Free Republic

The Democrats’ “Green New Deal” proposal is praiseworthy but does not go far enough, the U.N.’s “right to food” expert said in an article posted Friday — one day after she was accused of ignoring the severe food crisis in Venezuela. Hilal Elver, a U.S.-based Turkish academic appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) in 2014 as “special rapporteur on the right to food,” said the Democratic initiative would be the first major U.S. effort “to address the threat of climate change as dynamic, multi-dimensional, and ubiquitous, and for that alone, it deserves praise.” However, she added that the...

Pope Francis emphasized the right to food as fundamental in a video address Saturday to 500 experts starting work on a wide-ranging document aimed at raising awareness and proposing solutions to issues including hunger, obesity and food waste. Francis said the paradox of abundance described by Pope John Paul II—whereby there is food for everyone yet not everyone can eat—continues to be an issue “despite the multiplication of organizations and responses by the international community on nutrition.” […] He also urged them (the experts) to show courage in protecting the planet “the mother of everything that asks respect and not...

Olivier De Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, has told the UN general assembly to press governments to make the once “forgotten right” legally binding worldwide. In his report, based on eleven country missions in different regions globally, De Schutter detailed progress made on the right to food over the past decade. … “Treating food as a human right brings coherence and accountability. It helps to close the gaps by putting food security of all citizens at the top of the decision-making hierarchy, and making these decision-making processes participatory and accountable,” he said. …