Right to Food Study, 2009.

It has been defined that the human right to food is realized when people, alone or in community with others, have access to adequate food or means for its procurement. The possibility for people to feed themselves from natural resources is an important element of this right. The fisheries sector and the right to food therefore have a direct interface where communities depend on aquatic resources to meet their food and nutritional needs.

Set against this backdrop, this study seeks to precipitate further discussions regarding the interface and linkages between the right to food and human rights principles and the fisheries sector. It is done by indicating how far human rights principles such as participation, accountability and non-discrimination are reflected in fisheries legislation that might not have used a human rights based approach during the drafting process, and by identifying how this approach can be introduced or strengthened in the legislation. Although the right to food may not be among the expressed objectives of fisheries laws, for some countries the closely linked concept of food security is expressed. Other goals, such as sustainable use of fisheries resources, are a more commonly stated objective of fisheries legislation and are equally important for the realization of the right to food.
The study also provides a short introduction to the right to food and human rights principles in international law, an overview exploring the relationship between international fisheries instruments and the right to food and seeks to identify components that are considered important for the implementation of the right to food in fisheries legislation.

The Right to Food Study “Fisheries and the right to food: Implementing the right to food in national fisheries legislation” was written by Anniken Skonhof and Ambra Gobena in collaboration with Dubravka Bojic Bultrini. The study was conducted in the context of the project “Creating capacity and instruments to implement the right to adequate food” financed by the Government of Germany.