Legal recognition

Constitutional Recognition

There is an implicit recognition of the right to adequate food.

Article 20: 
“1. It shall be the concern of the authorities to secure the means of subsistence of the population and to achieve the distribution of wealth; 
3. Dutch nationals resident in the Netherlands who are unable to provide for themselves shall have a right, to be regulated by Act of Parliament, to aid from the authorities.”

National Status of International obligation

Article 93: “Provisions of treaties and of resolutions by international institutions which may be binding on all persons by virtue of their contents shall become binding after they have been published.” 

Article 94: “Statutory regulations in force within the Kingdom shall not be applicable if such application is in conflict with provisions of treaties that are binding on all persons or of resolutions by international institutions.”

Excerpt from Shadow report on RTFN: “Nowhere in Dutch law and policy the right to food is recognized as human right. The Netherlands’ approach to economic, social and cultural rights is frozen in time. Dutch legal doctrine still adheres to the ancient dichotomy between civil and political (‘classic’) rights on the one hand and economic, social and cultural (‘social’) rights on the other hand. Doctrine sees classic human rights as bringing negative obligations that can be upheld in a court of law and social human rights as bringing positive obligations that cannot be upheld in a court of law, but represent policy objectives only. In the mid 1970s Dutch parliament discussed ratification of ICESCR. In those discussions, the Government took the position that given the character and content of the provisions of the ICESCR there will not be direct effect. Rather, it is geared towards progressive realization through legislation and implementing measures.2 Until this very day courts refer to this position of the government and apply it to the letter. The official UN interpretations to UN treaties as laid down in the General Comments and in the reports by the special rapporteurs on the right to food, are blatantly ignored.” (abstract from a 2009 shadow report on the right to food Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by the European Institute of Food Law.  [1]

 

[1] http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CESCR/Shared%20Documents/NLD/INT_CESCR_NGO_NLD_43_9756_E.pdf