The State recognizes the right to adequate food if that right is explicitly enshrined in the state’s legislation, i.e. the constitution, supreme law, framework legislation, ordinary legislation, statutes etc1, depending on the national legal order. Also, legal recognition of the right to food can take place via direct incorporation of the ICESCR into the national legal order.

This proxy indicator to assess political participation is part of the composite Transformation Index of the Bertelsmann Stiftung (BTI). Specifically, the indicator measures political consensus building” by posing the question: To what extent does the political leadership enable the participation of civil society in the political process?

The EU launch of the Right to Food and Nutrition Watch 2016 allowed the first public debate within the European Parliament on the international dimension of seed policies and regulations as well as  the implicit role of the EU.  

In the pursuit of Blue Growth, a wide range of actors – from Environmental NGOs to big finance – have become increasingly engaged in how to manage the ocean’s resources. Within fisheries this has led to a flurry of policy reforms aimed at introducing ‘rights-based fisheries’ in order to ensure ‘secure tenure’ over fish resources. According to fisher peoples’ movements, despite the seemingly benign language and intent of the reforms, this amounts to a massive push for privatization that is symptomatic of broader processes of ‘ocean grabbing’. This article engages with one of the most recent of such policy proposals and contrasts this with the content in the recently endorsed small-scale fisheries guidelines. This article presents an analysis of the corporate capture of global fisheries. It shows that so-called 'rights-based' approaches try to occupy center stage once again in ongoing efforts to reform fisheries policies at the national and global levels. Unfortunately, property rights and not human rights are the driving force behind such initiatives, which seek to preserve the oceans' resources through the privatization of access, and the commodification of rights.

In Africa as in other regions of the world, it is the seed systems women value and maintain that form the bedrock of food and nutrition security for families and communities. However, their resilience in fulfilling multiple and crucial roles are not only challenged by persistent gender inequality and religious fundamentalism, but also by the impact of migration, conflict and HIV/AIDS. The current emphasis on industrialising African agriculture will result in large scale dispossession of seed, land and water and so undermine women’s rights in a way that will have a devastating impact on future generations.

The piece "African Food Sovereignty: Valuing Women and the Seeds they Keep" argues that, to ensure continued access to seeds and land, we need to pay attention not only to gender equality but also to the intergenerational impacts of patriarchy.

This piece examines what food sovereignty and self-determination mean to the people of Western Sahara, and discusses efforts to regain dignity and autonomy through home gardens that enable families to produce fresh foods in refugee camps.

This article discusses the importance of seed control and agricultural biodiversity for the right to food and nutrition. The authors argue that seeds are the neglected backbone of this human right, and that new ways to respect, protect and fulfill people's access to and use of seeds, plants, and animals must take center stage in the ongoing development of the right to food and nutrition, within the framework of food sovereignty. The authors also advocate the recognition of a stand-alone human right to seeds. Two complementary insight boxes describe how farmers' rights to seeds are currently protected in international legal regimes, how and where these regimes conflict, and describe ongoing efforts to better protect peasant seed systems in the framework of the negotiation of a Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas at the UN Human Rights Council. A third insight box shares the experience of a seed sovereignty experiment in war-torn Syria, which calls itself the 15th Garden.

This article analyses the struggle for food sovereignty in Egypt. The 2014 constitution recognizes the right to food and food sovereignty, but the country remains heavily dependent on food imports, and the recently reformed bread subsidy system fails to reach the most vulnerable.

This piece assessed the struggle of the Guarani and Kaiowá indigenous communities for their right to land and territory, food and life in Brazil. Their ongoing battle shows that self-determination is more than ever about the right to control natural resources. It is also a reminder that criminalization of land rights' defenders is on the rise across the planet.