Rethinking the Human Right to Food from a Single Perspective to a Four-Fold Legal Interpretation

Abstract

Abstract The human right to food is a fundamental pillar for guaranteeing human dignity and the existence of human beings. It is configured in the international legal system as the possibility of supplying a minimum amount of food necessary to avoid death by hunger, as well as healthy and adequate food for all people. The path to its recognition and conceptualization has been hazardous and is currently not free of real problems that affect its realization. Protection of the right at the national level has taken different forms: express or indirect recognition, recognition of the validity of international law norms in national law, jurisprudence or through the principles of the State. Nevertheless, the hunger problem persists, and the problems associated with nutrition continue to increase. Issues of nutritional security and food sovereignty are linked to the human right to food and are not incompatible with that right. In this regard, conceptual currents define the right from various perspectives, but they are insufficient to meet today’s demands. This research aims to support the four-fold legal interpretation thesis with a legal-theoretical approach to contextualize the right to food in the current circumstances. This article is structured in the first part to analyse the different definitions that shape the right to food. It then briefly presents the four-fold legal interpretation thesis and, finally, some arguments for reconfiguring the human right to food. The research methods used are legal-theoretical, legal-analytical and document analysis.