FAO presents before the Chilean Constitutional Convention about the importance of recognizing the Right to Adequate Food explicitly in the new constitution
On 7 December 2021, Manuela Cuvi Rodríguez, Legal Officer at the FAO Development Law Service (LEGN) and Ornella Tiboni Oschilewski, Consultant in Nutrition and Food Systems at the FAO representation in Chile, attended a hearing at the Commission on Fundamental Rights of the Constitutional Convention of Chile to present on the importance of recognizing the right to adequate food explicitly in the New Constitution.
FAO considers that this recognition is necessary for three main reasons. First, to deal with the critical situation of food insecurity and malnutrition in the country. Not only the number of people facing hunger and lacking access to food has increased, but also the number of people who experience obesity or are overweight. In Chile, 7 out of 10 people over 15 years and 6 out of 10 children in fifth grade are obese or overweight. At the same time, a healthy diet is 5 times more expensive than diets that only satisfy caloric requirements.
Second, the recognition of the right to adequate food will strengthen Chile’s social contract. It will confer legitimacy to public policies in this area, which should be adopted in a participatory and decentralized manner. These policies should be in line with policies on climate change adaptation and mitigation, among others.
Third, recognizing this right in the supreme norm at the national level facilitates the adoption of better laws and public policies, and the construction of solid institutional frameworks where the responsibilities of all actors are clear and visible.
FAO also recommends including a constitutional remedy to protect this right, in the event of breaches to it.
A recording of the intervention is available at the following link (minute 20 onwards): https://convencion.tv/video/comision-sobre-derechos-fundamentales-n15-convencion-constitucional-martes-07-de-diciembre-2021