitored.
25. It is in this light that the Human Rights approach enhances the
scope and effectiveness of nutritional, social and economic correc-
tive measures by directly referencing them to (close to) universally
accepted obligations found in related UN Covenants.
26. These obligations, let the reader be reminded, are in competition
with obligations stemming from other rights, especially when re-
sources are scarce. Nevertheless, one always has to keep in mind that
the duty to fulfill the right to adequate nutrition does not depend
on an economic justification and does not disappear because it can be
shown that tackling some other problems is more cost-effective.
27. To put things in a historical perspective, in the Basic Human
Needs-based approach, beneficiaries had no active claim to their
needs being met. The 'value-added' flowing from the Human Rights-
based approach is the legitimization of such claims giving them a
politico-legal thrust.
28. Going back to the example of the child, in the Basic Needs ap-
proach, the malnourished child was seen as an object with needs (and
needs do not necessarily imply duties or obligations, but promises).
In the Rights-Based approach, the malnourished child is seen as a
subject with legitimate entitlements and claims (and rights always
imply and are associated with duties and obligations). 29. This, in a
nutshell, is WHY nutritional professionals have to step into the new
age of the Right to Adequate Nutrition, picking up more of a hare's
rather than a snail's pace.
Claudio Schuftan
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
mailto:aviva@netnam.vn
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