RIGHT TO FOOD AND NUTRITION WATCH

INTRODUCTION
The social struggle for nutrition, as an inherent element of the right to adequate
food, gained significant momentum as 2014 drew to a close, with the Second International
Conference on Nutrition (ICN2). The negotiations failed to recognize that
the current hegemonic food system and agro-industrial production model, heavily
dictated by a corporate-led agenda, are among the main causes of the different forms
of malnutrition and of a decrease in the diversity and quality of diets. Is nutrition
becoming part of a business rather than a human right?
The Watch Consortium and the Global Network, comprised of civil society organizations
and social movements, aim to dig deeper into this discussion, presenting a broader
concept of nutrition from a human rights perspective against the competing visions
of wider civil society and the private sector, as well as the way forward in achieving
nutritional well-being, and the related capabilities (e.g., immune, cognitive, learning
and socialization capacities) as the ultimate objective of the right to adequate food.
Around 795 million people will continue to suffer from undernourishment over the
next two years, despite commitments made at the 1996 World Food Summit and
through the Millennium Development Goals. What went wrong?
The Right to Food and Nutrition Watch 2015—“Peoples’ Nutrition Is Not a
Business”—conducts a human rights review of the status of nutrition and assesses
the impact of business operations on communities across the world. In the last few
decades nutrition has been reduced to the mere measurement of nutrients in food and
human bodies, thereby disregarding the socio-economic and cultural context in which
human beings feed themselves. As a result, malnutrition is narrowly defined as a lack
of nutrients that can be rectified with external technical interventions, such as industrialized
food supplements, nutrient pills and powders. Policy responses to overcome
malnutrition have thus ended up mostly revolving around programs run, or heavily
influenced by, the corporate sector, leaving aside the promotion of locally produced
diversified diets and stripping people—with a particular impact on women—of their
capability to protect family nutrition and human rights. There is an urgent need to
re-visit approaches to nutrition and promote alternatives that will ensure the right to
adequate food and nutrition for all, within the life cycle approach, intimately dependent
on sustainable local food systems, healthy adequate living and care conditions,
with people at the center.
As in previous editions, the Watch 2015 is divided into two main sections. The
first, the thematic section, looks at the issue of nutrition from a human rights perspective,
bringing the impact of business operations into sharp focus. It also touches upon
the future UN treaty on human rights, transnational corporations (TNCs) and other
business enterprises; the ongoing negotiations on food security at the WTO; and trade
and investment negotiations within the framework of the TTIP, CETA and TPP, ‘hot’
policy processes this year. The second section of the Watch, organized by geographical
region, features relevant developments around the right to food and nutrition at local
and national levels, and how social movements and civil society are addressing the
challenges they face.
The piece that kicks off the thematic section discusses how corporate interests
are increasingly capturing national and international food and nutrition policy spaces.
The author argues that, in order to stop this dangerous trend, people must hold their
governments accountable for the implementation of their national and extraterritorial
human rights obligations. Expanding on the analysis of the corporate agenda, the
following article looks at how NGOs and governments in developing countries are
being lured into partnerships with corporations, creating a ‘business of malnutrition’. It
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