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the United Nations system rests with the United Nations System Standing Com-
mittee on Nutrition (scn), formerly known as the United Nations Administrative
Committee on Coordination / Subcommittee on Nutrition. Representatives of bi-
lateral donor agencies, such as the Swedish International Development Agency
and the U.S. Agency for International Development, also participate in scn ac-
tivities. The scn also includes numerous international civil society organizations
concerned with food and nutrition.
The main role of the intergovernmental organizations is not to feed people di-
rectly but to help nations use their own resources more e’ectively. Thus, recog-
nition of the international dimensions of the human right to adequate food
global human rights 229
would not involve massive international transfers of food. The main function of
a new global program for ensuring the realization of the human right to adequate
food everywhere would be to press and help national governments address the
problem of inadequate food among their own people, using resources within
their own nations. There may always be a need for a global emergency food fa-
cility to help in emergency situations that are beyond the capacity of individual
nations, but a di’erent kind of design is needed for dealing with chronic food in-
security. Moreover, as chronic problems are addressed more e’ectively, nations
would increase their capacity for dealing with emergency situations on their own.
Over time, the need for emergency assistance from the outside would decline.
The intergovernmental organizations could use their leverage to press for the
realization of the human right to adequate food within the nations they serve. For
example, the World Food Program could make it known that in providing food
supplies for development it would favor those nations that are working to estab-
lish clear and e’ective entitlements for the most needy in their nations. The in-
tergovernmental organizations could be especially generous in providing assis-
tance to those nations that create national laws and national agencies devoted to
implementing the human right to adequate food. If they were relieved of some
of the burden of providing material resources, poor nations might be more will-
ing to create programs for recognizing and realizing the right. International
agencies could function on the basis of specific rules and principles that could be
viewed as precursors to recognition of a genuine international duty to recognize
and e’ectively implement the human right to adequate food.
The intergovernmental organizations are already concerned with hunger and
malnutrition, but these are only a part of their broad agendas. For example, the
Food and Agriculture Organization gives a great deal of attention to the interests
of food producers, and the World Health Organization deals with the full range
of health issues. unicef addresses a very broad range of subjects related to chil-
dren. Hunger and malnutrition have not yet gotten the commitment of attention
and resources needed to really solve the problems.
Many of the intergovernmental organizations already do good work in ad-
dressing hunger and malnutrition. If all the separate pieces were coordinated as
part of a large, long-term, goal-directed program, that new alignment of their re-
sources would make their e’orts much more e’ective. Their activities should be
reconceived so that they mesh together within a cogent program of action.
The concept of moving progressively toward a global regime of a hard right to
adequate food could be the basis for working out a global program of concerted
action. The intergovernmental organizations would continue to carry out their
other functions; but with regard to the challenge of addressing serious mal-
nutrition, their actions would be coordinated under the new Global Nutrition
Action Plan, formulated jointly by the intergovernmental organizations working
together with the countries of the world. This plan would spell out the com-
mitments of the various parties that were to play a role, and it would describe the
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institutional arrangements, the resource commitments, and the program of
action.
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