Chronic hunger and accountability: a study on the right to adequate food and levels of impunity

Abstract

Chronic hunger is the result of man-made action or inaction and unequal power relations from local to international scales, restricting the access to food to the powerless who go hungry. This reality has been exacerbated through globalisation process which has undermines States sovereignty and threatened the realization of the right to food. Because it is not visible and affects the most vulnerable groups, chronic hunger does not represent political and economic issue for policymakers, the public and the international community. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between chronic hunger and impunity, to discuss the implications of the liability of national and international actors in the occurrence of hunger and to determine the factors contributing to the occurrence of chronic hunger. Taking the starting point of famine paradigm shift, this study argues that chronic hunger persists because the political will to eliminate it is lacking and that its occurrence is a consequence of impunity. The lack of political will is determined by the loophole of State extraterritorial obligations and the lack of responsibility of global actors, which bring about a lack of accountability for violations of the right to food.