SECTION I: OVERVIEW
I-a. Purpose
Each year, about twelve million children die before their fifth birthdays, about half of them from causes associated with malnutrition. This is a silent holocaust, repeated year after year. Malnutrition leads to death, illness, and significantly reduced quality of life for hundred of millions. People should not have to suffer from malnutrition. More than that, people have a right to not be malnourished, as a matter of law. The right is articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and several other international instruments. Since people have the human right to food and nutrition, nation-states and the governments that represent them have obligations to assure that the right is realized. Nations that are parties to these agreements have made a commitment to assure the realization of the human right to food and nutrition.
The purpose of this tutorial is to help its users understand the meaning of economic, social and cultural rights through study of one aspect of these rights, the human right to food and nutrition. It is designed to help in formulating suggestions for improved policy or law with regard to the human right to food and nutrition in a specific agency or country. To illustrate, it should be of value to:
- the director of a nutrition program within a country;
- the director of a food-related program in an international agency;
- an executive in a Ministry of Agriculture or Ministry of Health who is responsible for some aspects of food and nutrition.
- a member of a country's legislature.
The tutorial suggests how such individuals might formulate recommendations to adapt their agency's or their country's activities to conform more closely with the human rights framework, and thus contribute more effectively to the realization of human rights. Users of the tutorial who are not in such policy making positions can select a particular agency or country on which to focus, and then formulate recommendations on how that agency or country could strengthen its policy or law in relation to the human right to food and nutrition. Thus, the orientation of this tutorial is to guide its users in working out the implications of the human right to food and nutrition in concrete situations.
At a deeper level, the purpose of this tutorial is to help expand the base of shared understandings of human rights in general and the human right to food and nutrition in particular.
The tutorial is designed to be used in a variety of different formats. It could be used by an individual, working through the material at his or her own pace. Or it could be used in a workshop or classroom setting. Our plan is to organize a version of this tutorial as an on-line course. In that format, anyone, anywhere, who has access to email and the Worldwide Web would be able to work through the material. Individuals who take the course would be in communication via email with its coordinator, with a team of expert advisers, and also with other individuals taking the course at the same time.
Continue to I-b.Technical Notes
Subsection I-a last updated on July 13, 1999