The Right to Food

A/RES/56/155No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 119bHuman rights questions, including alternative approaches for improving the effective enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms, published in 2002.

What else is in this group?

42 documents · 2002–2026

Newer documents in this group exist (latest: 2026).

2026A/HRC/RES/61/13The right to foodCompare with earlier document
2025A/RES/80/210The right to foodCompare with earlier document
2024A/RES/79/171The right to foodCompare with earlier document
2024A/HRC/RES/55/4The right to foodCompare with earlier document
2023A/RES/78/198The right to foodCompare with earlier document

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What does this mandate say?

18 operative paragraphs

Reaffirms that hunger constitutes an outrage and a violation of human dignity and therefore requires the adoption of urgent measures at the national, regional and international levels for its elimination;

Also reaffirms the right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious food, consistent with the right to adequate food and the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger so as to be able fully to develop and maintain their physical and mental capacities;

Considers it intolerable that 826 million people, most of them women and children, throughout the world and particularly in developing countries, do not have enough food to meet their basic nutritional needs, which infringes upon their fundamental human rights and at the same time can generate additional pressures on the environment in ecologically fragile areas;

Encourages all States to take steps with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of the right to food, including steps to promote the conditions for everyone to be free from hunger and, as soon as possible, to enjoy fully the right to food, and to elaborate and adopt national plans to combat hunger;

Stresses the need to make efforts to mobilize and optimize the allocation and utilization of technical and financial resources from all sources, including external debt relief for developing countries, and to reinforce national actions to implement sustainable food security policies;

Urges States to give adequate priority in their development strategies and expenditures to the realization of the right to food;

Takes note of the report of the United Nations Children’s Fund on early childhood entitled The State of the World’s Children, 2001, and in this context recalls that the nurturing of young children merits the highest priority;

Takes note with appreciation of the preliminary report of the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the right to food, submitted in accordance with Commission resolution 2001/25, and commends the Special Rapporteur for his valuable work in the promotion of the right to food;

Supports the realization of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur as established by the Commission on Human Rights in its resolutions 2000/10 and 2001/25;

Emphasizes the request of the Commission on Human Rights to the Special Rapporteur to contribute effectively to the medium-term review of the implementation of the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and the Plan of Action of the World Food SummitError: Reference source not found by submitting to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights his recommendations on all aspects of the right to food;

Encourages the Special Rapporteur to mainstream a gender perspective in the activities relating to his mandate;

Requests the Secretary-General and the High Commissioner to provide all the necessary human and financial resources for the effective fulfilment of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur;

Welcomes the work already done by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in promoting the right to adequate food, in particular its General Comment No. 12 (1999) on the right to adequate food (article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), in which the Committee affirmed, inter alia, that the right to adequate food is indivisibly linked to the inherent dignity of the human person and is indispensable for the fulfilment of other human rights enshrined in the International Bill of Human Rights, and is also inseparable from social justice, requiring the adoption of appropriate economic, environmental and social policies, at both the national and international levels, oriented to the eradication of poverty and the fulfilment of all human rights for all;

Also welcomes the convening by the High Commissioner at Bonn, from 12 to 14 March 2001, of the Third Expert Consultation on the Right to Food, with a focus on implementation mechanisms at the country level, hosted by the Government of Germany, and takes note with interest of the report of this meeting;

Supports the recommendation that the High Commissioner organize a fourth expert consultation on the right to food, with a focus on the realization of this right as part of strategies and policies for the eradication of poverty, inviting experts from all regions;

Requests the Special Rapporteur to submit a comprehensive report to the Commission on Human Rights at its fifty-eighth session and an interim report to the General Assembly at its fifty-seventh session on the implementation of the present resolution;

Invites Governments, relevant United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, treaty bodies and non-governmental organizations to cooperate fully with the Special Rapporteur in the fulfilment of his mandate, inter alia, through the submission of comments and suggestions on ways and means of realizing the right to food;

Decides to continue the consideration of this matter at its fifty-seventh session under the agenda item entitled “Human rights questions”.

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The Right to Food

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