ADVISORY COMMITTEE DECIDES TO SEND LETTER TO HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL TO CONSIDER HOLDING A SPECIAL SESSION ON THE FOOD CRISIS IN THE HORN OF AFRICA

The Human Rights Council Advisory Committee today decided to send a letter requesting the Human Rights Council to consider holding a special session on the food crisis in the Horn of Africa. It also continued to consider requests addressed to the Advisory Committee stemming from the Human Rights Council resolutions, and under the right to food discussed an update to the preliminary study on the advancement of the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas, the preliminary study on severe malnutrition and childhood diseases with children affected by Noma as an example, and a concept paper on the urban poor.

The Advisory Committee decided to send a letter to the Human Rights Council requesting that it convene a special session on the food crisis in East Africa. Halima Embarek Warzazi, Committee Expert, said that the letter would note that in the last months the food security situation of millions of people living in East Africa had deteriorated with famine occurring due to a combination of factors, including drought, increase in food prices, conflict and lack of structural rural development. The Advisory Committee, deeply preoccupied by the food crisis, would like to draw the attention of the Human Rights Council to the crisis and to have it consider holding a special session on the food crisis in East Africa and identified three areas of action. First, there was a need for urgent action to increase access to nutritious food, clean water, sanitation and health protection for vulnerable individuals of East Africa. Second, there was a requirement for structural measures to reduce vulnerability, protect the right to food and combat discrimination. Third, there was an urgent need to address the special vulnerable situation of women and children.

Speaking on the letter were Committee Experts Mona Zulficar, Dheerujlall Seetusling, Wolfgang Stefan Heinz, Vladimir Kartashkin, Chen Shiqiu and Alfred Ntunduguru Karokora.

Jean Ziegler, Chairperson of the Drafting Group on the right to food, presenting an update on the preliminary study on the advancement of the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas, noted that men, women and children working in rural areas constituted over 3 billion people in the world, half of humanity, and over 70 per cent of them suffered from hunger. Almost 1 billion people were constantly undernourished, one in six persons, which had drastic consequences for babies and children. The reasons for such hunger related to access to land, insufficient protection against appropriation and forced displacement, discrimination against women, lack of agrarian reform and rural development policies, insufficient investment in agriculture and crops, lack of welfare protection and minimum wage and unions and cooperatives, which were either punished, repressed or deemed as criminal organizations. Mr. Ziegler stressed that the grave situation among food producers, especially in East Africa, where 12 million people from five countries were on the point of starvation, was clear evidence of the problem of hunger and said there was a clear need for a convention on the right to land that would be legally binding.

Speaking on this issue were Committee Experts Dheerujlall Seetusling and Ahmer Bilal Soofi. The following Member States took the floor: Poland, on behalf of the European Union, Switzerland, Cuba, Ethiopia, Bolivia and Algeria. Non-governmental organizations speaking this afternoon included: FIAN International and the Indian Movement Tupaj Amaru.

Mr. Ziegler, taking up the Preliminary Study on Severe Malnutrition and Childhood Diseases with Children Affected by Noma as an Example, said that Noma, the Latin word to devour, was a disease due to chronic and permanent malnutrition, affecting children in particular and leading to gingivitis, an infection of the mouth, which if it not immediately treated, would attack the face leading to a closing of the jaw. The survival rate was between 10 and 30 per cent and at least 100,000 people died annually in Africa from Noma, namely children. The causes were due to poor nutrition, lack of medicine and poverty. The disease was not difficult to eradicate because the methods of treatment were easy to identify and readily accessible. Mr. Ziegler stressed the need for a resolution by the World Health Organization to declare Noma a neglected disease. Noma should also be recognized by the Advisory Committee and the Human Rights Council as a specific violation to the right to food which would compel international organizations to focus on combating it.

Chung Chinsung, Committee Expert, introduced a concept paper on urban poor, noting that half of the global population lived in cities and at least one third of all urban dwellers were poor, representing one quarter of the world’s population. Ms. Chung stressed the need for development policies which considered the human rights of the poor and the implementation of measures to support them such as social safety nets, minimum daily wages and the empowerment of the poor through education and enhancing political representation. She said a preliminary report would be submitted in February 2012 with a final report in August 2012.

Speaking on these issues were Committee Experts Shigeki Sakamoto and Jose Antonio Bengoa Cabello. Also speaking were the following Member States: Cuba, Algeria and Burkina Faso. The World Health Organization took the floor.

The next meeting of the Advisory Committee will be held on Wednesday, 10 August at 10 a.m., when it is scheduled to discuss item three of the agenda on traditional values and human rights.

Opening Statement

MONA ZULFICAR, Committee Expert, said that the Drafting Group had completed the study on discrimination and the right to food and best practices and strategies which resulted in four projects. The first two, one on the rights of peasants and the rural population and another on malnutrition and child diseases were both advanced and would be discussed today. The study on the rights of peasants was circulated to Member States and the Committee had received responses and following discussions today it would come back with a revised study in February for presentation to the Human Rights Council in March 2012. The preliminary study on malnutrition would be discussed this afternoon and next February a revised version would be considered with the aim of presenting to the Human Rights Council in March 2012. The third and fourth projects which were mandated to the Advisory Council were still in the first phase, one on rural women, who were responsible for producing at least 50 per cent of the production of food but who constituted 70 per cent of those who suffered from hunger. A concept note on rural women would be considered in this session. The fourth study was on the urban poor. For these last two reports there were only concept notes which would evolve into working papers for the February meeting.

Discussion on Recent Developments and the Way Forward to the Finalization of the Preliminary Report on the Rights of Persons Working in Rural Areas

JEAN ZIEGLER, Chairperson of the Drafting Group on the Right to Food, said that the report was based on resolution 13/4 of the Human Rights Council. The preliminary study was carried out and the States addressed it at the sixteenth session of the Council along with a side seminar in March 2011. The Council resolution requested that the Advisory Committee submit its final study in March 2012. Those working in rural areas constituted over 3 billion people in the world, half of humanity and over 70 per cent of them suffered from hunger. Almost 1 billion people were constantly undernourished, one in six persons, which had drastic consequences for babies and children. The reasons for this hunger were related to access to land, protection against appropriation and forced displacement, huge discrimination against women, lack of agrarian reform and rural development policies, insufficient investment in agriculture and crops, lack of welfare protection and minimum wage and unions and cooperatives that were often punished or repressed, deemed as criminal organizations and dealt with by military means. The grave situation among food producers, especially in East Africa, where 12 million people from five countries were on the point of starvation, was evidence of this problem.

Mr. Ziegler said a number of Western countries during the sixteenth session of the Human Rights Council, in response to the proposals of the Advisory Committee, were against the results in the preliminary report, notably the German mission which stated that there was no need for new rights or protection for rural populations as the existing protections for human rights were sufficient. However, peasant movements throughout the world were demanding new legally enforceable rights to protect them against hunger and starvation. For example, the need for new rights was only too apparent from what was happening in East Africa, especially in Ethiopia, where peasants suffered from a dreadful catastrophe. The right to land in Ethiopia, and the alienation of land from peasants was a key issue. For example the Saudi Development Corporation received 50,000 hectares of arable land and other colossal swathes of arable land were given to hedge funds at low prices, 1.5 Euros per hectare for the Saudi Development Corporation to grow sugarcane for bio-fuels which resulted in the eviction of thousands of families. Although 19 million hectares over the last five years had been withdrawn from farmers, the World Bank stated this would have a minimal impact because productivity was very low per hectare in Africa. The expropriation of land in Ethiopia occurred in tropical areas that were very fertile. Ethiopian farmers were combative and despite their good organization, these farmers had started to migrate from the places where 80 per cent of the populations had been located in order to stop starvation. Legally speaking, there was a clear need for a new right for land to provide for peasants. Hedge funds and multinational companies that acquired arable land, taken away by force from the African farmer, were funded by the World Bank, the European Investment Bank and the African Development Bank. A clear need existed for a convention that would be legally binding and the expert urged civil society to support a declaration to set out these new rights which would have an impact on the Committees in charge of existing Conventions.

The update on the preliminary study of the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee on the advancement of the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas (A/HRC/AC/7/CRP.1), prepared by Jean Ziegler on behalf of the Drafting Group on the right to food, summarizes the views and comments of States and other stakeholders on the preliminary study on ways and means to further advance the rights of people working in rural areas, including women, in particular smallholders engaged in the production of food and/or other agricultural products, including from directly working the land, traditional fishing, hunting and herding activities.

DHEERUJLALL SEETUSLING, Committee Expert, said there was one aspect, price stabilization, that had not been covered in the study, which related to the self employed peasant, who when they were able to produce more food were unable to sell the food at reasonable prices in either rural or urban markets. Mr. Seetusling called for Government policies, including a price stabilization fund, to encourage peasants to produce and sell at prices that were not only determined by supply and demand.

AHMER BILAL SOOFI, Committee Expert, said that there was one additional point for the Working Group to consider, namely the corresponding obligation on the State for a peasant to have the right to land. If a foreign investor teamed up with the host country regulatory body to acquire land through its relationship with the State, then the acquisition laws in the name of investment could be misused.

Poland, speaking on behalf of the European Union, said the European Union was fully committed to the right to food for peasants and had joined consensus in the Human Rights Council to support the report. However, the right to food as outlined in the preliminary study should not include a right to land, which lacked a foundation in international law. The final draft on voluntary guidelines on the tenure of land along with the right to food in the Food and Agricultural Organization were already an adequate tool and the European Union would not support a new convention.

Switzerland said that the process of globalization and its social impact along with the crisis in world food security necessitated a reinforcement and further development of economic, social and cultural rights. At the sixteenth session of the Human Rights Council, Switzerland confirmed its support of these ideas by co-sponsoring the resolution; however Switzerland maintained that discrimination against peasants was a result of an insufficient implementation of existing instruments and requested the Advisory Committee to assess the relevance of existing norms to counter discrimination against rural populations, in particular how to implement these norms to support people working in rural areas.

Cuba said additional efforts should be made at the intergovernmental level to support peasants in their right to food. Cuba would support the adoption of a convention on this subject and at a minimum a statement to start discussions. The majority of the international community would support this work.

Ethiopia said that the rights of peasants were fully recognized under the constitution in Ethiopia. The constitution provided that rural peasants had the right not to be displaced from their land but the Government’s major concern was to develop agriculture, which was one of the main sources of employment and foreign exchange of the economy and therefore was committed to attract foreign investors to develop the agricultural sector. The recent trend in Ethiopia to increase foreign investment in the agricultural sector was to make a move to large scale production to improve employment and alleviate poverty. Ethiopia had 76 million hectares in arable land, and 3 million was a small amount of the total, and the land was not sold but leased out and until now had been inaccessible for agricultural use. The Government of Ethiopia rejected the statement that this investment was land grabbing and would not support the creation of a new convention on the right to land as existing Food and Agricultural Organization guidelines were sufficient.

Bolivia said that the constitution of the State protected the rights of all indigenous peoples and the recent promulgation of the law on agricultural and livestock production, which sought to standardize production by eliminating large land holdings by strengthening the power of local communities and promoting the sustainable use of water and the use of native seeds of high quality. Bolivia had implemented universal agrarian insurance and had established a community credit fund along with many other initiatives. Bolivia said that drawing up an international instrument to protect the rights of peasants was critical and said there should be an inclusion on the right to water in the final study.

Algeria said that it had a rural and agricultural renewal policy which provided for the improvement of technical capacity in rural areas. There was a promotion of access to rural land through preferential bank loans. Algeria in its work against desertification supported agricultural husbandry and rural development.

FIAN International said that at least 50 million hectares of agricultural land was transferred to multinational corporations in the last years. Large scale investment in land was damaging food security and Governments should prioritize investment in the small farm sector. An equitable access to food producing resources was essential to maintain food security. The voluntary guidelines on the tenure of land in the Food and Agriculture Organization could assist peasants worldwide. Peasant women were subject to acute discrimination and the Advisory Committee should carry on with this study as existing international human rights instruments were insufficient for the protection of the human rights of peasants.

The Indian Movement Tupaj Amaru said that the 100 largest transnational corporations governed the life and destiny of millions of human beings. World agriculture was dominated by 10 major Western agribusinesses and pharmaceutical companies which controlled production, trade and distribution of food stuffs. Concerning the European Union’s statement that it would not support a convention on the right to land, the Indian Movement stressed that present instruments did not protect the right to land of indigenous peoples. The Indian Movement Tupaj Amaru supported the convention proposed in the report.

JEAN ZIEGLER, Chairperson of the Drafting Group on the Right to Food, in response to the comments made during the debate, said that it was a matter of principle to have a new norm on a right to land. In response to the European Union’s position, he said that more than 50 million arable hectares were grabbed last year which led to evictions and forced expulsions of hundreds of thousands of farming families without compensation. This was a new situation which required a legal response from the Human Rights Council. It was a vital duty of the Human Rights Council and the Advisory Committee to establish a new norm. Bolivia and Cuba, which had both undertaken agricultural reform without allowing multinationals to exploit their land, were supportive examples. Mr. Ziegler agreed with the need for price stability and noted the complicity of African States in supporting multinationals to expropriate land. Concerning the Ethiopian mission’s comments, there was a transparent policy concerning international investors and on 1 Jan 2011, there were 8,400 investors, local and foreign, who had access to land on a long term lease. Nevertheless, this was a clear violation of the right to land. There were demonstrations in Ethiopia against the Saudi Development Corporation’s activities, especially as the land they obtained was exceedingly fertile, and on which it was now growing sugar cane for bio-fuels. The current famine in the Horn of Africa could be linked to the expropriation of land for bio-fuels.

Draft Letter to the Human Rights Council on Food Security in East Africa

MONA ZULFICAR, Committee Expert, reading out a draft letter to the Human Rights Council, said that in the last months the food security situation of millions of people living in East Africa had deteriorated with famine occurring in parts of the region, due to a combination of factors, including drought, increase in food prices, conflict and lack of structural rural development. According to the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization, the number of people requiring emergency assistance had skyrocketed from 6.3 million in early 2011 to 12.4 million in the beginning of August 2011 and it was worsening day after day. The food security situation was also seriously deteriorating in the refugee camps, and the response of the international community was far from sufficient.

The Advisory Committee therefore urgently called on the Human Rights Council to convene a special session on the food crisis in East Africa as soon as possible and identified three areas of action. First, there was a need for urgent action to increase access to nutritious food, clean water, sanitation and health protection for vulnerable individuals of East Africa. Second, there was a requirement for structural measures to reduce vulnerability, protect the right to food and to combat discrimination. Third, there was an urgent need to address the special vulnerable situation of women and children.

DHEERUJLALL SEETUSLING, Committee Expert, said he was not in favour of requesting the Human Rights Council to convene a special session and wondered what the session would achieve, whether it was simply to debate the problem and how would the Council have the capacity to mobilize resources of civil society organizations and Governments?

WOLFGANG STEFAN HEINZ, Committee Expert, said that he was not sure if there was a mandate within the Advisory Committee to request a special mechanism of the Human Rights Council, especially as there were so many problems to be addressed.

VLADIMIR KARTASHKIN, Committee Expert, said that there was no contradiction in the mandate of the Advisory Committee to request a special session, especially as there was an emergency occurring in Africa with several thousands of people dying on a daily basis. Convening a session of the Human Rights Council would be helpful and perhaps it would be better to refer to the request as an emergency session.

CHEN SHIQIU, Committee Expert, said that the Human Rights Council should hold a special session on the situation in East Africa as it was directly related to human rights and the right to food. In such a vast area with a large population, the right to food was endangered. The Advisory Committee should consider the language it would use to make this request.

ALFRED NTUNDUGURU KAROKORA, Committee Expert, said that the situation in Uganda was not the same as in Somalia. There were areas in north Uganda that lacked water because of the drought. There was no need to call for a special session to be held by the Human Rights Council to intervene. Mr. Karokora asked what the Advisory Committee was asking the Human Rights Council to do and would not support the letter in its current form and suggested that the paragraph should be amended.

The Committee decided to further discuss the draft letter.

Opening Statement

MONA ZULFICAR, Committee Expert, said that the study on malnutrition and Noma emanated from the basic study on discrimination in the context of the right to food, which examined the inter-linkages between malnutrition in children and disease, education, potential opportunities for livelihood and the development of the abilities and skills of the child. The Committee welcomed feedback from all Member States and international organizations on this study with the objective of producing a final draft study in February 2012 followed by submission to the Human Rights Council in March 2012. Ms. Zulficar noted that there were numerous policy recommendations contained in the report and pointed to the important need for a new human rights instrument to tackle these issues.

Preliminary Study on Severe Malnutrition and Childhood Diseases with Children Affected by Noma as an Example and the Concept Paper on Urban Poor

JEAN ZIEGLER, Chairperson of the Drafting Group on the Right to Food, said that the legal status of the report came from an official request from the Human Rights Council to conduct a study on the casual link between malnutrition and childhood diseases on a specific disease, namely Noma. At the end of the report there were two pages of voluntary guidelines which would enable States and inter State bodies to combat the disease. The comments of Member States, Committee Experts and non-governmental organizations would all be included in the final report to be produced in February 2012.

Noma, the Latin word to devour, was a disease due to chronic and permanent malnutrition, affecting children in particular and leading to gingivitis, an infection of the mouth, which if it not immediately treated, would attack the face leading to a closing of the jaw whereby mothers would be required to break the teeth of their children to insert nutritional feeding. The survival rate was between 10 and 30 per cent and at least 100,000 people died annually in Africa from Noma, namely children. The causes were due to lack of information, lack of medicine and poverty because antibiotics could easily treat the disease at a cost of 2 or 3 Euros. The disease was not difficult to eradicate because the methods of treatment were easy to identify and readily accessible. The problem was a lack of public focus and political will, an ineffective focus from national health systems to educate mothers on the disease and know how to deal with it, and insufficient work from the World Health Organization on tackling Noma which was mostly dealt with by non-governmental organizations such as the Organization Winds of Hope Foundation and a number of individual initiatives by Swiss doctors who had gone to Africa to treat Noma.

Mr. Ziegler stressed the need for a resolution by the World Health Organization to declare Noma a neglected disease. Neglected diseases had a special status within the World Health Organization that would include it on a checklist with dedicated resources. Noma should be recognized by the Advisory Committee and the Human Rights Council as a specific violation to the right to food which would compel international organizations to focus on combating it. Noma had existed in Europe in the sixteenth century during significant malnutrition. It had disappeared in the nineteenth century, only to reemerge in concentration camps during World War II because of famine.

The Preliminary Study on Severe Malnutrition and Childhood Diseases with Children Affected by Noma as an Example (A/HRC/AC/7/CRP.2), prepared by Jean Ziegler, on behalf of the Drafting Group on the right to food, discusses the intersection between malnutrition, childhood disease and human rights taking children affected by Noma as an example. It summarizes the views and comments of States and other stakeholders on the preliminary study on the strong link between malnutirtion and Noma, a disease that devours the face of children and is fatal in up to 90 per cent of cases. The report contains principles and guidelines for States to follow to combat the spread of Noma and calls for Noma to be listed by the World Health Organization as a neglected disease.

CHUNG CHINSUNG, Committee Expert, introduced a concept paper on urban poor. Half of the global population lived in cities and at least one third of all urban dwellers were poor, representing one quarter of the world’s population. The urban poor were increasingly becoming an issue for development organizations. Industrialization had led to the formation of the urban poor in developing countries as poor migrants converged in slums next to work opportunities. The processes of industrialization and globalization had impacted negatively on the lives of urban poor along with heighted food prices. In both developing and developed countries there was discrimination against the urban poor. In urban areas poverty was intertwined with environmental problems, notably poor air quality which posed health problems. There were certain groups, women, children, the elderly and persons with disabilities that were the most vulnerable among the urban poor, especially in relation to natural disasters. In order to combat urban poverty, there was a need for development policies which considered the human rights of the poor and the implementation of measures to support them such as social safety nets, minimum daily wages and the empowerment of the poor through education and enhancing political representation. Policies to manage capital speculation and food prices should be enacted by the international community. Good practices had been made by local authorities, intergovernmental organizations and the private sector through partnerships, which would all be highlighted in the report. In February 2012, a preliminary report would be submitted with a final report in August 2012.

The concept note by Chinsung Chung, member of the Drafting Group on the right to food (A/HRC/AC/7/CRP.3) of the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee on promoting the Human Rights of the Urban Poor: Strategies and Best Practices, envisages an introduction, the formation of the urban poor, the human rights of the urban poor, the situation of more vulnerable groups, measures to be taken, good practices and a conclusion.

The World Health Organization said that Noma was a severe and devastating gangrenous stomatitis which could develop rapidly in less than three weeks and without treatment 70 to 90 per cent of all patients would die. The peak of Noma was around the age of three years, the main determinants of the onset of the disease were poverty, malnutrition, communicable diseases, an unhealthy environment, poor environmental conditions, and poor general and oral hygiene. In prevention of Noma, the World Health Organization had focused on Africa where 39 of 46 Member States were affected by Noma. The countries most involved were Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal. The sixtieth World Health Assembly in 2007 agreed on a resolution action plan for oral health which would develop and implement, in countries affected by Noma, national programmes to control the disease within national programmes for the integrated management of childhood illness, maternal care and reduction of malnutrition and poverty in line with internationally agreed health-related development goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration.

Cuba noted the report on malnutrition and its links to Noma and said Cuba would support the position in the report along with the concept paper on the urban poor.

Algeria said that it traditionally supported resolutions on the right to food and the study on malnutrition pointed to the importance of the right to food and fighting malnutrition to prevent the Noma disease.

Burkina Faso said that Noma had taken the lives of so many children from Burkina Faso and urged for coordinated action both nationally and internationally to be carried out, including strengthening and supporting the recommendations of the working group to the World Health Organization and other parties.

SHIGEKI SAKAMOTO, Committee Expert, said he fully supported the approach in the study on malnutrition and Noma and felt it was a useful approach. The study stressed the rights of the child and enumerated guidelines for States to enforce and achieve these rights and would like to ensure that these rights were applied to all levels within the State.

JEAN ZIEGLER, Chairperson of the Drafting Group, in response to the comments made during the debate, said that many people had yet to understand how terrible Noma was, the first preliminary report included photos but the Drafting Group felt the photos were so terrible that they could not be included in the draft report. The effects of Noma included an inability to eat normally because the jaw was fixed, social exclusion. Victims had to have between three to five operations to reconstruct the face, all terribly painful. If the fight for Noma could be taken through to the end and the Advisory Committee could convince the Human Rights Council to take a positive resolution that Noma was a violation of human rights, then resources would be mobilized. Mr. Ziegler said a disease that could be eradicated by a few antibiotics was a low priority for pharmaceutical companies because there was limited money to be made, in comparison with HIV/AIDS. Therefore the only pressure that could be brought to bear was to break the silence of good men and Member States and he urged all delegations to support the report.

JOSE ANTONIO BENGOA CABELLO, Committee Expert, called upon the delegations present in the room to consider the rights of peasants discussed this morning. This was the first time there was an organization of peasants with a name in Spanish, La Via Campensina, which arose in Brazil and spread to many parts of the world and they were present in the room today. La Via Campensina had recognized the need, many years ago, for a human rights instrument that would protect the activities of peasants around the world.

Draft Letter to the Human Rights Council on Food Security in East Africa

The Advisory Committee then moved to finalize the changes of the draft letter to the Human Rights Council on food security in East Africa and accepted those revisions.

HALIMA EMBAREK WARZAZI, Committee Expert, read the revisions to the letter to be sent to the President of the Human Rights Council: In the last months, the food security situation of millions of people living in East Africa has severely deteriorated and famine occurred in parts of the region, due to a combination of factors, including drought, increase in food prices, conflict and lack of structural rural development. The Advisory Committee, deeply preoccupied by the food crisis, would like to draw the attention of the Human Rights Council to the crisis and to have it consider holding a special session on the food crisis in East Africa and identified three areas of action. First, there was a need for urgent action to increase access to nutritious food, clean water, sanitation and health protection for vulnerable individuals of East Africa. Second, there was a requirement for structural measures to reduce vulnerability, protect the right to food and combat discrimination. Third, there was an urgent need to address the special vulnerable situation of women and children. Ms. Warzazi said she had consulted all the members of the Advisory Committee and they could adopt it by consensus.


For use of the information media; not an official record

AC11/012E