United Nations System
Standing Committee on Nutrition

 


Working Group on Nutrition, Ethics and Human Rights

held during the ACC/SCN's 31st Session in New York,  United States, 25 March 2004

Chair: Urban Jonsson, UNICEF
Co-chairs: Wenche Barth Eide, IPRFD and Uwe Kracht, WANAHR

Part I: Developments since the 30th SCN session


1.  The ‘Common Understanding’

An important event in human rights based UN interagency cooperation was the Second Interagency Workshop on Implementing a Human Rights based Approach in the Context of UN Reform, held in Stamford, USA, in May 2003, in which the WG-NEHR Chair played an active role. The workshop sought to move forward the agenda of interagency cooperation around human rights mainstreaming, focusing on CCA/UNDAF processes, as called for in the UN Secretary-General’s Agenda for Further Change of September 2002. It also examined examples of how UNCTs are dealing with human rights in the context of PRSP and MDG processes. As a key result, it produced a Statement of Common Understanding which specifically refers to a human rights based approach to development cooperation and development programming by UN agencies. The three pillars of the Common Understanding are:

  1. All programmes of development cooperation, policies and technical assistance should further the realisation of human rights as laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments.
  2. Human rights standards contained in, and principles derived from, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments guide all development cooperation and programming in all sectors and in all phases of the programming process.
  3. Development cooperation contributes to the development of capacities of ‘duty-bearers’ to meet their obligations and/or ‘rights-holders’ to claim their rights.

The Statement was later presented to the United Nations Development Group (UNDG) Programme Group and endorsed by this body. The Common Understanding provides the framework within which the future work of the SCN and its working groups is to develop. The SCN Steering Committee’s call for mainstreaming human rights in all SCN activities, made at its Tivoli retreat in January 2004, is a step in this direction.

2.  Principles for the respect of human rights by TNCs and other enterprises

The SCN is now being regularly invited as an observer organisation to the annual sessions of the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights held in Geneva in the month of August. Co-chair Barth Eide participated at the 2003 session in selected meetings relevant to economic, social and cultural rights, which this year included the finalisation of the work of the Sub-Commission over several years to draft “Norms on responsibilities of transnational corporations and other enterprises with regard to human rights”, to be submitted to the 60th session of the Commission on Human Rights meeting in March-April 2004 in Geneva.1 The specific reference to the respect by transnational corporations and other business enterprises for, and contribution to the realisation of the rights to adequate food and drinking water and to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, warrants the involvement of the SCN in the further interpretation and operationalisation of these principles.

3.  Advancing dialogue at the country level

Members of the SCN and the NEHR in particular have been especially conscious of the need to set in motion national dialogue about the implications of applying the right to adequate food and corresponding state obligations, under specific economic, social and cultural conditions prevailing in a given country. The Co-chairs and other members were in 2003, within the frameworks of WANAHR and IPRFD, directly involved in catalysing two additional national seminars on the right to food, in Uganda and Mali, funded by NORAD, and more indirectly in a third in Sierra Leone, funded by Germany through FAO. The seminars drew inspiration from the normative basis established by General Comment no.12 on the right to food and principles derived for implementation by state and non-state actors. It is hoped that the experience from the seminars can inspire similar initiatives elsewhere with funding from other sources, eventually leading to an "adaptive model" for advancing national dialogue on the right to food and related rights in other interested Member states.

4 Follow-up action to last year’s WG-NEHR recommendations

  1. Intergovernmental Working Group on Voluntary Guidelines for the progressive realisation of the right to adequate food: The Co-chairs and members of WG-NEHR actively participated in the IGWG-RTF, established by the FAO Council in response to a recommendation of the World Food Summit:five years later. The IGWG, which is open to all stakeholders, held two sessions, in March and October 2003, and an intersessional meeting in February 2004. A third session is scheduled for July 2004. At the first session, the SCN statement “On the nutritional dimension of the right to adequate food”, drafted by a NEHR task force at the Chennai session, was circulated to IGWG participants. The work of the IGWG has proved extremely difficult, in large measure due to the reluctance of a small group of countries to apply commonly accepted human rights principles and standards derived from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights treaties to the economic, social and cultural field in general and to the right to food in particular. The intersessional meeting produced a voluminous voluntary guidelines draft, collecting all drafting amendments made by IGWG members, which the IGWG Bureau will seek to consolidate prior to the third IGWG session. NEHR Chair/Co-chairs and members will stay involved in the IGWG process, through direct participation and/or working through their respective agencies. In support of the voluntary guidelines process, FAO organised a series of country case studies on the right to adequate food. NEHR Co-chair Kracht acted as lead consultant for the Uganda study and presented preliminary results from all studies to a group of Government representatives to FAO and FAO staff in February 2004. A full report on the studies will be published shortly by FAO.
  2. Sharing of experience on human rights based approaches to development programming: The UNICEF-sponsored book on “Human Rights Approach to Development Programming”, authored by the NEHR Chair, has been widely circulated since its publication in mid-2003. The book on “Adequate Food as a Human Right – Its Meaning and Application in Development”, edited by the two NEHR Co-chairs, as well as NEHR member Kent’s book on “The Human Right to Adequate Food”, both to be published in mid-2004, will further contribute to dialogue and the sharing of experience within WG-NEHR and beyond.
  3. Rights-based monitoring and evaluation: UNICEF has sought to further develop the application of the concepts and proposals contained in the NEHR document on “Monitoring the realisation of the rights to adequate food, health and care for nutritional well-being” presented to the 28th SCN session. One outcome is the 2004 discussion paper “The Human Rights Based Approach to Programming at UNICEF and its Implication for Evaluation”. The organisation of a meeting on rights-based monitoring and evaluation issues as recommended by the NEHR in Chennai has so far not materialised, due to lack of funds.
  4. Other NEHR recommendations from Chennai: On human rights in emergencies, the work of the Interagency Standing Committee on Emergencies within Executive Committee on Humanitarian Affairs (ECHA) demonstrates that it is now generally accepted that human rights apply in both peace and war, with international humanitarian law complementing human rights law in complex emergency situations. No specific further work was undertaken by NEHR since Chennai. Issues concerning the need for human rights training were further addressed at the current NEHR meeting, including aspects of training of UNCTs in mainstreaming human rights in CCA/UNDAFs within the framework of the Common Understanding.

Part II: Recommendations for SCN action

The WG-NEHR recommends:

Recommendation 1:
That the SCN reformulate its mandate so as to reflect that it will facilitate the ending of malnutrition in all forms through the realisation of the rights to adequate food, health and care throughout the world

Background/rationale: At the Tivoli retreat, the Steering Committee reviewed the SCN’s vision and mission and proposed the following formulation for the SCN mandate: “To facilitate the integration of nutrition into national and global initiatives in order to realize the Millennium Development Goals”. The above recommendation seeks to broaden SCN’s scope of action beyond the MDGs, and, in particular, to emphasise the mainstreaming of human rights in its activities as decided at Tivoli.

Recommendation 2:
That the SCN request all Working Groups now to take steps to mainstream human rights principles in their respective domains

Background/rationale: The current NEHR meeting had a wide-ranging discussion on the modalities through which this recommendation could best be realised. Proposals included:

  1. that the SCN Steering Committee or NEHR issue guidelines/checklists on human rights mainstreaming to Working Groups;
  2. that NEHR identify key topics on which to solicit the views of other WGs;
  3. joint sessions of NEHR with other WGs to foster open dialogue;
  4. that each WG prepare a human rights mainstreaming paper for the 32nd SCN session in Brazil, and that the Brazil session deal with nutrition as a human right;
  5. that early collaboration of NEHR with the WGs on Monitoring and Evaluation and on Capacity Development could be a promising starting point for human rights mainstreaming;
  6. associating human rights lawyers with SCN’s mainstreaming efforts. It was also suggested that lessons could be learned from the experience with gender mainstreaming. These issues will be further addressed during the intervening period between the 31st and 32nd SCN sessions.

Recommendation 3:
That the SCN appoint a task force to provide inputs to the Millennium Project Hunger Task Force to reflect human rights principles and standards in its final report

Background/rationale: Beyond human rights references of a largely rhetorical nature, the Millennium Project Hunger Task Force has not sought to apply a human rights approach to food and nutrition, pointing to uncertainties in operationalising the right to adequate food and related rights. An SCN task force should seek to introduce a strong rights dimension in the final report.

The NEHR meeting had before it an initial list of selected issues where SCN could contribute to strengthening the human rights dimension in the work of the Hunger Task Force and the Millennium Project more generally. Due to time constraints, the meeting focussed on a brief discussion of two issues:

  1. human rights related training and
  2. the further advancement of codes of conduct for the food-related industry, building on recent work by the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights on “Norms on responsibilities of transnational corporations and other enterprises with regard to human rights”. It is intended to continue the discussion early on in the intersessional period, keeping in mind the Hunger Task Force timeframe for finalising its report by December 2004.

Part III: Organisation of work over the coming year

NEHR intends to follow up the call at the current SCN session that the work of the WGs should more effectively go on also between the sessions. As a first step, the Chair/Co-chairs will, immediately after the session, write to SCN members to ascertain their willingness to participate in intersessional NEHR activities related to the above recommendations as active NEHR members or to be at least regularly informed as passive members.

1 Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/2003/12/Rev.2 (2003)