I decided to listen to the panel “Accessibile Justice and Accountability”. It was a very interesting session because the panelists and participants presented real cases and their experiences with the right to food from the field.

For example, I learnt about a recent right to food case in Nepal. The litigator of the case, Mr. Basant Adhikari, also a member of a Nepalese civil society organization, told us about a remarkable success in the name of the poor and hungry of his country.
The Supreme Court of Nepal has issued an interim order according to which food needs to be regularly supplied to the hungry in one of the districts of the country in order to ensure their survival and to fulfil their right to freedom from hunger.

Another great example was the case of Ecuador. Cecilia Luna shared with us the approval of the new Constitution of Ecuador. This new text includes the human right to adequate food, the right to water and many principles that were not explicit before.
It was also important to know that through this constitutional process, a human rights based approach was guaranteed. The inclusion and coordinated participation of many civil society organizations was essential in that process.

Not only the latest right to food cases were presented but also views on different issues of international politics were discussed. For instance, one of the panelists, Colin Gonsalves from India made an interesting intervention: He said that the free market leads to a distortion of market forces in favor of the rich and powerful. Therefore, he said that state intervention in order to address such issues as the soaring food prices, is necessary. Regarding the legislation on the right to food, he added that according to him there already exist many nice and comprehensive laws that spell out great objectives but when you look at the facts, they are often far from realization. Therefore, Mr. Gonsalves said it is not enough to only insist on a framework law.

The second half of the day, I attended the panel “Information and Assessment”. Five panelists presented their lessons learnt on right to food assessment.

The public prosecutor from Brazil highlighted that it is very important that the social programs of Brazil cover all the vulnerable groups. Even if he accepted that his country was a very good example of the progress made on right to food implementation, he recognized that vulnerable people such as indigenous groups are not covered by the different programs, simply because they are not registered. More monitoring has to be done in those cases in order to protect the part of the population that is still invisible. Martin Wolpold-Bosien, representing FIAN, said that unfortunately, some programs and laws were discriminatory since its creation.

An interesting debate related to the responsibility of civil society organizations was discussed. Many speakers highlighted that not only States but also NGOs have obligations that should also be considered and monitored.
Assessment of the compliance of States obligations is done but who is really evaluating the work of NGOs?

Another remarkable discussion of the afternoon session was the need of convergence in the advocacy of some specific Human Rights. It was really interesting the cross perspective adopted by the majority of speakers. Migration and food security were highlighted as being issues particularly related and therefore, needing to be handled from a holistic perspective. Carole Samdup stressed that the case of refugees was a clear example still needing a concrete response from the international community.