The Right to Food around the Globe

  Congo

The Constitution of the Republic of the Congo implicitly guarantees the right to adequate food through broader human rights.

The Republic of the Congo has become a State party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) in 1983 by way of accession. It has signed the Optional Protocol (OP-ICESCR) in 2009, but has not ratified it yet.

CONSTITUTIONAL RECOGNITIONS OF THE RIGHT TO ADEQUATE FOOD

Implicit protection of the right to adequate food

Article 8: "The human person is sacred and has the right to life. The State has the obligation to respect it and to protect it. Each citizen has the right to the full development [épanouissement] of his person within respect for the rights of others, of the public order, of ethics [morales] and of morals [bonne mÏurs]."

National status of international obligations

Article 223 : "The treaties or the agreements, regularly ratified or approved, have, from their publication, an authority superior to that of the laws, under the reserve, for each agreement or treaty of its application by the other Party. "                          

INTERNATIONAL INSTRUMENTS

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) – 1948

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) – 1966

Status: Accession (1983)

Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) – 1979

Status: Ratification (1982)

Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) – 1989

Status: Accession (1993)

Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) – 2006

Status: Ratification (2014)

Legislation and policies recognizing the right to adequate food

Guidance on how to progressively realise the human right to adequate food in contexts of national food security has been provided by the Right to Food Guidelines, adopted by the FAO Council and endorsed by the Committee on World Food Security.

Considering that the human right to adequate food can be implemented through a variety of legal and policy actions, we invite you to visit the FAOLEX Country Profile database for a wide-ranging collection of measures that have been taken at national level. Some of the documents you may find are legislation and policies that touch on a number of relevant Guidelines, such as those on Access to resources and assets (Guideline 8), Food safety and consumer protection (Guideline 9), Support for vulnerable groups (Guideline 13) and Natural and human-made disasters (Guideline 16).

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