Międzynarodowa ochrona prawa do wyżywienia

Abstract

The authors discuss in the first place the international regulations which expressly formulate the right to food, i.e.: the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Geneva Conventions and their two Protocols, the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners and the Universal Declaration on the Eradiction of Hunger and Malnutrition. A legal analysis of Article 11 of the Covenant is made in order to establish: the content of the right to food, the subjects or beneficiaries, the object or duty-holders and mechanisms to promote compliance. In the second part of their article the authors focus their attention on the problem of implementation from the angle of State's obligations. In general terms four obligations may by discerned: an obligation to respect, an obligation to protect, an obligation to ensure and an obligation to promote. The obligation to ensure and an obligation to promote together encompass what traditionally is called "programmatic" obligations with in the framework of economic, social and cultural rights. In the authors' opinion the economic and social rights may also involve elements of obligations to respect and to protect, especially if the right to food is concerned. The authors are not in favour of the idea of drafting a Right to Food Convention. However, what they consider necessary are specyfic conventions or a series of protocols spelling out the normative implications of the rigth to food. Such conventions or protocols are indispensable as the element and the basis of international cooperation for the protection of the rigth to food.