Italy

Status of International legal instruments protecting the right to food and nutrition (signatory, ratification):

  • International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights - 18th Jan 1967 - 15th Sept 1978
  • Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women - 17th July 1980 - 10th July 1985
  • International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination - 13th Mar 1968 - 5th Jan 1976
  • Convention on the Rights of the Child - 26th Jan 1990 - 5th Sept 1991
  • ILO Convention concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries (169) - Not Ratified
  • United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 

For more information visit the website of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)  

RELATED MEDIA

26/09/2017

The Three Agribusiness Mega-Mergers: Grim Reapers of Farmers' Sovereignty

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The global agricultural system is increasingly being shaped by corporations in their own interests. In the past 40 years we have witnessed a significant shift in power from nation states to corporations as the drivers in the global agri-food system. There are multiple dimensions to this change, including trade liberalization, privatization, deregulation and reregulation in favor of corporate interests, and corporate globalization. This has led to greater authority to corporations to dictate systems of governance and allocate risk in production and distribution systems, and has generated waves of mergers and acquisitions resulting in corporate concentration. Nation states continue to play a role, but not so much as mediators of power relations between capital and national populations. States are increasingly subordinated to the logic of capital accumulation, economies of scale and concentration of technical and financial expertise. This era has also expanded financialization of the system in numerous ways. Since the birth of capitalism, finance has been an integral feature of the system—the lubricant that animates processes of production and distribution. However, in the contemporary era, financial capital relies increasingly on financial engineering to create products (such as derivatives) that enable profit without investment in productive processes.

 

Food Sovereignty Peasants' Rights Corporate Accountability

13/10/2016

From Slave Labor to Your Dinner Table

Migrant Workers on Italy’s Farms more

This article turns to Italy, to discuss the burning issue of asylum seekers, refugees and migrants and its relation to contemporary forms of slavery and exploitation in agriculture. A complementary insight box highlights pockets of resistance and solidarity, where civil society is joining forces to combat the slave-like working conditions of agricultural workers to change a broken food system at its roots, demonstrating that there can be a direct relationship between producers and consumers.

Food Systems Workers

INDICATORS

  • Non discrimination

    • Anti-discrimination laws at national level

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      Signatory of the Amsterdam agreement

      Chapter 4 Act 286  of the 1998 act: regarding the equal treatment of immigrants

      1970 Workers act detailed regulation against discrimination based on work

      Article 3 of the 1948 constitution which established that all citizens have equal social standing and are equal before the law, without distinction of sex race, language religion, political opinion, or social and personal conditions.

       

  • Outcomes

    • To what extent are rural communities shrinking


      % of population living in rural areas       Read more

      31%

  • People’s Sovereignty over natural resources

    • Are there Intellectual Property Rights on seeds?

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      • All species can be privatized
      • The privatized varieties can be used to breed new ones
      • Local seeds can be privatized if discovered

    • Laws protecting industrial seeds

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      Privatized seeds:

      • Can’t harvest and sow them again
      • Can’t give them as a gift
      • Can be fined upon infringement

    • Pesticide use by volume and by expenditure

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      • Fungicides and Bactericides:32292
      • Herbicides:7690
      • Insecticides: 8713
      • Large decrease in fungicide use since the early 2000s.

       

  • Political Participation for the Right to Food

    Participation is one of the fundamental human rights principles, requiring that everyone has the right to participate in making decisions that affect them. In order to ensure that those most affected by violations to the right to food and nutrition participate in political processes, it is essential to have the legal and policy infrastructure within national frameworks, as well as the participatory spaces that give meaningful space for participation.

    • Legal Recognition of the Right to Food and Nutrition


      Is Right to Food recognized in the legal system       Read more

      There is an implicit protection of the right to food

      Constitutional Recognitions of the right to adequate food:

      Article 36“Workers have the right to a remuneration commensurate to the quantity and quality of their work and in any case such as to ensure them and their families a free and dignified existence.”

      Article 38“Every citizen unable to work and without the necessary means of subsistence is entitled to welfare support. Workers have the right to be assured adequate means for their needs and necessities in the case of accidents, illness, disability, old age and involuntary unemployment.”

    • National Food Security Policy


      Is there a national food security policy with implementation/action?       Read more

      No