The Human Right to Food and Food Sustainability

This dissertation examines practice in international human rights law in order to assess whether a sustainable dimension of the human right to food is generally recognised. While this right has been incorporated in multilateral treaties at the universal and regional levels, the implications of the growing attention devoted to food sustainability in this area remain insufficiently clarified. Against this background, the analysis explores the intersections and interconnections between human rights norms concerning the right to food and the rules and principles of international law related to sustainable development. To this end, it focuses in particular on the practice of States and international human rights bodies at both the universal and regional levels. It concludes that international law does not recognise an autonomous right to sustainable food. However, the concern for sustainable food systems is increasingly emerging as a central component of the right to adequate food and can play a significant role, at the interpretative level, in defining its scope and content under international human rights law.