Realizing the Right to Food: Legal Strategies and Approaches

IDLO’s study Realizing the Right to Food: Legal Strategies and Approaches has been developed as a practical and substantive resource on using litigation as a means to advance the realization of the right to food.

The study is divided into three main sections, exploring how the right to food is defined in international, regional and national legal instruments, and the normative content and state obligations arising from the right (Part I); surveying key factors facing advocates, practitioners and prospective claimants wishing to litigate the right to food (Part II); and presenting examples of adjudication of the right to food in practice, with specific case law from various countries and regional mechanisms (Part III).

Throughout these parts, the study canvasses the legal basis of the right to food, identifying procedures for bringing claims, how courts have adjudicated the right and remedies awarded by the courts. Notably, the study adopts a broad approach to right to food litigation, which extends beyond claims founded on an explicit, constitutionally recognized right to food, to encompass claims based on related human rights or elements and components of the right to food. Concrete examples from different countries and regional and international systems are used to show key lessons and strategic entry points on right to food litigation.

Published in partnership with Irish Aid - Government of Ireland.