Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control by Fgf Ffg

University of Louvain (UCL) Faculty of Economic, Social and Political Sciences and Communication

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control The Creation of New Human Rights by the Transnational Agrarian Movement VĂa Campesina and the Transformation of the Right to Food

Thesis by Priscilla Claeys Submitted in support of the Degree of Doctor in Political and Social Sciences To be publicly defended on 19 February 2013

Supervisors:

Olivier De Schutter Isabelle Ferreras Jury members: Jun Borras Annette AurĂŠlie Desmarais Jean-Philippe Peemans Geoffrey Pleyers President of the jury: Jean De Munck

Academic year 2012-2013

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control The Creation of New Human Rights by the Transnational Agrarian Movement VĂa Campesina and the Transformation of the Right to Food

Table of Contents List of Charts and Tables

vii

List of Acronyms

viii

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part 1

Alternative Conceptions of Human Rights

Actors, Theoretical Framework, and Methodology

1.1

The Actors 1.1.1 1.1.2

1.2

Theoretical Framework 1.2.1 1.2.2 1.2.3 1.2.4

1.3

A Multidisciplinary and Inductive Approach Sociology and Anthropology of Law and Human Rights Sociology of Social Movements Critical Agrarian and Peasant Studies, Critical Development Studies and Critical Legal Studies

Research Methodology 1.3.1 1.3.2 1.3.3

The Transnational Food Sovereignty Movement The Transnational Right to Food Network

Moving Across Different Sites of Engagement A Three-Track Approach to Data Collection My Position as Critically Engaged Activist Researcher

13 22 28 28 29 32 36 37 37 40 43

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

2.1

The Emergence and Meaning of Food Sovereignty

2.2

Context of Emergence of Food Sovereignty: a Reaction to Neoliberalism

2.2.1 2.2.2 2.2.3 2.2.4

The Adjustment Decade From Self-Sufficiency to Agroexport Trade Liberalization in Agriculture and the WTO Agribusiness Transnational Corporations

51 54 56 62

2.2.5 2.3 2.4

Towards an Alternative Conception of Human Rights

2.5.2 2.5.3

The Proclamation of New Rights and their Recognition by the UN Translating the Right to Food Sovereignty in International Law Institutionalizing the Right to Food Sovereignty at National Level

77 81 83 88 91 94 98 100 102 107

The Rights of Peasants

111

3.1

112

The Emergence of a New Category of Rights 3.1.1

3.2

3.3 3.4

Depeasantization The Transformation of the Local into a Non-Place The Incorporation of Farmers into Markets The Commoditization of Nature The Modernization of Agriculture

112 114 117 121 123 126 128

The Food Sovereignty Movement Fights Back: the Repeasantization Project

130

Towards an Alternative Conception of Human Rights

140

3.4.1 3.4.2 3.5

An Introduction to the Rights of Peasants

Context of Emergence of Peasantsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Rights: a Reaction to the Agrarian Transition to Capitalism 3.2.1 3.2.2 3.2.3 3.2.4 3.2.5

Autonomy and the Non-Material Dimension of Rights The Rights of Nature

Efforts to Institutionalize the Rights of Peasants 3.5.1 3.5.2 3.5.3

Food Sovereignty as a Human Right The Subjects of the Right to Food Sovereignty Peoplesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Rights Internal Food Sovereignty External Food Sovereignty Unspecified Duty-Bearers

Efforts to Institutionalize the New Right to Food Sovereignty 2.5.1

The Food Sovereignty Movement Fights Back: the Relocalization Project 2.4.1 2.4.2 2.4.3 2.4.4 2.4.5 2.4.6

2.5

The Global Food Prices Crisis

From Indonesia to the UN and the Challenge of Externalization The Role of Human Rights Experts The Essentialist Trap

141 142 144 144 147 150

The Human Right to Food

153

4.1

154

A Short History of the Human Right to Food

4.1.1 4.2

The Right to Food Project 4.2.1 4.2.2 4.2.3 4.2.4 4.2.5

4.3

The Right to Food as Individual Entitlement The Right to Food as Structural Change The Right to Food as Compatibility Test The Right to Food as a State-Centric Approach

Rights as Contested Frames

155 159 159 166 171 173 177 179 179 181 184 185 189

The Challenges of Using Rights Talk

191

5.1

192

Framing, Political Opportunities and Mobilizing Structures 5.1.1

5.2

5.3

Vía Campesina’s Organizational Frames

Frames as Contested Processes 5.2.1 5.2.2 5.2.3 5.2.4 5.2.5

Right to Food Sovereignty vs. Food Security Right to Food Sovereignty vs. Right to Food Right to Food Sovereignty vs. Reclaiming Control Right to Food Sovereignty vs. Peasants’ Rights What does the Right to Food Sovereignty Frame Look like Today?

The Challenges of Institutionalizing New Rights 5.3.1 5.3.2 5.3.3

The Influence of Development Theories on the Right to Food Conceptualization of the Right to Food in the 1970s-80s The Right to Food as the Right to Feed Oneself: the Contribution of Specialized NGOs Rapid Institutional Advances in the 1996-2004 Period Building the Relevance of the Right to Food in International Policy Debates: the Food Prices Crisis of 2007-08

The Right to Food at the Confluence of Multiple Influences 4.3.1 4.3.2 4.3.3 4.3.4

Part 2

The International Recognition of the Right to Food

The Right to Food Sovereignty The Rights of Peasants Distinct Institutional Trajectories

197 201 203 206 207 215 218 220 221 228 239

Transforming the Right to Food

242

6.1

A Peasant Critique of the Right to Food

244

6.2

The Right to Food Sovereignty vs. Right to Food Frame Contest

253

6.2.1 6.2.2 6.2.3

The Right to Food Network’s Various Frames Facing the Legitimacy Crisis Dealing with the Right to Food Sovereignty vs. Right to Food Frame Contest

253 257 260

6.2.4 6.3

Adjusting to an Alternative Conception of Rights and Social Change: The Evolving Content of the Right to Food 6.3.1 6.3.2 6.3.3

6.4

Impacts of the Right to Food Sovereignty vs. Right to Food Frame Contest on the Right to Food as a Human Right

Radicalization of the Right to Feed Oneself Frame Reinforcing Participation Reinforcing the Nutritional and Urban Dimensions of the Right to Food and its Application to the North

The Right to Food at Crossroads

264 266 267 273 278 280

Conclusion

285

References

301

Appendix 1: Participant Observation Sites

336

Appendix 2: Interviews

343

Appendix 3: Key Food Sovereignty Statements in the 1996-2012 Period

348

Appendix 4: Recognition of the Right to Food Sovereignty at National Level

352

Appendix 5: Declaration of the Rights of Peasants (successive drafts)

364

vii

List of Charts and Tables Chart 1 - The Food Sovereignty Movement Chart 2 - The Transnational Right To Food Network Chart 3 - Vía Campesina in the World and Fieldwork Sites Chart 4 - Capitalist, Entrepreneurial and Peasant Farming Chart 5 - Autonomous, Historically Guaranteed Scheme of Reproduction Chart 6 - Market-Dependent Scheme of Reproduction

21 27 40 119 134 134

Table 1 - The Globalization Project vs. the Relocalization Project Table 2 - Entrepreneurial vs. Peasant Modes of Farming Table 3 - The Capitalist vs. the Repeasantization (food sovereignty) Project Table 4 - Characteristics of the Main Global Food Movement’s Frames Table 5 - Vía Campesina’s Frame Contests and Frame Disputes Table 6 - A Peasant Movement Critique of the Right to Food Table 7 - The Right to Food Network’s Various Frames Table 8 - Tactics and Goals Pursued by Actors in the Global Food Movement

70 125 130 201 203 245 254 293

viii

List of Acronyms AIAB

Associazione Italiana per l’Agricoltura Biologica (Vía Campesina member in Italy)

ANEC

Asociación Nacional de Empresas Comercializadoras de Productores del Campo (Vía Campesina member in Mexico)

ANPFA

All Nepal Peasants' Federation (Vía Campesina member in Nepal)

APC

Asian Peasant Coalition

ASOCODE

Association of Central American Peasant Organizations for Cooperation and Development

ATC

Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo (Vía Campesina member in Nicaragua)

CECCAM

Centro de estudios par el cambio en el campo mexicano

CESR

Center for Economic and Social Rights

CETIM

Centre Europe Tiers Monde

CFS

Committee for World Food Security

CIDSE

International Alliance of Catholic Development Agencies

CIEL

Center for International Environmental Law

CLOC

Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Organizaciones del Campo

CNCR

Conseil National de Concertation et de Coopération des Ruraux (Vía Campesina member in Senegal)

CNOC

Coordinadora Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas (Vía Campesina member in Guatemala)

CNOP

Coordination Nationale des Organizations Paysannes (Vía Campesina member in Mali)

COAG

Coordinadora de Organizaciones de Agricultores y Ganaderos (Vía Campesina member in Spain)

CONIC

Coordinadora Nacional Indígena y Campesina (Vía Campesina member in Guatemala)

CONSEA

Conselho Nacional de Segurança Alimentar e Nutricional (Brazil)

COPACO

Confédération paysanne du Congo (Vía Campesina member in the DRC)

CSM

Civil Society Mechanism

CSO

Civil society organization

CSUTCB

Confederación Sindical Unica de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia (Vía Campesina member in Bolivia)

CUC

Comité de unidad campesina (Vía Campesina member in Guatemala)

EAA

Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance

EAFF

Eastern Africa Farmers Federation

ECVC

European Coordination Vía Campesina

EHNE

Euskal Herriko nekazarien Elkartasuna (Vía Campesina member in the Basque country)

FAO

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

FIAN

FoodFirst Information Action Network

FUGEA

Fédération Unie de Groupements d'Eleveurs et d'Agriculteurs (Vía Campesina member in Belgium)

FWA

Fédération wallonne de l'agriculture (Belgium)

HIC

Habitat International Coalition

HRC

Human Rights Council of the United Nations

IATP

Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

IBASE

Instituto Brasileiro de Análises Sociais e Econômicas

ICC

International Coordinating Committee of the Vía Campesina

ICESCR

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

ICJ

International Commission of Jurists

IMF

International Monetary Fund

IPC

International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty

KMP

Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (Vía Campesina member in the Philippines)

KRSS

Karnataka State Farmers’ Association (Vía Campesina member in India)

LRAN

Land Research Action Network

MAF

Mesa Agropecuaria y Forestal (Vía Campesina member in Nicaragua)

MAP

Mouvement d'Action Paysanne (Vía Campesina member in Belgium)

MIJARC

International Movement of Catholic Agricultural and Rural Youth

MPNKP

Mouvman Peyizan Nasyonal Kongre Papay (Vía Campesina member in Haiti)

MPP

Mouvement Paysan de Papaye (Vía Campesina member in Haiti)

MST

O Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra (Vía Campesina member in Brazil)

NFU

National Farmers Union (Vía Campesina member in Canada)

OECD

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

OHCHR

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

PAN-AP

Pesticide Action Network, Asia Pacific

PWESCR

Programme on Women’s Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

ROPPA

Réseau des organizations paysannes et des producteurs agricoles d'Afrique de l'Ouest

SOC

Sindicato de Obreros del Campo de Andalucía (Vía Campesina member in Spain)

SPI

Indonesia Peasant Union (Vía Campesina member in Indonesia)

TNI

Transnational Institute

UNAC

União Nacional de Camponeses (Vía Campesina member in Mozambique)

UNAG

Unión Nacional de Agricultores y Ganaderos de Nicaragua (ex-Vía Campesina member in Nicaragua)

UNORCA

Unión Nacional de Organizaciones Regionales Campesinas Autonomas (Vía Campesina member in Mexico)

UPA

Union des Producteurs Agricoles (Quebec)

WFS

World Food Summit (1996)

WFS:fyl

World Food Summit five years later (2002)

WSFS

World Summit for Food Security (2009)

WTO

World Trade Organization

Acknowledgements I am grateful to my two supervisors, Olivier De Schutter, at the Centre for Philosophy of Law (CPDR) and Isabelle Ferreras, at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Democracy, Institutions, Subjectivity (CRIDIS), both at the University of Louvain (UCL). I am indebted to Olivier De Schutter who gave me the opportunity to undertake and pursue this research. His academic work, colossal knowledge, and immense desire to learn, as well as his commitment and dedication as UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, are a great source of inspiration. Isabelle Ferreras gave me support and vital opportunities for dialog at key moments of my research. Her methodological advice on how to clarify the central arguments of my dissertation (“la thèse de la thèse”) was extremely pertinent. Her positive energy is uplifting. Both my supervisors granted me the trust and freedom I needed. I thank the members of my supervising committee, Jean-Philippe Peemans, at the Center for Development Studies (IED), and Geoffrey Pleyers, at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Democracy, Institutions, Subjectivity (CRIDIS), also at the University of Louvain (UCL). Jean-Philippe Peemans helped me push my thinking further, by encouraging me to adopt a historical and critical perspective on the right to food, in dialog with development studies. Geoffrey Pleyers provided me with time, support and very useful feedback on some of my chapters. He helped me better integrate concepts from social movements’ studies and gave me very constructive guidance on how to conduct research on a transnational social movement. I am also grateful to the president of my jury, Jean De Munck, at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Democracy, Institutions, Subjectivity (CRIDIS). His intimate knowledge of Habermas and his precious insights in sociology of law were invaluable. I also thank Cristoph Eberhard at the Facultés universitaires Saint-Louis (FUSL) for initiating me to the field of legal anthropology. I took great pleasure in attending the various conferences and seminars he organized. I am thankful to the two external members of my jury, Annette Aurélie Desmarais, at the University of Regina (Canada), and Jun Borras, at the International Institute of Social Studies (Netherlands). Their support, encouragement, and enthusiasm have meant a lot. Both of them have all the rare qualities I personally value in academics: they are intellectually and emotionally smart, and have managed to combine the challenges of academic life with a serious and critical commitment to social struggles. I benefited greatly, throughout the course of this research, from intellectual exchanges with various people, colleagues and friends. I am grateful in particular to Carole Samdup,

xii

Sofía Monsalve, and Michel Buisson for the many discussions we had. I thank all the people I interviewed and who shared their ideas and convictions with me. I am also grateful for all the opportunities I was given to attend meetings as an observer. It was an immense pleasure to exchange views and impressions. My colleagues at the CPDR and at the IED have been a source of great support, understanding and intellectual stimulation. My recognition also goes to the UCL-based team of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food (and all those who have visited us through the years) and to my colleagues at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, for the shared experiences and great team work. I thank my family and friends for their love and support. I thank María Eugenia Sánchez Díaz de Rivera and Eduardo Almeida. If I had not met them, I would never have become an academic.

Introduction Today we face a double social crisis. On one hand, the failure of regulatory and welfare states indicates a crisis of regulation. On the other hand, the crisis of social revolution and socialism as paradigms of radical social transformation marks the emergence of a crisis of emancipation. Human rights, as both a regulatory and emancipatory politics, are trapped in this double crisis, and try to overcome it (Santos 1997, 80–81). Since they are globally recognized, human rights are at the heart of contemporary global governance debates, and closely tied to what some have called the emergence of a global civil society (Kaldor et al. 2007) or transnational public sphere (Habermas 2010, 475). A large number of social movements and NGOs use the human rights framework for its legitimizing force and universalizing effect, to the point that some argue that human rights have become an almost hegemonic ideology (Gauchet 2000, 280). Because of their hegemonic position, human rights may run the risk of making other emancipatory strategies less available (Kennedy 2002, 108). Human rights stand at a crossroads. Can they serve as a progressive politics? Or are human rights just one more variety of a global, state-centric and individualistic (Gauchet 1980, 22, 25) hegemony (Santos and Rodríguez-Garavito 2005, 14)? To answer this question, this research looks at the reconfiguration of human rights under the impetus of contemporary transnational agrarian movements. While the contribution of indigenous peoples to the “reconstruction” of human rights has been widely acknowledged (Rodríguez-Garavito and Arenas 2005; Daes 2004; Kenrick and Lewis 2004; Díaz-Polanco and Sánchez 2002; Sieder and Witchell 2001; Falk 1988), this research looks at the involvement of peasant and small-scale farmers in this ongoing process, and in particular at the role of the Vía Campesina, a transnational network of small-scale food producers’ organizations across the globe that demand food sovereignty. The analysis of Vía Campesina is significant for at least four reasons. First, the rise of transnational agrarian movements in the 1990s has reinforced worldwide opposition to neoliberal capitalism. It has given a new resonance to centuries of debates on the agrarian question (Byres 1982; Harriss 1982; Bernstein and Byres 2001; Bernstein 2010; Araghi 1995) and on the role of peasantries in revolutionary processes. Contemporary peasant movements have played a crucial role in the global justice movement (Desmarais 2008a), while unions and socialist parties were finding themselves in an impasse (Albo 2009). They have formed new social coalitions, which have tried to overcome the decline of the left caused by the dissolution of communist parties, the progressive conversion of social democratic parties to economic liberalism and the institutionalization of NGOs.

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

Second, although it is led by peasants and small-scale farmers, the food sovereignty movement (of which Vía Campesina is but a small part) raises issues that are relevant to society as a whole. The movement questions the nature of the relationship between food producers and consumers, between cities and the countryside, between man and nature, between North and South (Claeys 2012a, 105). It puts on the table an alternative vision, at a time when the convergence of the financial, food, energy and environmental crises forces us to look for an alternative development model. This may explain why the enthusiasm for food sovereignty has rapidly spread beyond peasant movements. Numerous NGOs (GRAIN 2005a; Holt-Giménez 2011; Vía Campesina and Friends of the Earth International 2009), academics (Patel 2009; Pimbert 2009; McMichael 2008), and environmentalists today defend some version of the right to food sovereignty. A number of States have even decided to implement it at the national level, through the inclusion of the right to food sovereignty in their policies, laws or even constitution, such as Nepal, Mali, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Ecuador (Beuchelt and Virchow 2012). Third, over the last forty years, peasant movements – made of indigenous peoples, women, fisherfolks, rural workers, and small peasants mobilizing against genetic crops, dams, mining concessions, natural reserves, investment or trade liberalization – have been amongst the most vibrant sectors of civil society. Peasant organizations have both localized in response to state decentralization, and internationalized their actions in response to globalization (Borras 2009, 11). Finally, Vía Campesina directly confronts us with a central, but unexplored question: which role should law and rights play in the construction of an alternative, postneoliberal society? Indeed, most claims that have emerged from the food sovereignty movement have been framed in terms of rights (Patel 2007; Rosset and Martinez 2010): the right to produce, the right to land, the right to protection from dumping, the right to be a peasant, the right to food sovereignty. The language of rights – “rights talk” (Glendon 1991) – is prominent within la Vía Campesina. Which are the rights claimed by the food sovereignty movement and how are they invoked? What is the conception of human rights that emanates from the praxis of contemporary peasant movements? What are the implications of rights talk for these movements? These are some of the issues, at the intersection of social movements’ studies, critical development studies, and human rights studies, which I address in this research. In doing so, this research addresses a double gap. Little attention has been paid, in sociology/anthropology (Agrikoliansky 2010, 225–227) and social movements studies in particular, to questions of law and rights (with often a focus on non-institutional arenas). Legal disciplines, on the other hand, have been reluctant to incorporate non-elite perspectives on law and rights, leading to an underrepresentation of Southern and grassroots conceptions (Rajagopal 2003, 167). This work gives the floor to peasant perspectives on human rights, from North and South, and shows

Introduction

that the study of both institutional and extra-institutional arenas is necessary to grasp the emergence of new conceptions of rights.

Research Questions and Hypothesis Despite the fact that many civil society organizations remain reluctant to engage in normsetting work, the creation and enforcement of international norms has been identified as an important terrain for transnational collective action (McKeon 2009, 115). Yet, this terrain has received little attention from researchers in social movements and human rights studies. This dissertation explores the creation and institutionalization of new human rights by a transnational contemporary agrarian movement, Vía Campesina. Two emblematic instances of “rights creation” are discussed: the right of peoples to food sovereignty, and the rights of peasants. The research questions that guided me throughout the course of this research evolved over time but always focused on the following four themes: a) why are assertions of rights so prevalent in contemporary agrarian movements discourse and what are the advantages of framing claims as rights?; b) what are the various understandings of human rights that circulate within the food sovereignty movement1 and how do these conceptions differ from dominant conceptions of human rights?; c) what are the constraints associated with the human rights framework and what are the strategies adopted by social movements to overcome these constraints?; and, d) what happens to new rights when they are institutionalized? Human rights are seen by many social actors as tied to the state and to domination processes (Agrikoliansky 2010, 225–226). Under which conditions can the use of human rights by social movements be subversive2, or, in other terms, how can activists frame human rights claims in a way that challenge, and do not sustain, power (Stammers 1999, 1005)? My hypothesis is that, to inject subversive potential in their rights-based claims, Vía Campesina activists a) developed an alternative conception of rights, that is more plural, less statist, less individualistic, and more multi-cultural than dominant conceptions of human rights; and b) deployed a combination of institutional (from above) and extra-institutional (from below) strategies to demand new rights and reinforce grassroots mobilization through rights. 1

I am grateful to Sofía Monsalve for pointing out the relevance of such a research focus. Stammers argues that rights claims can be characterized as subversive if they “do not imply or require the replacement of one form of power with another” (Stammers 1999, 1005). The issue is of particular interest because human rights praxis tends to be reduced to a praxis that is organized through and oriented toward institutionalized structures of power (Stammers 2009, 225). Stammers also uses the term “emancipatory” to describe the potential of human rights to help social movements take up ascribed identities and reconstruct and articulate them positively, thereby reinforcing the self-esteem of rights-bearers (Stammers 2009, 170).

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

Human rights have allowed Vía Campesina activists to frame their claims in a way that did not overly emphasize particular or sectoral interests. Rights have provided the movement with a flexible and open way to formulate demands3, and have demonstrated their ability to integrate the multiple ideologies that circulate within a movement (Valocchi 1996, 118). Rights have also permitted “the international exportation of claims to member organizations with divergent cultural references and from different geographical contexts”4 (Agrikoliansky 2010, 232). At the same time, human rights have presented Vía Campesina with two sets of intertwined challenges. First, contemporary conceptions of human rights go back to the “enlightenment era” (Kolben 2008, 453) and liberal streams of thought. As I explore in chapter 5, the liberal origins of human rights represent a considerable challenge for movements, such as Vía Campesina, wishing to use rights talk in their struggle against capitalism and neoliberalism. Second, rights-based social change has been conceptualized as a top-down process which insists on stronger laws, responsive legal institutions and accountability mechanisms (Kolben 2008, 477). This insistence on change from the top may be at odds with grassroots mobilization and repertoires of collective action (Tilly 1986) such as protest, that are traditionally deployed by social movements. It also confronts social movements with the paradox of institutionalization: while social movements might be tempted to see (their) new rights internationally recognized, chances are high that the “emancipatory thrust” of human rights will be endangered by their institutionalization (Stammers 2009, 106). These two sets of factors – conceptual and strategic –, taken together, can considerably hinder the subversive potential of human rights. Taking seriously the potential contribution of social movements to the elaboration of an alternative, cosmopolitan conception of human rights5, this research also looks at the impacts of peasants’ rights-based claims on the conception of rights and strategies traditionally used by defenders of economic, social and cultural rights (and of the right to food in particular). Three intertwined issues are explored: a) what is the relationship between codified human rights and rights in their pre-institutional form6?; b) how do human rights organizations and rights-based development NGOs react to claims formulated as rights but that indicate a different rationality?; and, c) have the normative content of the universally recognized human right to adequate food and the ways of working of right to food defenders evolved in response to peasants’ claims? 3

In the next chapter, I will describe what is referred to in the literature as the rights master frame (Mooney and Hunt 1996, 179). 4 Translation by the author. 5 My approach to this question has been inspired by the writings of Boaventura de Sousa Santos, as I develop below. 6 The importance of this question is highlighted by Neil Stammers in his very insightful book on human rights and social movements (Stammers 2009, 109).

Introduction

My hypothesis is that tensions between the right to food and the right to food sovereignty frames have led to a partial reconceptualization of the right to food and to open support for selected peasant movements’ struggles. Right to food defenders saw their legitimacy considerably questioned by the emergence of transnational peasant movements in the 1990s. They experienced recurrent tensions in their interactions with agrarian movements, which they saw as potential allies, as an important constituency that they should seek to support, but also as competitors. In their efforts to deal with these tensions, right to food defenders have adjusted, through the years, both their strategies and the conception of the right to food that they use as a reference in their work. The transnational right to food network has placed an increased emphasis on the importance of moving toward sustainable, relocalized and pro-smallholder agricultural development models and has worked to reinforce participation, both internally and externally. In addition, some actors of the right to food network have lent their support to Vía Campesina’s demand that the UN Human Rights Council recognize new rights for peasants.

Structure of the Dissertation Part 1 of the dissertation analyzes the various conceptions of human rights that circulate among peasant activists and right to food defenders. Three case studies are presented: chapter 2 focuses on the right to food sovereignty, chapter 3 on the rights of peasants, and chapter 4 on the right to food. Chapter 1 introduces the various social actors that are at the heart of this research, and the distinction I make between food sovereignty activists and right to food defenders. It then presents the theoretical frameworks that I mobilize, and the methodology I have followed to conduct my research. Chapter 2 describes the emergence of the right of peoples to food sovereignty, probably the most emblematic invention of the Vía Campesina movement in the area of human rights. The food sovereignty concept was born in the mid-80s and appeared on the international scene in 1996, in a context of opposition to the generalization of neoliberal policies in agriculture, in particular in Latin America. This context is described in some details, as is the alternative model (relocalization) put forward by Vía Campesina. In the second part of chapter 2, I analyze food sovereignty as a human right. I show how claims by Vía Campesina that food sovereignty should be recognized as a human right signal and contribute to an alternative conception of human rights. I end with a discussion of attempts by the movement to institutionalize this new right, and describe advances at the national and international level.

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

Chapter 3 describes another instance of rights creation by Vía Campesina: the “Declaration of the Rights of Peasants – Women and Men”, which was adopted by the International Coordinating Committee of Vía Campesina in March 2009. While the right to food sovereignty can be analyzed as a direct reaction to trade liberalization and the dismantling of state services, the realization of the full range of rights that appear in the Declaration requires questioning the agrarian transition to capitalism. In chapter 3, therefore, I describe some of the long-term transformation processes that are denounced by Vía Campesina such as the commodification of nature, the incorporation of farmers into (global) markets and the modernization of agriculture. This leads me to describe the alternative to depeasantization that is put forward by Vía Campesina, with a particular emphasis on autonomy and control over land and territories. In the second part of chapter 3, I describe the conception of human rights that underlies the Declaration of the Rights of Peasants and discuss institutional advances so far. Chapter 4 looks at the institutionalization and implementation/interpretation of the (existing) human right to food by a transnational network of human rights experts and activists dedicated to the right to food. The analysis of the foundations of the right to food is offered to help evaluate the conceptual innovations introduced by peasant movements (as discussed in chapters 2 and 3). Chapter 4 is distinct from the previous two chapters because of the nature of the social actors analyzed and because of the institutional trajectory of this right. The right to food is a legally recognized human right that has been elaborated in UN, academic and NGOs circles mostly. It cannot be considered a reaction to neoliberalism or capitalism. Yet, it was not conceptualized in a vacuum and as I demonstrate in chapter 4, its current interpretation reflects multiple theoretical influences over the last decades, many of which indicate an (at least conceptual) dialog between human rights and development theorists and practitioners. Part 2 of the dissertation considers the various categories of rights described in part 1 as evolving and contested frames deployed by social actors, and analyzes the tensions between them. On one hand, it looks at the challenges faced by social actors who use the human rights framework, and in particular at the strategies used to overcome its limitations. On the other hand, it looks at the impacts of the emergence of transnational peasant movements on the content of the human right to adequate food. Chapter 5 explores some of the challenges that peasant movements are confronted with when using rights frames. It discusses the advantages and constraints – both conceptual and strategic – of the human rights framework and explores the various ways in which peasant movements have tried to overcome these obstacles. It analyzes framing as a contested activity and looks at the impact of framing disputes and contests on the way rights are conceptualized and institutionalized (or not). The second part of chapter 5 discusses the paradox of institutionalization and efforts by movements to ensure that the subversive potential of their rights-based claims is kept intact.

Introduction

Chapter 6 offers a peasant critique of the human right to food and attempts to assess the extent to which the conceptualization of the right to food has evolved in response to peasant claims. Using frame analysis, chapter 6 describes the many and various tensions that surfaced between right to food defenders and food sovereignty activists throughout the years, as well as the strategies used to deal with these tensions. It suggests that some right to food defenders are tempted to endorse a more pluralistic conception of human rights because they feel that their legitimacy depends on their ability to respond to peasant claims. Other right to food defenders prioritize distinct sources of legitimacy, such as the universality and codified nature of human rights and resist such changes. The future of the right to food, as well as that of the new rights put forward by peasant movements, will largely depend on how these legitimacy and representation issues are dealt with, as I explain in chapter 6.

Part 1 Alternative Conceptions of Human Rights

1 Actors, Theoretical Framework, and Methodology In this first chapter, I present the various social actors that are at the heart of this research (1.1), as well as the theoretical frameworks that I mobilize (1.2). I then introduce the methodology I have followed to conduct my research (1.3).

1.1 The Actors Two broadly defined categories of social actors constitute the focus of this research: food sovereignty activists and right to food defenders. Food sovereignty activists are, for the most part, small-scale farmers, peasants or indigenous people who belong to the transnational agrarian organization VĂa Campesina. Some are movement leaders, some are support staff, but most are movement participants. This category also includes activists from other agrarian movements than VĂa Campesina, as well as academics and representatives from NGOs. All demand food sovereignty. Right to food defenders are NGO workers, academics, experts and UN representatives who work towards the promotion and protection of the human right to adequate food. A good portion of these human rights defenders are lawyers, but many are not. They belong to the loosely defined global right to food community. In chapters 2, 3 and 5, I explore the worldviews and strategies of food sovereignty activists. In chapters 4 and 6, I give the floor to right to food defenders. While these two categories of social actors often take part in the same alternative global summits, follow the same international processes or may be involved in the same national coalitions or local land struggles, they are surprisingly easy to distinguish. Indeed, the right to food sovereignty and the right to food are not just, as we will see, human rights in the making, and frames deployed by social actors to make sense of their environment. They are social markers, or identifiers, which actors use to talk about themselves and

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

recognize each other. One cannot be both a right to food defender AND a food sovereignty activist: although conversions take place, each social group is relatively stable. Food sovereignty activists have been at the forefront of the global justice movement7, while right to food defenders have played an important role in advancing economic, social and cultural rights. Oddly enough, human rights defenders have played only a minor role in the global justice movement8, while food sovereignty activists, despite their use of the human rights framework, remain somewhat at the margins of the human rights/ESCR community. The reasons for this double disconnect are explored in this research. Food sovereignty activists and right to food defenders both form part of what HoltGiménez has coined the global food movement9 (Holt-Giménez 2011, 110). In their efforts to defend alternative, fair and more sustainable/healthy food systems, they are joined by many other types of activists – organic, fair trade, slow food, local/community food – who would not necessarily identify with food sovereignty or the right to food, although some might. The global food movement is rapidly growing, and the 2007-2008 global food crisis has shown its vitality. It is multifaceted and diverse, in large part because movement participants – consumers, landless people, agricultural workers, small peasants, indigenous peoples, rich or poor, rural or urban –, all experience food systems from different viewpoints. Within the global food movement, the transnational movement for food sovereignty (see chart 1 below) is particularly vibrant.

The global justice movement, also coined the movement for a globalization from below, the movement for a globalization of rights, or the no global movement (better described in French by the adjective altermondialiste), has its roots in anti-imperialist thinking and specific struggles in the South, such as the Zapatista uprising (on 1 January 1994) and the Ogoni movement, as well as environmental and labor rights movements in the North (Glasius 2006, 80). One of the first protests that are linked to the global justice movement is the march undertook by half a million Indian farmers in Bangalore, India, on 2 October 1993, against provisions included in the negotiations of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The protest organized on 1 December 1999 in Seattle, at the occasion of the World Trade Organization summit, in which Vía Campesina took part, is considered a landmark of the global justice movement. The movement has since 2001 gathered in annual World Social Forums in different parts of the world. Many of them were well attended by representatives of farmers’ organizations (Pleyers 2010, 3–5). 8 While the mix of groups and intellectual traditions within the global justice movement is rich, human rights activism has been remarkably absent from it, a phenomenon which can be attributed to a combination of suspicion and moving in parallel circuits (Glasius 2006, 80). 9 Just as for the global justice movement, the existence of a truly global food movement is highly debatable and it might be more plausible to talk about a constellation of local and transnational food movements.

Actors, Theoretical Framework, and Methodology

1.1.1 The Transnational Food Sovereignty Movement The food sovereignty movement constitutes what Sidney Tarrow calls a transnational social movement (Tarrow 2001, 11). It is a social movement because it is an “informal network based on common beliefs and solidarity”, which mobilizes on “conflictual issues by frequent recurrence to various forms of protest” (Della Porta et al. 2006, 18). It is transnational because it is made of “socially mobilized groups with constituents in at least two states, engaged in sustained contentious interactions with power-holders in at least one state other than their own, or against an international institution, or a multinational economic actor” (Tarrow 2001, 11). The food sovereignty movement is, in essence, a movement of rural social movements and organizations that work towards achieving food sovereignty. To designate such agrarian networks, coalitions or organizations, some authors have used the term transnational agrarian movements (Borras, Edelman, and Kay 2008a, 2). The existence of a single, somewhat articulated food sovereignty or global agrarian movement is highly contested by some researchers10. Similarly, the existence of an actual peasant movement in national contexts such as that of Mexico, needs to be considered carefully: peasant organizations often find themselves confronted with organizational challenges, internal divisions, serious tensions with other peasant and indigenous groups, or NGOs, and constantly run the risk of being co-opted by the government, in a country where the use of corporatist practices and of agricultural support programs to debilitate agrarian activism is still widespread11. Hence my focus on the transnational and formally organized network Vía Campesina, although I conducted a lot of interviews with food sovereignty activists who do not belong to Vía Campesina.

Vía Campesina The transnational agrarian movement Vía Campesina is at the heart of this research. I made this choice for two reasons. First, the food sovereignty concept was initially coined by Vía Campesina. Second, this network of peasant organizations and landless peasants from Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas, is at the core of the food sovereignty movement. Vía Campesina is constituted of relatively famous national or sub-national peasant movements such as the landless workers movement MST (O Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra) in Brazil, the CNCR (Conseil National de Concertation et de Coopération des Ruraux) in Senegal, the Karnataka State Farmers’ Association (KRSS) 10

Such as T. Brass or H. Bernstein. This issue was discussed at the Critical Agrarian Studies Colloquium organized by the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague on 21/01/2011, which I attended. 11 I thank Alicia Carriquiriborde for pointing this out.

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

in India, and the Confédération paysanne in France. Current membership amounts to 148 organizations (out of which 39 new members joined in October 2008 at the 5th International Conference in Maputo, Mozambique) in 69 countries12. The network claims to represent 200 million peasants worldwide (Vía Campesina 2012a). Its international secretariat is currently based in Jakarta, Indonesia. The rise of Vía Campesina is intimately tied to the transformation of the nation-state and its role in rural areas, particularly in Latin America, from the 1980s onwards. As structural adjustment programs were implemented, states were radically downsized, their services dried up, and political parties and their organizations became increasingly irrelevant for rural people. Confronted with the rapid decline of crop and livestock prices, peasants formed a new generation of organizations that eventually moved toward the international stage. This new wave of peasant organizations emphasized autonomy from political parties, government offices, the church, and NGOs, and to some extent also rejected clientelism and corporatism and refused to be subordinated to urban interests. This marked a departure from the 1950s-1970s period, where import substitution industrialization was pursued in Latin American and other Third World states, and where corporatist arrangements were predominant, mostly in Latin America, where political parties across the political spectrum channeled state resources to their corresponding peasant organizations to buy their loyalty (Rosset and Martinez 2010, 151–152). In such a context, peasant organizations realized that national problems could not be solved by just appealing to, or pressuring, weak national governments. They understood the importance of organizing themselves at a supra- or transnational level. Throughout the mid-1980s and early 1990s, in what has been described as the first phase in Vía Campesina’s development, many farm leaders participated in bilateral exchanges and dialog with counterparts in the North and South. This enabled them to develop a collective analysis of the changes taking place in the countryside worldwide and share experiences and organizing strategies. Initially, exchanges took place mainly between peasant organizations from Central America, the Caribbean, Europe, Canada, and the US. The Managua Declaration (1992) represents a first attempt to articulate the common ground shared by farming families in the North and South (Desmarais 2008a, 21). One year later, as follow-up to the Managua meeting, 46 farm leaders from around the world gathered in Mons, Belgium, and formally constituted La Vía Campesina on May 16, 199313. Farm leaders defined five regions and elected a Coordinating Commission made up of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) representing 12

Source : http://www.viacampesina.org/main_en/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=71 The birth of Vía Campesina was foreshadowed in Latin America by the founding of one of its direct forebears, the Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Organizaciones del Campo (Latin American Coordination of Rural Organizations, or CLOC) in the early 1990s. Latin America is the region of the world with the most unequal distribution of land and income, and the region that particularly experienced a sharp decline of living standards during the 1980s (Rosset and Martinez 2010, 154).

Actors, Theoretical Framework, and Methodology

South America, ASOCODE representing Central America, the Caribbean, and North America, Peasant Solidarnosc (Poland) representing Eastern Europe, KMP (Philippines) representing Asia, and CPE (Europe) representing Western Europe. The years 1992–1999 which Rosset and Martinez identify as a second phase in Vía Campesina’s development, were marked by the consolidation of continental networks in Latin America and the birth and structuring of Vía Campesina as a global movement (Rosset and Martinez 2010, 157). It is in the third phase (2000-2004), really, that Vía Campesina became a key player on the international stage and took on a leadership role. Ever since, the movement has expanded its membership and focused on its internal strengthening. It has also put efforts in deepening its political-economic analysis (Rosset and Martinez 2010, 151). Looking at the years in which Vía Campesina was most active on the international scene (broadly from 1996 to 2005), one can identify two intertwined logics – proactive and responsive. The movement is proactive when it creates its own dynamic (for example, by organizing food sovereignty forums, caravans or international conferences), and reactive when it directs its energy at responding to transnational events (such as WTO ministerials or international summits). Food sovereignty forums and parallel conferences have provided important opportunities to discuss the food sovereignty concept and elaborate food sovereignty as an alternative vision14, but protests and marches also played an important role as they helped define what food sovereignty was against15.

Good examples of key moments where food sovereignty was discussed and elaborated upon are: the Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum which took place in Mali in 2007; the People’s Caravan for Food Sovereignty that traveled through 13 countries across Asia in 2004; the First Peasants’ World Assembly of Porto Alegre which was organized just before the World Social Forum of 2003; and the World Forum on Food Sovereignty which was celebrated in Cuba in 2001. The international conferences organized every four years by Vía Campesina also constitute landmark moments where strategic orientations were adopted. The first one took place in Mons, Belgium, in 1993. The term food sovereignty officially emerged out of the second International Conference of Tlaxcala, Mexico, in 1996, from where it was introduced to the NGO Forum to the World Food Summit later the same year. The third conference took place in Bangalore in 2000 and the fourth in Sao Paolo in 2004. The most recent one was celebrated in Maputo, Mozambique, in 2008. World Social Forums and their regional equivalents have also played an important role, allowing peasant groups to reach out to other constituencies such as youth and women groups, pastoralists, fisher folks, the urban poor, etc. These events have gathered an impressive number of peasant movements, NGOs, civil society organizations, and other social movements, allowing groups to build new networks and share experiences. 15 The international events that have received the most attention are: WTO ministerial meetings such as that of Seattle in 1999, Doha in 2001, Cancún in 2003, Hong Kong in 2005 and Geneva in 2009; the FAO World Food Summit of 1996, the FAO World Food Summit five years later in 2002, and the FAO World Summit of Food Security of 2009; the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Rio+10) in 2002; as well as a large number of other events ranging from G7 or G8 meetings to meetings of the FAO Committee on World Food Security, FAO regional ministerial conferences, and meetings of the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. The global food prices crisis of 2007-2008 can also be considered an international event as it provided the food sovereignty movement with an opportunity to present a different analysis of the causes of the crisis and promote alternative solutions.

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

Vía Campesina, as a social movement organization (SMO), relies on a decentralized structure and derives its vitality and legitimacy from its member farmers’ organizations at local and national level. Decision-making is based on the decentralization of power between 9 regions16. The coordination among the regions is taken up by the International Coordinating Committee (ICC), which is composed of one woman and one man for every region, elected by the member organizations in the respective regions. The ICC meets twice a year to engage in collective analysis of global agricultural issues, define joint action and advocacy at the international level and assess compliance with the International Conference agreements. The International Conference is Vía Campesina’s highest decision-making entity, where representatives of the member engage in collective analysis and policy development, as well as negotiation and consensus-building processes (Rosset and Martinez 2010, 164). International Conferences take place every four years approximately and are an opportunity for member organizations to discuss the movement’s strategic orientations and priorities as well as the internal functioning of the movement. The international secretariat rotates according to the collective decision made every four years by the International Conference. It was first in Belgium (1993-1996), then in Honduras (1997-2004) and it is currently based in Indonesia until 2013. The international secretariat team is assisted by a number of support staff, located in the various regions of the Vía Campesina network. In addition, the work of Vía Campesina is carried out and coordinated through a series of issue-based International Working Commissions, which are devoted to specific issues such as agrarian reform, food sovereignty and trade, biodiversity and genetic resources, climate change and peasant Agriculture, and human rights. Vía Campesina also has campaigns that address some of these issues: (i) the Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform, (ii) Seeds: Heritage of Rural Peoples in the Service of Humanity, (iii) the Campaign to End All Forms of Violence Against Women, and (iv) The Campaign for an International Charter of Peasant Rights (Rosset and Martinez 2010, 165). The movement is funded by the contributions of its members, by private donations, and by the financial support of some NGOs, foundations and local and national authorities. Vía Campesina has a mixed membership, ranging from small dairy farmers in Germany to landless peasants in Brazil, from farm surplus-producing farmers in Karnataka (India) to land-poor peasants in Mexico, from farm workers in Nicaragua to rice farmers in South Korea. The ideological persuasions of its member organizations vary too, from those coming from the communist party-based frameworks to those of the anarcho-syndicalist tradition, from those of broadly liberal provenance to those arising from environmental activism. Differences in worldviews, political agendas and methods of work are important 16

Europe, Cuba and Caribbean, Central America, South Asia, South East and East Asia, South America, North America, Africa 1 and Africa 2. Source: http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/organization-mainmenu44.

Actors, Theoretical Framework, and Methodology

despite the fact that these organizations all defend the interests of economically and politically marginalized sectors of society (Borras 2004, 9). It should be noted here that divisions between member organizations of Vía Campesina are common in national contexts (Desmarais 2008a; Borras, Edelman, and Kay 2008a). While this creates considerable obstacles for coordinated work at national level, it may or may not have an impact on the ability of national-level organizations to influence decisions taken by the movement at the global level. The movement’s membership has considerably expanded since the last International Conference, which was held in Maputo in 2008. The integration of a large number of new members, in Asia and Africa, combined with the realization that the external political space occupied by the movement at the international level is disproportionately large compared to its own degree of internal political and organizational development, led Vía Campesina to focus on internal consolidation over recent years (Rosset and Martinez 2010, 164). Although the arrival of new members in some regions is shifting power relations across regions, the Latin and North American regions, as well as Europe, remain very influential within the movement. In this research, I give considerable attention to a number of peasant organizations which are members of the Vía Campesina network, across North, South and Central America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, South Asia and South East Asia: ANEC (Asociación Nacional de Empresas Comercializadoras de Productores del Campo) and UNORCA (Unión Nacional de Organizaciones Regionales Campesinas Autonomas) in Mexico, the NFU (National Farmers Union) and Union paysanne in Canada, the CNOC (Coordinadora Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas), CUC (Comité de unidad campesina), and CONIC (Coordinadora Nacional Indígena y Campesina) in Guatemala, the ATC (Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo) and the MAF (Mesa Agropecuaria y Forestal) in Nicaragua, the CSUTCB (Confederación Sindical Unica de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia) and the Sisa (Confederación Nacional de Mujeres Campesinas Indígenas Originarias de Bolivia “Bartolina Sisa”) in Bolivia, the MPP (Mouvement Paysan de Papaye) and MPNKP (Mouvman Peyizan Nasyonal Kongre Papay) in Haiti, the ANPFA (All Nepal Peasants’ Federation) in Nepal, the SPI (Indonesia Peasant Union) in Indonesia, the COPACO (Confédération paysanne du Congo) in the DRC, the COAG (Coordinadora de Organizaciones de Agricultores y Ganaderos), EHNE (Euskal Herriko nekazarien Elkartasuna) and SOC (Sindicato de Obreros del Campo de Andalucía) in Spain, the FUGEA (Fédération Unie de Groupements d’Eleveurs et d’Agriculteurs) and MAP (Mouvement d’Action Paysanne) in Belgium, Uniterre in Switzerland and the Confédération paysanne in France.

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

Finally, I have used the term “peasant” to describe all family farmers, peasant farmers, community-based farmers, and small and medium-scale farmers17 that are members of the Vía Campesina network. Although this term is the adequate translation of the Spanish “campesino” and of the French “paysan”, and is widely used in Asia, I am aware that it is not used in the US, Canada and the UK. I am also aware that the term peasant may induce a somewhat archaic perception in the eyes of the reader of what are often very complex and modern rural realities. Despite the fact that the term peasant does not do justice to the huge diversity of economic, social and cultural situations in which Vía Campesina members find themselves today, I have chosen to use it for its prominence in my various fieldwork sites and because of its political significance.

Other Transnational Agrarian Movements While Vía Campesina is probably the most well known of all contemporary transnational agrarian movements, and the focus of this research, there are many others18. The Asian Peasant Coalition (APC) emerged in March 2003 as a separate and competing movement in the Asian region19. It represents 21 organizations coming from 9 countries in Asia and its secretariat is hosted by the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilippinas (KMP) peasant movement in the Philippines. Although KMP is also a Vía Campesina member, serious ideological and political clivages have led to tensions between Vía Campesina and the APC (Borras 2008a). Over recent years, the networks that revolve around the APC have launched a People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty, the secretariat of which is held by

An internal Vía Campesina glossary put together at the intention of interpreters and translators indicates: “In English, the use of peasants is not correct to describe small farmers in the US and the UK. It is prefered to use small-scale farmers. However, in Asia, our member organizations prefer to use peasants to avoid confusion with big farmers. Therefore we can alternate and use those terms: small-scale (family) farmers, community-based farmers, peasant/family farmers... We avoid campesinos in our English texts as most Asian will not get it. In French, we do not use fermier but paysan/paysanne, petits producteurs, agriculteurs/agricultrices (Agriculture paysanne, vivrière et locale). In Spanish, hablamos de campesinos y campesinas, pequeños productores... (no de granjeros)” (Personal communication with the International Secretariat of Vía Campesina, 30 January 2012). 18 Other regional movements include the Réseau des organizations paysannes et de producteurs de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (ROPPA) which was created in 2000 and gathers organizations from 10 West African countries (http://www.roppa.info/?lang=fr). Some movements are grounded in religious convictions such as the International Movement of Catholic Agricultural and Rural Youth (MIJARC) (http://www.mijarc.net/cms/index.php?id=22) and the International Federation of Adult Catholic Farmers’ Movements (FIMARC) (http://www.fimarc.org/Welcome.htm ), both of them close to Vía Campesina. In addition, the rights of agricultural workers are defended by the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF), an international federation currently composed of 392 trade unions in 124 countries. The fisheries sector also has relatively vibrant transnational networks, including the World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fishworkers (WFF), the World Forum of Fisher Peoples (WFFP), and the International Collective in support of Fish Workers (ICSFW). 19 http://www.asianpeasant.org/content/asian-peasant-coalition-apc

Actors, Theoretical Framework, and Methodology

IBON International20. The Coalition is grounded in Asia but is increasingly developing ties with African groups. Perhaps the largest transnational agrarian coalition is the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC)21, a global network of NGOs/CSOs concerned with food sovereignty and which has focused on advocacy and institutional dialog with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN (International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) 2002; International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) 2003; International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) 2009b). It includes social organizations representing small farmers, fisher folk, indigenous peoples, agricultural workers’ trade unions; sub-regional/regional NGOs/CSOs which act as regional focal points; and NGO networks with particular expertise. Following the reform of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), a Civil Society Mechanism (CSM) has been established for the purpose of coordinating interactions with the CFS (Duncan and Barling 2012; McKeon 2011), as a result of which the role of the IPC will need to be reviewed. Many of the above-mentioned networks now work together within the Civil Society Mechanism of the Committee on World Food Security22.

Transnational NGOs Some agrarian-oriented, progressive, transnational NGOs also play a key role in the food sovereignty movement: the Erosion, Technology and Concentration Group (ETC Group)23, the Genetic Resources Action International (GRAIN)24, the Land Research and Action Network (LRAN)25, Friends of the Earth26, FoodFirst27 and Focus on the Global South28. GRAIN works to “support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems”, through “independent research and analysis, networking at local, regional and international levels, and fostering new forms of cooperation and alliance-building”29. Two Vía Campesina members sit on

http://iboninternational.org/home http://www.foodsovereignty.org/new/whoweare.php 22 http://www.csm4cfs.org/ 23 http://www.etcgroup.org/ 24 http://www.grain.org/front/ 25 http://www.landaction.org/spip/?lang=en 26 http://www.foei.org/ 27 http://www.foodfirst.org 28 http://www.focusweb.org 29 http://www.grain.org/pages/organization 21

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

the board of GRAIN30. ETC Group and GRAIN share an early focus on seeds and ecological erosion. Over the last 25 years, their work has expanded to include research on the development of new technologies, monitoring of global governance issues such as corporate concentration and trade in technologies, and more recently land grabbing. ETC Group has a strong focus on work in international fora31. LRAN is a “response to a gap in research/analysis support for grassroots movements around the world who are engaged in struggles over access to land and other resources”32. The purpose of LRAN is to network researchers and analysts whose research and analysis would be useful to these movements33. The US-based Institute for Food and Development Policy/Food First “analyzes the root causes of global hunger, poverty, and ecological degradation and develops solutions in partnership with movements working for social change”34. Based in Bangkok, Focus on the Global South was established in 1995 to “challenge neoliberalism, militarism and corporate-driven globalization while strengthening just and equitable alternatives”35. The Friends of the Earth network challenges “the current model of economic and corporate globalization” and claims to be “the world’s largest grassroots environmental network”36. Vía Campesina and Friends of the Earth have had a partnership since 1999 around genetically modified organisms (GMOs), trade, transnational corporations, climate change and repression. FoodFirst, ETC Group, Focus on the Global South and GRAIN are also allies of Vía Campesina. Some of these actors are jointly engaged in coalitions such as the Our World is Not For Sale coalition37 of which Vía Campesina has been a crucial member (Reitan 2007, 148).

Intellectuals In recent years, a small group of academics have analyzed the origins, demands and actions of Vía Campesina (and other transnational agrarian movemenst) at the international, national and sub-national levels. The best known include Jun Borras (Borras, Edelman, and Kay 2008b; Borras and Franco 2009; Borras 2008a; Borras 2004; Borras 2008b), Annette Aurélie Desmarais (Desmarais 2003; Desmarais 2008a), Marc Edelman (Edelman 1999), Eric Holt-Giménez (Holt-Giménez 2009), Nora McKeon 30

http://www.grain.org/pages/board http://www.etcgroup.org/international_fora 32 http://www.landaction.org/spip/spip.php?article6 33 LRAN was founded by, and is coordinated by, Food First/The Institute for Food and Development Policy, based in the US, Focus on the Global South, based in Thailand, the Social Network for Justice and Human Rights (Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos), based in Brazil, and the National Land Committee, in South Africa. 34 http://www.foodfirst.org/ 35 http://focusweb.org/content/who-we-are 36 http://www.foei.org/en/what-we-do 37 http://www.ourworldisnotforsale.org/en/members 31

Actors, Theoretical Framework, and Methodology

(McKeon, Watts, and Wolford 2004; McKeon 2009), Philip McMichael (McMichael 2009a; McMichael 2008; McMichael 2009b), Raj Patel (Patel 2007; Patel 2009; Patel 2006), Peter Rosset (Rosset 2006; Rosset 2008; Rosset 2009) and Wendy Wolford (Wolford 2010). Many of these academics have close ties to the food sovereignty movement and play a key role in documenting and disseminating the alternative practices and worldviews that emanate from the movement.

Chart 1 - The Food Sovereignty Movement

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

1.1.2 The Transnational Right to Food Network The transnational right to food network (see chart 2 below) consists of a constellation of human rights organizations, development NGOs and individual experts attached to various national or international institutions. Advocates of the right to food form what Keck and Sikkink have termed a transnational advocacy network (Keck and Sikkink 1998) but not, in my opinion, a social movement. Differences between social movements and NGO-based advocacy networks may not always be clear cut, but are nevertheless important to identify, for they constitute an important source of tension and division for the actors themselves. Various criteria are identified in the literature to differentiate social movements from NGOs, none of which are completely satisfactory. For Tarrow, the distinction lies in the repertoires of action that are mobilized. Social movements, he argues, must be identified “not by their goals, which they share with many non-social movements, but by the kind of actions in which they routinely engage”, namely “contentious politics” (Tarrow 2001, 11). Other authors point to the fact that social movements, overall, consist of people who work to improve their own social, political and economic conditions as a community, while NGOs are formed by individuals who work toward the promotion of a model governed by certain ideals. While social movements are concerned with their interests and a reaffirmation of their specific group identity, NGOs tend to be more concerned with values (Estevez 2008, 101–103). In the case of the transnational right to food network, the use of advocacy and campaign as key repertoires of action appears clearly: right to food defenders do not (or rarely) engage in protests. Moreover, right to food defenders speak on behalf of the hungry and malnourished, but do not seek to improve their own life situation (they usually enjoy a decent standard of living and work to improve the welfare of others). Expressions of solidarity and support towards “victims” of “violations” (Kennedy 2002, 111) of the right to food form a central part of right to food work.

FIAN At the heart of the transnational right to food network, is the international NGO FIAN, which stands for FoodFirst38 Information and Action Network. FIAN is an international 38

The full name of FIAN is inspired by the US-based organization Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy (www.foodfirst.org), with which it had close ties at the time the FIAN network was set up. Created in the 1970s, Food First leaders initially used a “right to food” framing to link to international advocacy networks for human rights and sustainable food systems (Cohen and Messer 2009, 11–12), but Food First has now evolved into a food sovereignty organization.

Actors, Theoretical Framework, and Methodology

human rights organization that has advocated for the realization of the right to food since the mid 1980s39. Inspired by Amnesty International’s approach, FIAN focused on blatant violations of the right to food, such as hunger resulting from forced evictions, and undertook to write letters to governments (urgent actions). Initially, as we will explore in chapter 4, the organization defended the right of peoples to feed themselves, a slogan that came from a campaign against food aid and dumping led by the Belgian NGO Frères Des Hommes in 1983-8440. The organization still actively follows a number of cases of violations worldwide, but is today more renowned for its advocacy and information work41. The network comprises national and regional sections, which are legal entities in their own right and have their own membership and elected decision-making bodies. Total membership of FIAN currently stands at around 3,600 in more than 50 countries. In some national and regional contexts, however, FIAN’s presence remains marginal42. Since its creation, FIAN has stressed the importance of securing “peoples’ access to the resources that they need in order to feed themselves, now and in the future”43. This “agrarian-oriented” identity facilitated joint work with Vía Campesina on land issues. In 1999, FIAN and Vía Campesina launched a Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform44, which has served, since then, as a platform for promoting effective agrarian reform in countries with highly unequal patterns of land ownership45. Over recent years, the two organizations have initiated joint work on advancing new rights for peasants at the UN Human Rights Council, as we will explore in chapters 3 and 5. In its efforts to get FAO member states to adopt Voluntary Guidelines on the right to food, initially envisaged as a binding International Code of Conduct, FIAN benefited from the support of two important allies: the Jacques Maritain Institute46 and the World Alliance for Nutrition and Human Rights (WANAHR). Since then, FIAN has developed numerous collaborations with organizations that don’t work explicitly on the right to food, but nevertheless join forces in advancing some aspects of the right to food agenda. Typical examples include the formation of coalitions, with human rights and development NGOs, and universities, to demand an Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on ESCR, to work on human rights impact assessments of trade agreements, or establish 39

http://www.fian.org/ Frères Des Hommes was part of the pilot network that later gave birth to FIAN (interview, 23 June 2009). 41 http://www.fian.org/about-us/how-we-work 42 FIAN is absent from North America and relatively marginal in Brazil and India, despite the existence of a strong right to food campaign in India and right to food advances in Brazil. 43 http://www.fian.org/ 44 http://www.fian.org/programs-and-campaigns/projects/global-campaign-for-agrarian-reform 45 Exchanges between Vía Campesina and FIAN following the first internal consultation on the possibilities for joint work, 8-11 May, 1997 in Paris. The Campaign was originally funded by the NGOs Misereor and Entraide et Fraternité. Source: Archives of FIAN International. 46 http://www.maritain.eu/index.php?lang=UK 40

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

principles on extra-territorial obligations (see below). In addition, FIAN has recently contributed to the creation of the African Network on the Right to Food (ANoRF), a pan African network founded on 11 July 2008 in Cotonou, Benin, and devoted to the realization of the right to adequate food in Africa. The creation of a global right to food network, which would include NGOs, social movements and the FAO right to food Team, is also under discussion.

Right to Food Experts Researchers and legal experts from universities and from the United Nations have played a key role in advancing the right to food. As we will explore in chapter 4, academics such as Amartya Sen, Jean Drèze, Philip Alston, Katarina Tomaševski, Asbjorn Eide, Eibe Riedel, Wenche Barth Eide, Henry Shue, have contributed to the conceptual development of the right to food. Normative interpretation work has also been conducted by the independent experts who sit on the UN Committee on ESCR (with a view to monitor implementation of the International Covenant on ESCR), the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, members of the right to food Team of the FAO, and staff of the Rights and Development unit of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Over the last 15 years, a growing number of human rights and development organizations have added the right to food (and other economic, social and cultural rights) to their mandate and activities.

Rights-Based Development NGOs Following the UNDP publication, in 2000, of the Human Rights and Human Development report which gave a push to the incorporation of human rights into development theory and practice (UNDP 2000), a number of international organizations and NGOs started to direct financial support for projects of local and international human rights organizations working on “development” issues. These included, among others, the bilateral development agencies of Canada, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and NGOs such as Save the Children Fund and Care (Nyamu-Masembi and Cornwall 2004). Only a few organizations have integrated the rights-based approach to an extent that actually forced them to rethink the way they operate on the ground, but many have adopted a rights-based agenda. Of those working on food security issues, ActionAid and Oxfam are amongst the NGOs that have most explicitly incorporated human rights in their mandate, although their approach is not strictly grounded in existing human rights

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norms and treaties. ActionAid47 launched a five-year right to food campaign in 2006 and has issued a number of publications on the right to food (Action Aid International 2005; Action Aid International 2011) but maintains a series of non-rights-based programs. ActionAid’s work on food rights focuses on “addressing the root causes of hunger, calling for international food policies that benefit smallholder farmers, especially women, promoting women’s rights to land and other natural resources, and promoting sustainable agriculture that helps farmers adapt to the impacts of climate change”48. In 2001, Oxfam decided to base its programs on five “broad rights-based aims”: the right to a sustainable livelihood, the right to basic social services, the right to life and security, the right to be heard, and the right to an identity. This commitment was reiterated in the last strategic plan “Demanding Justice” (Oxfam International 2007). The organization has been very active on food issues over recent years, in particular through the GROW campaign, but has been reluctant to directly use and support the right to food (or food sovereignty, for that matter), adopting instead the slogan of food justice (Oxfam International 2011).

Human Rights Organizations Global mainstream human rights organizations have been slow in taking up the economic and social rights agenda. The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ)49 was probably at the forefront of economic and social rights issues, while Amnesty International50 finally incorporated economic, social and cultural rights into its mandate in 2001. Human Rights Watch51 gradually did more research work on economic and social rights as well, and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) 52 developed an important line of work on ESCR and globalization, but none of these organizations has done substantial work on the right to food specifically. Aside from FIAN, the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development (Rights & Democracy) is probably the human rights organization that worked most on the right to food. Rights & Democracy was established as a non-partisan, independent Canadian institution by an act of the Canadian parliament in 1988 to encourage and support the universal values of human rights abroad, and was funded by the Canadian government53. In addition, the Center for Economic and Social

http://www.actionaid.org/main.aspx?PageID=24 http://www.actionaid.org/what-we-do/food-rights 49 http://www.icj.org 50 http://www.amnesty.org 51 http://www.hrw.org 52 http://fidh.org 53 The organization was shut down in March 2012. The website of Rights & Democracy is no longer maintained. For more information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Centre_for_Human_Rights_and_Democratic_Development 48

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Rights (CESR)54 carries out research and advocacy projects on economic, social and cultural rights (with a strong focus on the right to food) in countries around the globe, in collaboration with local human rights advocates and activists. In recent years, the newly formed International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net)55 network has served as a facilitating platform for economic and social rights activists around the world56. Working groups have been established which allow participants to share research, methodological tools, and experience in the following areas: corporate accountability, economic policy (international trade and investment), budget analysis, women, adjudication and legal mechanisms, and social movements/grassroots groups. Many of these working groups do advocacy or research work that is useful to advance the right to food.

Church Organizations Perhaps not surprisingly a large number of church-related organizations have sought to address food-related injustices using a right to food lens. Amongst the most prominent ones are Brot für die Welt (Bread for the World) in Germany, Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO) in the Netherlands, the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, DanChurchAid (DCA), the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA), the Lutheran World Federation, Franciscans International, the International Alliance of Catholic Development Agencies (CIDSE) and the World Council of Churches. These organizations often combine direct right to food advocacy with funding of local and international right to food work by local or international NGOs. At the dawn of the new millennium, this network of organizations launched a successful global campaign entitled “Jubilee: Break the Chains of Debt” which led to the cancellation of the debts held by a considerable number of developing countries (A. Simon 2009a, 130). It is interesting to note that Bread for the World, funded in 1974 by Arthur Simon, son of Lutheran pastor from NY (A. Simon 2009a, 128), introduced a right to food resolution57 to the US congress as early as 1975. Thanks to a favorable political context, the resolution was approved by the House of Representatives on 21 September 1976 following intense debates on whether the implementation of the right to food entailed the creation of a “grains reserve” (A. Simon 2009b, 99). This contrasts with the position maintained by the 54

http://cesr.org/index.php http://www.escr-net.org/ 56 ESCR-Net members include human rights NGOs such as FIAN and the Center for Housing Rights and Eviction (COHRE), a social justice think tank like Focus on the Global South, sections of Amnesty International and ActionAid, and much more radical grassroots groups like the Movimento Sem Terra from Brazil or the Kensington Welfare Rights Union from the United States. 57 The resolution stated: “we reaffirm our national commitment to the inalienable right of all to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, none of which can be realized without food” (A. Simon 2009b, 95). 55

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US Department of State since the US preparations of the 1996 World Food Summit that “economic, social, and cultural rights—including the right to food—are not recognized or protected under the US Constitution” 58. In 2008, FIAN International, Brot für die Welt and ICCO decided to launch a joint annual publication entitled the Right to Food and Nutrition Watch59.

Chart 2 - The Transnational Right To Food Network

US General Accounting Office. 1996. “Food security: Preparations for the 1996 World Food Summit”, NSIAD-97-44. Washington, D.C. It should be noted that some US jurisprudence from the 1960s and 1970s supported the constitutional compatibility and justiciability of economic, social, and cultural rights, including the right to an adequate standard of living and the right to education (Cohen and Messer 2009, 10). 59 http://www.rtfn-watch.org/en/home/watch-2012/new-release/

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1.2 Theoretical Framework This section presents the various theoretical frameworks that are relevant to the analysis of rights talk by transnational agrarian movements.

1.2.1 A Multidisciplinary and Inductive Approach Guided by my research questions, I identified a number of potential theoretical frameworks that could provide me with the tools needed to analyze what would emerge from my fieldwork. Thanks to my multidisciplinary background (trained as an economist, with specialization in business administration and environmental management, and with experience in food and trade issues and human rights) and my institutional position (attached to the Centre for Philosophy of Law, the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Democracy, Institutions, Subjectivity, and the Center for Development Studies), I initiated this research with no preconceived ideas of the theoretical frameworks I would mobilize, beyond the obvious start with development studies and international human rights law. My research approach was mostly inductive (Kaufmann 1996, 22) and relied on an empirical method60. In contrast with more theoretical methods in which the collection of empirical data is guided largely by preliminary theoretical exploration of what to expect, I allowed myself to collect quite a large amount of data before much speculation as to their significance, or without much idea of how I would use it. This means that rather than spending my first year focusing on my literature review, to then spend another year doing fieldwork, I combined fieldwork and theoretical explorations throughout the course of my four years of research. This method gave me a lot of satisfaction, as it enabled me to use my intuitive ability, let my research questions evolve with interesting discoveries along the way, and explore bodies of literature from different disciplines, as I felt the need to analyze new information or respond to new questions. It also gave me the flexibility to seize fieldwork opportunities as they emerged (for example, in response to international events or invitations), rather than being constrained by rigid time frames set in advance. Of course, no research approach can ever be entirely inductive. The flexibility of the inductive approach â&#x20AC;&#x201C; which leaves research questions more open-ended and focuses more on the 60

The comprehensive approach described by Kaufmann consists in building oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s theoretical framework and research hypothesis through and during fieldwork. It is intimately connected to what is defined in the literature as Grounded Theory, a research methodology that consists in using the initial research question to identify the phenomenon one wishes to study, choose oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thematic focus and determine the first interviews/fieldwork to conduct (Glaser and Strauss 1967; Strauss and Corbin 1998).

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research process than on reaching an anticipated outcome – requires constant awareness from the practitioner. I made sure to set times to reflect regularly on my tentative research hypothesis and various theoretical frameworks, using a more deductive approach, in order to meaningfully move from specific observations to broader generalizations. On those occasions, I would look, in my fieldwork, for manifestations of concepts I had discovered in the literature. This research draws from a number of theoretical frameworks from various disciplines, that are presented below.

1.2.2 Sociology and Anthropology of Law and Human Rights Sociology and anthropology have much to contribute to the critical analysis of human rights. These disciplines provide a variety of tools to grasp the diversity and complexity of human rights regimes (which include a vast array of different kinds of moral and political projects), the multiple ways in which human rights have been and can be conceptualized (from liberal individualism to full-blown multiculturalism), the very different kinds of sites in which they are found (from established legal codes enforceable in domestic courts to international declarations that nation-states endorse but rarely implement), and the array of political constituencies (from liberal individualists to marginalized ethnic minorities and groups advocating for their self-determination) that claim them (Wilson 2006, 77). Yet, sociologists and anthropologists have been slow in engaging with the theory and practice of human rights (Hynes et al. 2010; Goodale 2006). Sociologists long felt uncomfortable with the universalism attached to the human rights idea, because of the lasting influence of the writings of Marx, Durkheim and Weber (Hynes et al. 2010, 813). In his famous article “On the Jewish Question”, in which he attacked proponents of the “universal rights of man” (Marx 1843), Marx described the rights of man as exemplifying individualism, and as obfuscating the wider social class relations of capitalism. Durkheim and Weber, in turn, emphasized the specificity of laws and morality in relationship to particular societies, leading to a critical attitude towards universal rights claims (Hynes et al. 2010, 814). Over recent years, however, sociologists have understood the importance of human rights to contemporary social struggles and have started to develop their analysis of human rights regimes (Hynes et al. 2010, 811). They have moved from non-engagement to social constructionist engagement (Short 2009, 95) and are gradually shifting toward the analysis of human rights law, theory and social practices. Contemporary sociologists of rights have called for more engagement with the “messy realities of interpretation and implementation” (Hynes et al. 2010, 813).

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

The formal engagement of (at least US) anthropologists with human rights began in December of 1947 when the executive board of the American Anthropological Association – through Melville Herskovits’s “Statement on Human Rights” – refused to endorse what would become the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) (Goodale 2006, 1). Although anthropologists showed little interest for human rights as a research topic until the mid-80s, they nevertheless came across human rights in the multiple locations where they conducted fieldwork (Short 2009, 99) and tried to create linkages between anthropological research and projects for social justice (Goodale 2006, 2). Their immersion, empathy and political engagement gradually led to a re-orientation of anthropological perspectives on human rights (Short 2009, 100). The discipline’s ethnographic methodology has proven useful to study the different ways in which human rights are viewed and experienced by transnational social actors, leading to a skeptical pluralist view of rights (Short 2009, 101). Today, anthropologists and sociologists share a “social constructionist” view of rights which does not see rights as givens but as products of human social interaction (Short 2009, 103). They have largely left behind the now old relativism vs. universalism debate (Dembour 2001). Studies in legal anthropology61 have described the use of legal conceptions to challenge state law and attempt to construct an alternative justice, notably by revolutionary movements; the emergence of popular justice tribunals i.e. local courts inspired by transnational ideologies; and the use by indigenous peoples of legal claims framed in the transnational discourse of human rights, treaty rights and self-determination to reassert land and subsistence rights (Engle Merry 1992). The literature on indigenous peoples is particularly relevant to this research because it shows how the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other declarations have shaped the discourse and politics of indigenous groups, emphasizing that social actors “work within established, often hegemonic, discursive fields that determine which frames are available” (Merry 2006, 41). The important work of Engle Merry helps understand how the “human rights language is extracted from the universal and adapted to national and local communities”, a phenomenon she describes by using the concept of “vernacularization” (Merry 2006, 39). In my research, I analyze the constraints imposed by the human rights framework to then explore the creative contribution of social movements to new conceptions of human rights, building of my conviction that food sovereignty activists do more than simply translating or adapting rights to localized contexts. In that sense, I take what I have called a “reverse approach”: rather than taking recognized human rights as a departure point, I look at human rights in their pre-codified form, and aims at analyzing their institutional trajectory (Claeys 2012b, 845). 61

I am grateful to Cristoph Eberhard at the Facultés universitaires Saint-Louis in Brussels for having initiated me to the field of legal anthropology. I took great pleasure in attending the various conferences and seminars he organized.

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Law and Globalization From Below In doing so, I have been inspired by the writings of Boaventura de Sousa Santos and Balakrishnan Rajagopal, and others, who call on researchers to look at the contribution of social movements (from below) to the creation of a cosmopolitan, multi-cultural and antihegemonic conception of human rights (Santos and Rodríguez-Garavito 2005, 21). Reviewing the literature on law and globalization, Santos notes that most theories and empirical studies discuss legal transformation as top-down processes of diffusion of economic and legal models, mostly from North to South, and in which transnational corporations and northern states are the only actors considered (Santos and RodríguezGaravito 2005, 2). Although the use of law by domestic social movements is well documented, and transnational social movements and advocacy networks have received considerable attention in the last decades (Keck and Sikkink 1998; Tarrow 1998), there is little, Santos complains, on the role of law in counter-hegemonic globalization, and the challenges it poses to legal theory and practice (Santos and Rodríguez-Garavito 2005, 3). The existing literature focuses on global governance, the erosion of state power and the emergence of non-state forms of regulation. Its critical version analyzes the reproduction of the hegemony of transnational capital and northern states, the contribution of law to the resilience and pervasiveness of domination across borders, and the failure of progressive global legal designs such as human rights. As a result, Santos argues, the moment of hegemony is over-emphasized, a top-down vision of law prevails and counter-hegemony politics are made invisible62. In reaction, Santos proposes to adopt subaltern cosmopolitan63 legality as a socio-legal theory (Santos 2005, 12). In essence, Santos seeks to grasp how national and international legal institutions underpinning hegemonic neoliberal globalization are being transformed or replaced by bottom-up resistance (Santos 2005, 6). He seeks to assess the potential and limitations of law-centered

The research on new forms of governing that rely on collaboration among non-state actors – such as collaborative governance, democratic experimentalism, or responsive regulation, which draws from pragmatist social theory (Maesschalck 2008) – is welcomed because it reconnects law and politics, sociolegal studies and globalization. The kind of political action that is envisaged by the governance approach, however, is remote from that of counter-hegemonic globalization. It does not account for deep power asymmetries, tends to see the public sphere as depoliticized, and rejects the victim’s perspective. In short, pragmatism supposes “a measure of mutual accountability that may not be attractive or possible for everyone” (Santos and Rodríguez-Garavito 2005, 6–8). 63 The term subaltern designates the emphasis on social exclusion and all forms of subordination associated with globalization, and the shift to what Dussel has called the “community of the victims”. Cosmopolitanism celebrates political or legal projects that contribute toward planetary conviviality, as long as they do not turn out to be exclusionary (Santos and Rodríguez-Garavito 2005, 13).

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

strategies for the advancement of counter-hegemonic political struggles in the context of globalization. Santos puts the emphasis on what he calls counter-hegemonic movements and organizations and on including those at the bottom. Santos argues that new understandings and practices capable of replacing dominant ones are visible in a wide array of contemporary struggles around immigration laws, labor laws, corporate social responsibility, intellectual property rights, environmental regulation, and the struggles of indigenous peoples and peasants for land, culture, and the environment. Of course, it would be easy to discard many of these experiences as idealistic, hopeless or pastoriented. Instead, Santos proposes to interpret experiences in a prospective spirit, in an expansive way, and to apply a symbolic blow-up by which potentially interesting traits are amplified. This is what he calls the “sociology of emergence” (Santos 2005, 17). Looking at international human rights law from below, Rajagopal argues that the praxis of social movements poses radical theoretical and epistemological challenges to international law (both mainstream and critical) to the extent that they articulate alternative conceptions of modernity and development (Rajagopal 2003, 249). Rajagopal argues that western domestic law traditionally ignores the contribution of mass politics or popular resistance, and the role played by ordinary people as agents of legal transformation. This conception of law has been criticized by two streams of literature: American critical race theorists and feminists; and American and European socio-legal theorists, as well as non-western constitutional scholars. Yet, there has been little engagement with social movements’ literature so far. Rajagopal advocates for new conceptions of law that could accommodate the role of subaltern communities and invites us to think about international law through social movements rather than through states (realists/positivists) or individuals (liberals/naturalists) (Rajagopal 2003, 243). The Social movement literature sheds a light on forms of extra-institutional mobilization that usually stay out of the cognitive boundaries of human rights, he argues, and helps us see the interconnectedness between everyday forms of power struggles and institutional politics. International law, therefore, must decenter itself from its unitary conception of the political sphere and from the view that the state or individuals are the only political actors (Rajagopal 2003, 234).

1.2.3 Sociology of Social Movements The analysis of a transnational social movement can take several forms. Indeed, transnational social movements are defined by a number of characteristics – their organizational networks, their communication channels, their (largely non-conventional) action repertoires, the political opportunities they seek to take advantage of, the way they frame their claims and the collective identity they try to create – all of which can be the

Actors, Theoretical Framework, and Methodology

separate focus of social science research. While all these elements are obviously interconnected, each of them calls for specific investigation tools and analysis techniques. Transnational social movements are made of “informal networks linking a plurality of individuals and groups more or less structured from an organizational point of view” (Della Porta et al. 2006, 18). The researcher may analyze such networks in order to determine how the movement is structured, how it acts, and what its main networks and organizations are. The researcher may also want to assess whether such organizations are able to network more than sporadically. What is the stability and flexibility of the networks? Is flexibility best for adapting to a global society or a sign of their inability to build durable organizations? The analysis of the movement’s communication channels – both internal and with the outside – can interestingly complement such an organizational analysis. The analysis of a movement’s repertoires of action (Tilly 1986; Tilly 2004) looks into the strategies of the movement and at the counter summits and transnational campaigns the movement organizes. Transnational social movements are unusual in their forms of political participation. They use unconventional action repertoires, meaning they differ from other political actors in the use of protest as a means of pressure on institutions. Protests are forms of action that address public opinion before addressing elected representatives or public bureaucracy. They break up the daily routine. How does the movement interact with its environment? Is there continuity or innovation in its protest repertoires? The researcher may seek to grasp if the movement’ organizational structures tend toward institutionalization, with a preference for less visible lobbying strategies and a declining emphasis on protests, or if they tend to adopt more disruptive action repertoires. She may want to connect the nature and evolution of repertoires of action to changes in international political opportunity structures (Tarrow 1998) . Finally, the existence of a transnational social movement largely depends on its ability to develop a common interpretation of reality to nurture solidarity and collective identifications. The establishment of a transnational social movement requires the development of a discourse that identifies both a common identity (the us) and the target of protest (the other) at a supranational level (Touraine 2002; Pleyers 2008). In order to describe the development of a complex, multiple and fluid collective identity (Polletta and Jasper 2001; D. A. Snow and McAdam 2000; M. Bernstein 1997), the researcher may want to ask questions such as: who are the activists of this movement? What are their aims, ideas, and demands? How do activists perceive the strategies of the movement? How does the movement develop new visions of the world and systems of values alternative to dominant ones? Do conflicts emerge over these new values? This research focuses on the aims, ideas and demands of food sovereignty activists, and on the worldviews of right to food defenders. In particular, it looks at how human rights are used in the framing of movement claims. It also discusses the strategies and action repertoires of Vía Campesina, and to some extent its organizational structure, but only to

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

the extent relevant. In a similar fashion, it looks at the organization and strategies deployed within the transnational right to food network, but focuses on the way right to food defenders frame their message.

Frame Analysis The emergence and success of a social movement essentially depends on three sets of interrelated factors: political opportunities, mobilizing structures and “framing” processes (McAdam et al. 1996, 8). Political opportunities and movement organizations do not produce sustained social movements. A movement’s ability to develop depends on “meaning work”: the production of meaning for constituents, antagonists and bystanders (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 612). Framing64 is one of the core activities of social movements. Movements carry and transmit mobilizing beliefs and ideas, but they are also actively engaged in the production of meaning for participants and opposers. This productive work, which may involve the shaping and restructuring of existing meanings, has been conceptualized as framing in the social movements’ literature (R. Benford and Snow 1988, 198). Framing serves the purposes of diagnosing certain situations as problematic, offering solutions and calling to action (R. Benford and Snow 1988, 199). While most collective action frames are movement-specific or “organizational” – in the sense that they are limited to the interests of a particular group or to a set of related problems —, some frames function as a kind of algorithm that colors and constrains the orientations and activities of other movements. These more generic frames are referred to as master frames (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 618). The “rights master frame” is a good example of a collective action frame which has been identified as sufficiently broad in interpretive scope, inclusivity, flexibility and cultural resonance to function as master frame (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 619). The rights master frame was mobilized by the civil rights movement (McAdam 1996; Valocchi 1996) and later adopted by gay and lesbian rights groups (Hull 2001; Plummer 2006). It is prominent in pro-life VS prochoice debates and in struggles over workers’ rights, mothers’ rights and welfare rights (Reese and Newcombe 2003) as well as women’s and migrants’ rights (Elias 2010). This 64

The original focus of frame analysis was on the frames that social movements’ leaders use in order to aggregate their militants, convince sympathizers, reinforce the organization and build alliances. It is now widely understood that all movement participants contribute actively to framing processes. The concept of framing, originally developed by Goffman in 1974, was first applied to the literature on social movements in the mid-1980s (D. Snow et al. 1986). The objective of frame analysis was to link together social psychological factors and structural/organizational perspectives that had been until then predominant. Structural paradigms could incorporate frames easily, as long as they were seen as a factor added on to the underlying structural story, a kind of “resource” that recruiters had to get right in order to succeed (Jasper 2009).

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research explores the advantages and constraints of the rights master frame, through the example of Vía Campesina. Concepts from frame analysis are used, mostly in chapters 5 and 6, to discuss the strategies used by social movements to overcome some of the limitations of the human rights framework. Despite its huge success, frame analysis presents a series of limitations65. Frame analysis has been criticized for being positivist and utilitarian, and for failing to look at how actors think and feel within the movement. The focus has been on the macro-sociological level, and there has been insufficient analysis of face-to-face encounters and meetings. In short the level of analysis tends to be too general: the diversity of ways in which social movements’ members interpret and act, and the diversity of contexts in which symbols and arguments are used, is too often unaccounted for (Cefaï 2007, 471–474). A fixed conception of frames has also tended to prevail, despite the emphasis on frames as a flexible concept by key scholars like David Snow (Johnston and Olivier 2000). I have tried to deal with these limitations by taking a dynamic approach to framing (looking at the contests and disputes between various frames, both within a movement or network and between a movement and the outside world) and by paying attention to the link between framing and strategies. I have also linked framing to the processes by which collective identities are created, as these processes interact with and are supported by meaning work.

Injecting Rights in Social Movements Studies Despite the fact that social movements work, in essence, towards a redefinition of the situations in which citizenship can manifest itself and be exercised in practice, social movements’ literature has paid little attention to the various ways in which social movements use law and rights (Cefaï 2007, 532). This is true also for the literature on contemporary transnational agrarian movements, despite the acknowledged use of rights talk by food movement activists (Rosset and Martinez 2010; Borras 2008b; McMichael 2008). Certain aspects at the intersection of social movements and rights are well documented, such as the use of legal strategies by social movements. Yet the use of law and rights is often interpreted only as a way to obtain economic, social and political advantages, while rights-based struggles often go far beyond the material demands that 65

In the US, a cultural sociology has emerged over the last decades, which at least partially responds to the limits of frame analysis (Cefaï 2007, 501). What has been called the “cultural turn” entered the (especially American) scholarship on social movements through the concept of frame alignment. The next popular concept, which required more rethinking of structural approaches, was that of collective identities. Arising out of debates within a number of movements (such as the gay movement or the feminist movement) over identity politics in the 1980s, collective identity came to represent the subjective meanings that movements carried with them (Jasper 2009). The focus on collective identities was considerably reinforced by Touraine’s and Melucci’s influential work on new social movements (Touraine 2002; Pleyers 2008; Melucci 1996). The role of rituals, myths and emotions receives more and more attention (Cefaï 2007, 527).

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they put forward (the expressive aspects can be extremely important) and do not necessarily take place in the legal realm (Cefaï 2007, 533). Moreover, the limitations of the human rights framework are rarely considered. These issues have only partly been addressed in development studies. Research on rights in development studies critically addresses the issue of the relationship between rights and empowerment, rights and accountability, and citizenship. Some interesting studies have been done on the impacts of rights-based approaches to development (NyamuMasembi and Cornwall 2004) and on the conflicts between market-based and rightsbased frameworks, as well as on the use of rights in the growing number of struggles around natural resources (Newell and Wheeler 2006).

1.2.4 Critical Agrarian and Peasant Studies, Critical Development Studies and Critical Legal Studies The analysis of human rights claims by contemporary agrarian movements requires digging into the socio-economical and historical contexts in which movements emerge, frame their demands and discuss whether to engage in institutional or extra-institutional strategies. Issues of justice and rights have been long discussed in the field of peasant and agrarian studies. A wide diversity of works discusses peasant struggles over property rights over land, often framed in terms of “land rights” or “peasant rights” (Agarwal 1988; Bagchi 1992; Ike 1984; Gershon Feder and Feeny 1991; Ocheje 2007; Plantinga and Miller 2001). Many articles emphasize the particularly complex issue of women’s land rights (Kapadia 1996; Mackenzie 1990), in particular in the 1990s, when debates on gender and the environment surfaced in journals like the Journal of Peasant Studies (Brass 2005, 157). Questions of rights have also been discussed, quite extensively, in articles that deal with the issue of “enclosures”, both as a historical phenomenon (Russell 2000) and as a recently re-emerging global trend, in the form of land or “green grabbing” (Fairhead, Leach, and Scoones 2012; Corson 2011). In addition, and probably most relevant for this research, questions of rights and justice have been addressed in writings on peasant resistance, peasant revolution, and peasant rebellions (Agarwal 1994; Lichbach 1994; Malseed 2008; McDonald 2001; Mukherjee 1988; Shah 2008). The works of James Scott are particularly relevant in this regard. Famous for his works on the “moral economy of the peasant” (J. Scott 1976) and on the “weapons of the weak” (J. C. Scott 1985) where he explores subaltern resistance, Scott amply discusses rights in his writings. Very early on, Scott explicitly distinguished the act of “demanding rights” from other forms of peasant political expressions (J. Scott and Kerkvliet 1973, 260). More recently, the concept of “rightful resistance” has been developed by O’Brien to designate a partly institutionalized form of popular action that combines rights talk, legal tactics, and open confrontation. Rightful resistance, O’Brien

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contends, may have more impact than everyday resistance, while remaining less risky than wholly uninstitutionalized forms of resistance (O’Brien 2011; O’Brien and Li 2006). Research in agrarian and peasant studies66 was also of great help to try to grasp the complexity of the capitalist transformation of the peasantry and of the most recent changes occurring in the rural world as a result of neoliberal policies, against which Vía Campesina claims to be organizing. Concepts from agrarian and peasant studies are used in chapters 2 and 3 to contextualize the demands made by Vía Campesina activists. Critical development studies similarly provided me with important tools to understand the context in which the human right to food was conceptualized, in part in response to extent development theories, such as the basic needs67 (Galtung 1978; ILO 1976) or the entitlement (Sen 1999) approaches, something I explore in chapter 4. This literature was also useful to reflect on the role of the peasantry and its contribution to economy/development. Finally, writings in international human rights law and critical legal studies (Cefaï 2007, 533) helped me develop a critical analysis of the various conceptions of rights I was able to observe in my fieldwork, which I do in chapters 2 and 3.

1.3 Research Methodology This section discusses various methodological issues: my choice of fieldwork sites (1.3.1), the methods I relied on for collecting data (1.3.2) and my position as a critically engaged activist researcher (1.3.3).

1.3.1 Moving Across Different Sites of Engagement The study of transnational networks needs to be located at multiple scales, both the globalized and the localized (Baletti, Johnson, and Wolford 2008). Ideas and movement activists travel from the local to the global, and back. In his analysis of peasant mobilizations against genetically modified crops in India, South Africa, and Brazil, Scoones describes how his research led him to trace “connections from three national settings to the international arena and examining the links between the three countries”

I am grateful to Jun Borras for directing me to this immense body of literature which I discovered with great delight. 67 I am grateful to Jean-Philippe Peemans for alerting me to the importance of locating the conceptualization of the human right to food within the history of the UN and the various development theories that were elaborated in the second half of the last century.

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(Scoones 2008). Of course, this is no easy thing to do and identifying where to go can be quite a challenge. In order to select my different sites of engagement, I traveled within the transnational food sovereignty movement with a view to identify where the issue of rights was most discussed. In doing so, I was helped by the distinction made by Borras who has showed that Vía Campesina functions both as an actor on the international level, with agendas and aims that broadly reflect its member organizations; and as an arena of action, because these agendas and aims are products of internal negotiations among the different member organizations (Borras 2004, 3) Looking at Vía Campesina as an arena of action, I initially identified two places where discussions on rights either directly or indirectly take place. The first is the Human Rights commission; the second is the Food Sovereignty and Trade commission. Although I intended to follow the work of these two commissions closely, I only managed to do so to some extent. Only a few commission meetings actually took place68 in the 2008-2012 period in which I did my research, and getting access to these meetings proved difficult. However, I managed to have access to preparatory documents and to interview people who had attended these meetings. In addition, I followed the many debates and informal discussions on food sovereignty and rights that take place at the very local level. Some contexts proved particularly conducive to the exploration of alternative conceptions of human rights. Extensive field work in Mexico and Central America (2008, 2009) allowed me to get a better understanding of the worldviews and imaginary of food sovereignty activists and to grasp the influence of their understanding of human rights on the movement as a whole. Meetings and interviews in Indonesia (2010) gave me a glimpse of the context in which the idea of peasants’ rights emerged. Fieldwork in Bolivia (2011) helped me grasp the import and influence of indigenous peoples’ conceptions of rights. Contacts with Vía Campesina members in France, Belgium, and Spain, and fieldwork in Canada (2008, 2012), gave me an opportunity to explore the situation of Northern farmers. Limited fieldwork in South Asia (India, Nepal) and Africa (Democratic Republic of the Congo) led me to witness wide variations in the ways human rights and food sovereignty were perceived across regions. Looking at Vía Campesina as a transnational actor, I identified a number of international and local arenas in which I could study the interactions of food sovereignty activists with representatives from other movements, rural constituents, human rights and development 68

Commissions have not always functioned optimally due to language and organizational problems. Some commissions only meet erratically. One difficulty is the lack of continuity and insufficient preparation of new participants. Although these problems could be solved by involving technical support staff, this option has not been pursued because of the perceived risk of becoming bureaucratic and losing the collectiveness (Rosset and Martinez 2005, 34). Issues of funding are also paramount.

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NGOs but also movement opponents, such as international institutions. My selection of which transnational sites (Merry 2006, 38) to study was facilitated by the very choices made by Vía Campesina itself. As we will see, strategic decisions on which institutions to engage with are made very carefully by the movement and only a limited number of arenas are identified as potentially useful to advance rights claims. I focused my attention on UN processes where the institutionalization of new rights was actively pursued or at least envisaged, mostly the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN, and more recently the UN Human Rights Council (for advancing the rights of peasants) and the UN Committee on World Food Security (for advancing the right to food sovereignty). In addition, participant observation at various international and local or regional events informed my views on how rights are framed and used by food sovereignty activists in their interactions with representatives from NGOs or UN institutions who have different worldviews. Meetings of the Civil Society Mechanism and of the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty, often in Rome, proved to be valuable sites for exploring tensions between activists within the food movement. At the national level, food sovereignty coalitions which include rural and urban activists, and, at the global level, summits like the World Summit on Food Security of 2008, proved equally important. Meetings convened at the national level to bring claims to the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food during his official visits also provided me with interesting insights. The protests, campaigns and statements issued by the movement to react to international events helped me complete the picture. In many local, national and international arenas, right to food defenders and food sovereignty activists work together. They may join forces in national food sovereignty campaigns or events (e.g. Campaña sin maíz no hay país in Mexico) or meet regularly in food sovereignty “platforms” (e.g. Plate-Forme Souveraineté Alimentaire in Belgium). The assistance of right to food experts is sometimes sought by local peasant movements to help release peasant leaders from jails, file a case in court, or obtain protection for threatened rural communities (e.g. in Honduras where criminalization of peasant leaders is ferocious). At the international level, right to food defenders and food sovereignty activists often debate joint statements at NGO forums that are organized in parallel to international gatherings like World Food Summits. In all these contexts, I was able to analyze the interactions between actors with distinct worldviews, rationalities, strategies, and conceptions of human rights. In short, I conducted my fieldwork across various continents and types of arenas (see chart 3 below). I felt comfortable conducting a multi-sited ethnography (Marcus 1995) because it felt particularly appropriate to my research questions. Yet, linking the localized to the globalized proved challenging. Moving from the local to the international, and back, I was hoping to explore how ideas of rights are shaped by local realities, exported to other regions within the food sovereignty movement, and in turn influenced by international framing. After collecting considerable amounts of data, I settled for a focus on norm-creation at the international level.

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Chart 3 - VĂa Campesina in the World and Fieldwork Sites

1.3.2 A Three-Track Approach to Data Collection This research is based on data collected in three ways: analysis of written documents and statements published by the actors analyzed; semi-directed interviews with a selected range of food sovereignty activists and right to food defenders; and participant observation at a variety of international and local meetings with social actors. As an Advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food since May 2008, I was able to travel to a number of locations and attend public and private meetings with food sovereignty activists, right to food defenders and policy-makers. I was also provided access to a large quantity of information, reports and email exchanges. This allowed me to study a number of international meetings and processes: the World Summit on Food Security of June 2008, both the official summit and the parallel event; the annual meetings of the Committee on World Food Security since October 2010; the negotiations of Voluntary Guidelines on the governance of tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests at the CFS in 2011-2012; and some sessions of UN Human Rights Council. I attended meetings of the Special Rapporteur with representatives of various Directorate General of the European Commission (Relex, Trade, ECHO, Envi, and AGRI) in July 2009; and with the WTO Secretariat in 2008 and with WTO member states in 2009. In addition, I was able to accompany the Special Rapporteur when he conducted official missions to Canada in 2012, Guatemala and Nicaragua in 2009, and organized a

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preparatory meeting in Mexico in 2009. I also attended two workshops to debate land rights with social actors from South Asia and South East Asia, in Chennai, India and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, respectively, in March 2010. I took the opportunity of being in the region to visit the International Secretariat of Vía Campesina in Jakarta, and conducted interviews with representatives of the Vía Campesina member SPI, and visited communities involved in local land conflicts. These various meetings gave me first hand access to many local agrarian movements and human rights defenders working on food issues, which I could later interview, and allowed me to witness first hand the diversity and complexity of the national and local issues at stake, and the way these issues were dealt with by social actors. Based in Brussels, I was able to attend, as a researcher, a number of meetings of the European sections of Vía Campesina where discussions ranged from the milk crisis (in October 2009) to market regulation mechanisms (in May 2009). I also attended the General Assembly of the Confédération paysanne in France in May 2010. As a board member of FIAN Belgium since 2007 and former coordinator of the national secretariat (in 2003-04) of the Belgian section of FIAN International, I have attended numerous debates on the strategic orientations and priorities of a local FIAN section and have experienced from within the challenges facing a local member organization. I have had privileged access to internal documents and discussions. As a right to food expert, I was invited to participate in fact-finding missions on the right to food in a number of countries, which provided me with ample opportunities for fieldwork, both during and after such missions: in Nepal (2007), Haiti (2008) and Bolivia (2011) with the Canadian para-governmental organization Rights & Democracy, and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2011 with FIAN International. I was also invited by the French peasant organization Confédération paysanne to lead a discussion on the right to food sovereignty for European member organization of Vía Campesina in Paris, in 2009, which allowed me to test some of my hypotheses and take my research a step further. The list of nearly 60 sites where I did participant observation is provided in Appendix 1. In the course of this research, I conducted more than 110 semi-directed interviews with food sovereignty movement leaders and activists, either at the local level (in the above mentioned countries) or at global summits or UN meetings that these activists attended. I have also interviewed representatives from the right to food network, mostly from FIAN, but also from human rights and development NGOS like Action Aid, Oxfam, Misereor and FoodFirst. Interviews proved very informative and enjoyable, in part because of the intensity of most of the exchanges I had, and in part because many interviewees themselves expressed their gratefulness for having had this opportunity for introspection. In addition to conducting interviews with a pre-established canvas and list of questions or research themes, I have benefited greatly, to fine-tune my analysis, from informal conversations, when going out for drinks after meetings or walking to a restaurant. The full list of interviews I conducted is provided in Appendix 2. In the manuscript itself, I

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have changed the names of my interviewees69, at the exception of those of public figures, in order to guarantee them anonymity. I did not include long descriptions of the various national and local contexts in which I conducted fieldwork, in spite of the obvious influence of local contexts on how activists frame their claims (both at the local and global levels). Some of these contexts I was able to study in some depths, some I could only imagine. The cost of studying transnational processes is certainly that one can only gloss over local complexities. Only a fraction of food sovereignty activists travels the world and attends international forums. A side effect of my focus on transnational and institutional processes is therefore the disproportionate attention I paid to the views and perspectives of movement leaders. While I tried to compensate this bias by ensuring I interviewed all kinds of movement participants, I also felt that it would be inappropriate to minimize the role of leaders (Edelman 1999), especially in the case of Vía Campesina, which is a highly structured and somewhat hierarchical organization. Despite sustained efforts by the movement to achieve gender parity, most well known Vía Campesina leaders are male, although in some regions, women leaders have a strong influence too. Their names are Paul Nicholson, Rafael Alegria, Henri Saragih, Alberto Gomez, Javier Sanchez, and formerly Jose Bové. They carry frequent flyers cards and have connections all over the world. They have grown accustomed to the particular type of human interaction that is practiced in international meetings, sometimes at the expense of their involvement in local struggles. Their charisma and natural authority are striking. Their ideas, political views and backgrounds heavily influence the movement, although it is of course extremely difficult to assess how and to what extent. Considering the large size and variable shape of the transnational food sovereignty movement, I have, in addition to fieldwork, used a selection of key statements in order to analyze the food sovereignty movement’s discourse. These statements can take various forms. Press releases are circulated to react to a specific international event. Declarations are drafted and approved at the end of international or regional forums where participants meet each other, share information, strategize, discuss the cause of their shared concerns, identify their opponents, draw a list of claims and elaborate an alternative vision. Calls for action are directed at movement participants and potential sympathizers and encourage them to join in protest action. A list of key statements, declarations and press releases that I have used to explore the main aspects of the food sovereignty movement’s discourse70 in the period ranging from 1996 to 2012 is presented in Appendix 3. The table 69

All name changes are notified by a footnote in the text. I did not do a similar exercise for the right to food network, although historical developments are presented in chapter 4. Indeed, the network did not follow a logic of protest and reaction to or against global events or institutions (if anything, it reacted to cases of violations of the right to food). Key international moments can nevertheless be identified, which can be considered as milestones for the right to food network: the World Food Summit of 1996 and the World Food Summit five years later of 2002, the World Summit on Food Security of 2009, etc. For more details, see chapter 4. 70

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gives, for each document, the date and place of release, the actor or network who issued it, the type of event it emerged from, the type of document, and some indication of the political context in which it was released.

1.3.3 My Position as Critically Engaged Activist Researcher Before becoming a PhD student, I worked for a number of human rights and development NGOs (FIAN in Belgium, Oxfam, Rights & Democracy, CCIC and Maquila Solidarity Network in Canada, FIDH in Paris) in the period ranging from 2003-2008. These years of NGO work allowed me to develop a good grasp of the issues at the intersection of food and agriculture, trade, globalization and human rights, and gave me a good understanding of the ways of working of the NGO world. They made me feel passionate, good about myself and shaped my identity as a right to food person. I developed a deep sense of belonging to the (at the time still relatively small) transnational network of right to food defenders. The questions that are at the heart of this dissertation, emerged in that period of intense learning and discovering. They emerged as I was taking part in organizational meetings, country missions, national coalitions and international networks, issuing press statements, doing analysis, fundraising and writing reports to donors. They grew out of the discomfort I felt in certain situations, in particular when I witnessed a disconnect between “my/our” right to food way of framing the world, and the various ways in which the actors that surrounded me understood human rights and formulated their claims. Increasingly discouraged by the daily workload and permanent feeling of urgency that reigns in many NGOs, which prevented me from critically reflecting on “my/our” actions and ideas, I decided to take a break and take my questions to the academic world where I would have the luxury to explore them at length. When I entered the PhD program in April 2008, I did not leave my human rights defender identity behind. My passion for agrarian and human rights issues persisted. I remained on the board of FIAN Belgium and, working alongside the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, I continued to feel connected to the struggles and lives of food activists. To some extent, my life remained unchanged, except I had more time on my hands, and could now start to dig into and try to make sense of the years of information and observations I had accumulated. I started to observe in a more systematic and structured way. Writing proved very useful to distance myself from the day to day right to food work I was engaged in. Considering my position as an actor myself, much of what I did in the 2008-2012 period can be described as studying sideways (Hannerz 2004). Studying up became a well known figure of speech in anthropology some decades ago as Laura Nader noted that anthropologists mostly engaged in studying people less powerful and prosperous than

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themselves (Nader 1972), that is studying down. In contrast, my position was closer to that of a colleague activist for people working in development or human rights NGOs) but also, to some extent, for members of the food sovereignty movement. Although I did not hide my position as a researcher71, and talked about it openly to the people I studied, it is clear that my work as an activist (and advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur) greatly facilitated my fieldwork. I knew many of the people I interviewed before starting my research, and to them I probably remained an activist, although I slowly and intimately felt more and more like a researcher. By the end of my PhD, I had become an almost fully developed critically engaged activist researcher in the sense used by Speed to describe a double commitment by the researcher to contribute “not just to our theoretical understanding of social dynamics but also to concrete political objectives on the ground” (Speed 2006, 70). While my institutional position had the undeniable advantage of facilitating access to people and international arenas, it also raised complex issues linked to how the actors I interacted with perceived me, what they were hoping to get from me or the Special Rapporteur by talking to me, and how this influenced what they told me. Fortunately, this difficulty was counterbalanced by my own awareness of the situation, a relatively good access to information and later opportunities to observe, interpret with care, nuance and cross-check what I had been told. To fine-tune my analysis to the maximum, I continued conducting interviews until I reached data saturation (I kept coming up to the same observations), which was a sign that the research needed to be wrapped up. Participant observation, however, has continued to this day. While this research approaches its conclusions, peoples, things and ideas in the real world continue to evolve. When reading this manuscript, one should keep in mind the inherent limits of conducting research. Conducting research on a contemporary movement is like entering a movie theatre to watch just a small part of a movie that has already started, and leave it before the end. There is something inevitably uncomfortable about studying sideways. On many levels, when writing, I was confronted with the uneasy feeling that I was revealing stories and experiences that had been shared with me in confidence. As Edelman notes, agrarian activists invest a lot of energy in presenting coherent and “official” narratives about their movements (Edelman 2009, 249). The same goes for human rights defenders talking about their cause. The challenge for researchers, when they become aware of aspects of the activists’ biographies or of the NGO’s or movement’s practices that conflict with the official line, is to treat such dimensions adequately. Edelman argues that to portray 71

I did not, however, formalize a research agreement neither with Vía Campesina nor with FIAN. At some point, Vía Campesina considered establishing a written protocol for their relations with researchers and academic and non-governmental organizations. The objective was to ensure that the research would be of use to the movement, help the movement to understand what the research is about, and – in some cases – shape or determine the research agenda (Edelman 2008, 259). The elaboration of such a protocol has not yet materialized.

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movement practices and strategies in a critical way is often complicated by the fact that most university researchers who study or accompany social movements are profoundly sympathetic to the activists’ goals (Edelman 2009, 250). This is certainly a challenge with which I felt personally confronted. Aware that the extent of my contribution to agrarian movements would directly depend on my ability to pose “difficult questions” (Edelman 2009, 258), I tried to be as honest and respectful as possible, and resisted the pleasure of disclosing anecdotes and (dirty laundry) stories that I felt would not further my overall argument. Finally, I would have liked to find ways to give the people I studied a more active role in this research, for example by exploring participatory action research methods (Reitan 2007). This did not appear feasible, as I felt the need to consolidate first my own abilities at conducting research but it is something I wish to do in the future. I would also have enjoyed receiving feedback from movement participants on my analysis before finalizing my dissertation. Since the publication of my article on the food sovereignty movement in Sociology, I have received an encouraging signal from Vía Campesina about the relevance of my analysis of the challenges the movement is confronted with.

2 The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty According to Vía Campesina, we are facing “a historic clash between two models of economic, social and cultural development for the rural world”. One model sees family farmers as a “quaint but inefficient anachronism that should disappear with development”, the other sees them “as the basis of local economies”72 (Rosset and Martinez 2010, 168). Many of the academics who study the food sovereignty movement contrast what they call the “food sovereignty paradigm” (Rosset and Martinez 2010, 149) with the “dominant” model ruled by global capitalism and neo-liberalism. McMichael describes the emergence of a “global food/fuel agricultural complex, now in tension with various forms of localism” and argues that counter-movements such as Food Sovereignty, Slow Food, Community Supported Agriculture, and small-scale organic producers “contribute to the exhaustion of WTO-style agricultural liberalization” (McMichael 2009a, 142). While my intention is not to contest the view that we are witnessing a struggle between models, my interest lies in analyzing the tools and narrative that the food sovereignty movement uses to build and defend its alternative model. Rights, and the creation of new human rights in particular, play a central role in this construction. A careful analysis of how the food sovereignty movement uses and understands human rights is what makes the specificity of my research.

One model sees “boosting exports” as the way to “generate the foreign exchange needed to import cheap food for the hungry”, while the other sees the “conversion of farmland that once belonged to family farmers, peasants and indigenous peoples to export cropping as precisely the key driving force behind the growth of hunger”. The dominant model is based on “chemical-intensive large-scale monoculture with genetically modified crops”, the food sovereignty model counter-poses “a mixture of traditional knowledge and sustainable, agro-ecologically-based farming practices” (Rosset and Martinez 2010, 168).

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

The right to food sovereignty is probably the most emblematic invention of the transnational peasant movement Vía Campesina in the area of human rights. The right to food sovereignty, which is generally linked to trade-related claims (or demands in relation to the international economic order), is but a small part of Vía Campesina’s broader demand for food sovereignty. Other important aspects of food sovereignty include the right of peasant communities to access and control natural resources, and the right of peasants to produce and continue to exist. These aspects, together with the role of small peasants in the world food system, and their claim for autonomy, will be addressed in chapter 3, which focuses on peasants’ rights. While non-trade issues such as gender inequality, migrant farm workers, the youth, biodiversity and seeds, land and agrarian reform, have formed an important part of Vía Campesina’s work, in particular at the local, national or even regional level, this chapter focuses on trade issues, because of their visibility and prominence in the international arena, and their early framing as a “right to food sovereignty” issue. The present chapter is divided into five sections. In the next section, I present the origin and meaning of the food sovereignty (2.1). I then present the neoliberal context in which Vía Campesina (and the food sovereignty concept) emerged (2.2), and describe the nature of the relocalization project that is at the core of the food sovereignty paradigm (2.3). In the second part of this chapter, I move to an analysis of food sovereignty as a human right. I show that an alternative conception of human rights emanates from the praxis of Vía Campesina, looking at the content, rights-holders and duty-bearers of the invoked right of peoples to food sovereignty (2.4). In the last section (2.5), I discuss Vía Campesina’s effort to institutionalize the new and yet uncodified “right to food sovereignty”, at the international and national levels, and present some of the challenges that confront social movements when trying to get new rights recognized.

2.1 The Emergence and Meaning of Food Sovereignty Vía Campesina leader Paul Nicholson, from the farmer organization EHNE in the Basque country in Spain, recalls: “When the concept came out, it was intuitive and uncontrollable; it came out of a small group, which today is the whole world”73. The first/oldest written formulation of food sovereignty that I was able to find appears in Edelman’s fascinating book “Peasants against Globalization” (Edelman 1999). The book provides a detailed account of how small farmers responded to the free-market onslaught 73

“Cuando salió el concepto, fue intuitivo e incontrolable, salió de un grupo pequeño, que hoy es todo el mundo” (Paul Nicholson, EHNE, Vía Campesina, at workshop on the Right to Food Sovereignty and Trade organized by the Confédération paysanne for European organizations of Vía Campesina, Paris, 7 and 8 January 2009).

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that devastated Costa Rica. Food sovereignty (soberanía alimentaria) appears to emerge in this context as early as the mid-80s, essentially in response to a combination of drastic structural adjustment programs, the deliquescence of state support for agriculture and the arrival of US food imports. It is understood as meaning “national food security” and is usually coupled with the “right to continue being producers” (Edelman 1999, 102, 103). Peasants want to maintain their ability to sell on their local markets but trade liberalization and the subsequent fall of agricultural prices has made them vulnerable. In this context, a new generation of peasant organizations comes to fore. These new organizations, either born from the older ones – often attached to political parties – or founded virtually from scratch, are less clientelist and corporatist than their forebears and refuse to subordinate to urban interests. They demand a mixture of restoring improved versions of the state services, and structural changes, such as land redistribution (Rosset and Martinez 2010, 5). They quickly understand that their national governments are weak and that the issues at stake require some kind of organizing at the transnational level. Exchanges between peasant organizations74 from North America, Central America, and Europe (Desmarais 2008a, 114, 115), help develop ties between peasants who soon realize that they are faced with similar problems, and the victims of a similar system. Marc75, a French peasant from the Confédération paysanne who raises pigs in the Côtesd'Armor region, attended the 1993 meeting in Mons, Belgium, which was to lead to the creation of the Vía Campesina. He recalls: “before, the state of mind was, we need to help the starving poor in Africa, but then we realized that we were destroying each other”76. By the time Vía Campesina77 holds its second International Conference in Tlaxcala, Mexico, in April 1996, food sovereignty has already acquired a certain standing. Food sovereignty is associated with the right to produce, with access to land and with the democratic control of food systems. Participants also mention that that food sovereignty will have to be further defined in preparation of the World Food Summit to be held later that year. A first list of food sovereignty principles is established. The negative impacts of the dumping of food surpluses produced by the North and the growing presence of

It should be noted here that the organizations that constitute the Vía Campesina network all have distinct historical trajectories and struggles. For example, the Movimento dos Sem Terra (MST) in Brazil, was formed in the early 1980s with a focus on land issues, while the Karnataka State Farmers’ Association (KRSS) in India, was founded in 1980 out of earlier struggles agitating for greater political representation and against the perceived urban bias of development policies (Reitan 2007, 153, 156). The Confédération paysanne, in France, which was created out of the merging of two peasant unions in 1987, rejected productionism and emphasized the importance of sustainable farming (peasant) practices (Reitan 2007, 161). I focus on Central America here because it is the region of origin of the food sovereignty concept. 75 Name changed. 76 “Avant, l’état d’esprit c’était “il faut aider les petits noirs” [he is referring to the African famines of 197374 and of the mid-80s], là on a realisé qu’on se détruisait l’un l’autre” (interview, 4 May 2010). 77 For a description of the transnational agrarian organization Vía Campesina, and the food sovereignty movement in general, see chapter 1.

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transnational corporations in agriculture are clearly identified as being in contradiction with food sovereignty (Vía Campesina 1996a). Food sovereignty makes its appearance on the international scene in 1996. At the occasion of the World Food Summit (WFS) that was held in Rome from November 13 to 17, 1996, an NGO Forum is organized. The NGO Forum Declaration states that “food sovereignty” should take “precedence over macro-economic policies and trade liberalization” (NGO Forum to the World Food Summit 1996). Vía Campesina, in a statement released at the occasion of the WFS, defines food sovereignty as “the right of each nation to maintain and develop its own capacity to produce its basic foods respecting cultural and productive diversity” (Vía Campesina 1996c). The diagnosis is explicit: “The neo-liberal agricultural policies have led to the destruction of our family farm economies and to a profound crisis in our societies” (Vía Campesina 1999a). In reaction, Vía Campesina demands the establishment of “alternatives to the neo-liberal policies and institutions such as the WTO, WB and the IMF” (Vía Campesina 1999a). In the Seattle Declaration of 3 December 1999, Vía Campesina demands “the right to produce our food for our own consumers, with great diversity in production and consumption according to cultural preferences” (Vía Campesina 1999a). The Seattle Declaration lists some of the implications of food sovereignty: -

“To secure food sovereignty in each and every country giving priority to food production for its people, social aspects and environment; To give each country the right to define their own agricultural policies in order to meet their internal needs; This includes the right to prohibit imports in order to protect domestic production and to implement Agrarian Reform providing peasants and small to medium-sized producers with access to land; To stop all forms of dumping. To protect the production of staple domestic foods” (Vía Campesina 1999a).

Although the Seattle Declaration focuses on food and agricultural policies, food sovereignty includes many other dimensions than trade and WTO-related claims, such as agrarian reform and access to land, access to resources, territory, seeds, local knowledge, local markets, cultural identity, remunerative prices, the role of producers and so on. At the Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum, which was held in 2007, food sovereignty was conceptualized as relying on six pillars: (1) the right to food for all and the rejection of the commoditization of food; (2) support and respect for food producers; (3) localized food systems (against dumping and dependency towards transnational corporations); (4) local control over natural resources and territories (against privatization and exploitation, for access to land); (5) development and exchange of local knowledge (against genetically modified organisms) and (6) work in harmony with nature (against monoculture, industrial farming, for agro-ecological practices (Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum 2007b).

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

As we will explore, these different pillars are highlighted by certain groups more than others, and their interpretation varies across regions. The implications of food sovereignty, in all these areas, are still being discussed and defined. Food sovereignty means something different in each local context, and evolves as it is being debated. In the words of Josie Riffaud, a French peasant woman from the Confédération paysanne (in the Gironde department) who sits on the International Coordination Committee of the Vía Campesina: “food sovereignty is what we have in our guts”78.

2.2 Context of Emergence of Food Sovereignty: a Reaction to Neoliberalism This section describes the economic and political environment in which food sovereignty was born79. In doing so, it presents an overview of the different dynamics that make up the globalized food system – national food and agriculture policies, international trade, oligopolistic agribusiness transnational corporations, food crises –. By linking peasant activists’ claims to the “structural violence of neoliberal rule” (Reitan 2007, 148), I attempt to grasp the counter-hegemonic nature of food sovereignty. I look at what exactly it opposes to better apprehend the nature of what it proposes. As we will see, the context which gave rise to the food sovereignty movement is most clearly associated with the generalization of neoliberal policies in the post 1970s, a period marked by the end of the “long boom” of the international economy (Bello 2006, 1347). Its roots, however, are to be found in the long and much debated transition of agrarian economies to capitalism, a phenomenon that started in the 16th century (Beaud 1981, 27, 36) and led to a global division of labor and to the development of international trade in tropical products in the 1870s (Bernstein 2010, 67-70). This transformation of peasant farming into capitalist agriculture – which will be explored in the next chapter – cumulates today with the appropriation of nature by capital, the commoditization of food, and the development of new business models which seek to incorporate peasants in global supply chains controlled by the agribusiness industry. 78

“La souveraineté alimentaire c’est ce qu’on a dans les tripes” (Peasant from the Confédération paysanne, Vía Campesina, at workshop on the Right to Food Sovereignty and Trade organized by the Confédération paysanne for European organizations of Vía Campesina, Paris, 7 and 8 January 2009). 79 If the food sovereignty movement can be described as a coordinated response by peasants around the world whose lives have been affected by neoliberal policies, the advent of neoliberalism does not in itself suffice to explain what has prompted peasant activists to organize and protest. Indeed, policy changes and economic hardship do not necessarily induce social movement reaction. The connection between the food sovereignty movement and the political and economic environment in which it emerged should therefore not be understood as a direct causal relationship. An abundant literature on “political opportunities structures” (Tarrow 1998) has sought to explore which contextual factors are conducive of social movement activity. Internal organizational factors play a key role too.

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

This section focuses on recent developments related to the emergence of a third, possibly emergent, international food regime80, which McMichael has termed the “corporate food regime” (McMichael 2009a). It addresses much publicized issues such as trade liberalization in agriculture, the governance of the world food system, persistent food insecurity and contemporary food crises, as well as the financialization of agriculture that has led to increased speculation and volatility.

2.2.1 The Adjustment Decade When peasant organizations’ representatives from Europe, North America and Central America met in April 1992, in Managua, at the initiative of the Unión Nacional de Agricultores y Ganaderos (UNAG) of Nicaragua, they identified three core issues: the burden of external debt and fiscal deficits; the protection of the environment; and the negative impacts of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) (Vía Campesina 1992). The Managua Declaration, issued at the end of the meeting, states: “We as producers need to be guaranteed sufficient income to cover as a minimum our costs of production. This, to date, has not been a concern of the negotiators of the GATT. We reject policies which promote low prices, liberalized markets, the export of surpluses, dumping and export subsidies” (Vía Campesina 1992). In order to understand these claims, we need to recall a context of drastic restructuring of state–society relations and the multiplication of neoliberal policies aimed at overcoming rampant inflation and declining rates of profits and growth. From the early 1980s on, competition rather than synergy had become the principal aspect of the relations among the key Northern economies. The key cause of this development was capitalism’s classic crisis of overproduction, over-investment, and over-capacity, meaning the emergence of too much productive capacity globally relative to global demand, resulting in a decline in the rate of profit (Bello 2006, 1348). The period of state supported “import substitution industrialization” – based on structuralist and dependentist theories (Ramírez Cendredo 2008, 48) – also ran into trouble in the South, with stagnation, inflation and massive indebtedness combining to reverse trends on the reduction of poverty and inequality. One key consequence of this was the Third World debt crisis of the early 1980s, which ended the boom of the economies of the South. 80

Historical aspects linked to the emergence of capitalism, to the consecutive first international food regime – the temperate grain-livestock complex of the 1870s-1914 period – and to the second international food regime – the mercantile-industrial food regime of the 1940-1970 period – as conceptualized by Friedmann and McMichael (McMichael 2009a), will be developed in chapter 3. Indeed, they constitute an excellent background to the context of emergence of peasants’ struggle for autonomy and dignity and their “right to continue to exist as such” (Rosset and Martinez 2010, 150). Capitalism’s tendency to appropriate nature and its resources will also be discussed as background for chapter 3.

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

In an effort to regain international competitiveness, the USA under Reagan and UK under Thatcher adopted neoliberal, free-market policies aimed at abandoning protectionism in trade, and ending capital controls. The search for profitability amid stagnation pushed the USA and the other center economies, via the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to “resubordinate” the economies of the South through pro-market structural adjustment policies. The dismantling of developmental81 states in much of the South deepened and consolidated the comprehensive crisis of the developing world (Bello 2006, 1348). Economic growth without macroeconomic unbalances became the key policy objective (Ramírez Cendredo 2008, 64).

Neoliberalism and State Restructuring Neoliberalism is, in essence, an ultraliberal reaction to Keynesian interventionism (Dardot and Laval 2009, 144). In the 1980s, the economic and social crisis of the socalled “fordist” regime of capital accumulation led conservative governments in the North to abandon the “welfarism” of social-democracy (Dardot and Laval 2009, 273). Keynesian policies which had institutionalized the reinvigoration of capitalism in the post World War II period through demand-side policies, social protection, a progressive fiscal system, the public property of enterprises, and state regulation of the private sector, in particular through labor laws, were phased out (Dardot and Laval 2009, 273). They were replaced by neo-classical policies i.e. a combination of supply-side policies to reduce market imperfections (such as reduction of taxation and capital controls, weakening of labor legislations, and limitations on the power of trade unions) and measures to control monetary growth to keep inflation low. Neoliberalism thus constitutes an attempt to counter the orientation towards redistributive, regulatory, and protectionist policies (and to some extent, state planning) which had grown since the end of the 19th century. It can also be understood as a response to “social reformism”, itself a symptom of the crisis of liberalism (Dardot and Laval 2009, 157). A double movement of state restructuring took place: from the outside, the privatization of public enterprises – the minimal state – put an end to the producer state; from the inside, the creation of an efficient state or managerial state led to the structuring of new relations between government and social subjects (Dardot and Laval 2009, 355). This new conception of the state as evaluator and market regulator was propagated by international organizations, in particular in developing countries. The efficient state is, for example, defined in World Development Report 1997 as a strong central state capable of 81

The term developmental state first referred to the phenomenon of state-led macroeconomic planning in Asia, where the state had autonomous political power as well as control over the economy. Today, what is meant by a developmental state, is a government with sufficient organization and power to achieve its development goals (Chang 1999).

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

facilitating the market and responsible for putting in place the institutional framework necessary for the market to function. Good governance became the mantras of governmental action, marking a shift in the administration of the state. Private sector principles – competition, benchmarking, best practices, and performance indicators – were applied to public management in order to achieve the optimal use of resources (Dardot and Laval 2009, 392). The welfare state appeared as a burden, an impediment to growth, and the source of inefficiencies. The private sector, in contrast, was promoted as “more reactive, more flexible, more innovative, and technically more efficient because more specialized” than the public sector (Dardot and Laval 2009, 371). The private enterprise became seen as the main, if not only, source of growth and wealth, and was therefore to be supported by the state, in particular through public procurement partnerships (Dardot and Laval 2009, 321). Competitiveness became a political priority in a period of internationalization of the economies. Numerous countries, in the South and the North, restructured their agricultural economies as required by the Bretton Woods institutions and in preparation for, or as part of, regional trade agreements. Rural landscapes endured deep transformations as national governments redefined agricultural policies and legislation to facilitate greater integration into an international market-driven economy. Existing agricultural and marketing structures were dismantled while new agrarian laws aimed at restructuring land tenure, land use, and marketing systems were introduced to increase production for export, and to industrialize and further liberalize the agricultural sector (Desmarais 2003, 2).

Dumping From the 1980s onwards, peasants in the South saw a drastic decline in their livelihood options. They were directly hit by the combined effects of subsidies in the North – which had been triggered by low world prices and were in turn to blame for low commodity prices – and the dismantling of supply management schemes in the South resulting in over-supply (Rosset 2006, 43, 30). In Europe, a complex mechanism – the European Community’s Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) – had been established as early as 1962 to keep internal prices high by imposing variable levies on imports or by resorting to government purchases when internal production exceeded demand. This allowed the European Economic Community (EEC) to achieve self-sufficiency in the 1970s and led to the production of surpluses in several sectors. A fraction of the surpluses was disposed of as food aid, while, the intermittent selling of surpluses “had the effects of depressing world prices and displacing established exporters” (World Bank 1981). The impacts of what would later be called dumping were directly felt by small producers in the South. The United States exported more than sixty million tons of grain in 1974, out of which 3.3 million tons were for aid. Food aid most often failed to reach the starving: during the

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

mid-1980s, 84 percent of US agricultural exports to Latin America were given to the local governments to sell to the people (Smith 1994, 66–67). This undersold local producers in the South, destroyed their markets, and reduced their production82. Vía Campesina’s statement at the World Food Summit in 1996 was a direct reaction to this situation: “Food imports must not displace local production nor depress prices. This means that export dumping or subsidized export must cease. Peasant farmers have the right to produce essential food staples for their countries and to control the marketing of their products” (Vía Campesina 1996c). Structural adjustment policies were also denounced for exacting “an unacceptably high price on the poor and rural people in many of our countries” (Vía Campesina 1996b). Because such policies reduce the capacity of governments in developing nations to provide basic services, they should be “discontinued in favor of domestic self-sufficiency in rural development” (Vía Campesina 1996b).

2.2.2 From Self-Sufficiency to Agroexport While food sovereignty came to be conceptualized later as a concept that is radically distinct from food self-sufficiency (and one which does not imply an opposition to international food trade), many Vía Campesina activists favor national (or local or regional) strategies aiming at recovering or achieving (where possible) self-sufficiency (at least in basic grains) as a way to ensure that the peasantry can survive and earn a decent living. National self-sufficiency in cereals, livestock and fish products used to be the stated objective of many developing countries83 in the 1970s and early 1980s. This objective was progressively abandoned in the 1980s. The issue of “how much food to import and how much to produce domestically” (World Bank 1981) became a much debated question 82

The African famines of the 80s, combined with surplus disposal in the North, also led peasant organizations in Europe, such as the Confédération paysanne in France, to question the productivist paradigm that had been placed at the core of the Common Agriculture Policy. 83 The achievement of self-sufficiency was the stated objective of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity, meeting in its Second Extraordinary Summit, in Lagos, Nigeria, in April 1980. The shortfall in food production in the last two decades, coupled with high levels of post-harvest losses and periodic and severe shortages, led to rapidly increasing dependence on food imports, resulting in a drain on foreign exchange resources and creating serious major constraints in financing the development of African economies. At the root of the food problem in Africa was the fact that Member States had “not usually accorded the necessary priority to agriculture, both in the allocation of resources and in giving sufficient attention to policies for the promotion of productivity and improvement of rural life” (Organization of African Unity 1980). Member States established that priority action should be directed to securing a substantial reduction in food wastage, attaining a markedly higher degree of food security, and bringing about a large and sustained increase in the production of food, especially of tropical cereals, with due emphasis on the diversification of agricultural production.

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

as self-sufficiency policies revealed the inadequacies of a purely supply-based approach. Following the collapse and/or dismantling of state co-operatives and marketing boards, “deregulation” and liberalization gave rise to the emergence of parallel markets and private actors. Developing countries started embracing the concept of food security which emphasized that “food availability” could be “assured through a combination of domestic production and regional and international trade” and that “markets and public actors should play a more active role in adjusting supply and demand” (European Commission 2000, 3). The early 1980s also marked a shift from the expansion of the home market that previously prevailed to an emphasis on the promotion of an agricultural export-led strategy as “the principal means of enhancing rural accumulation” (Borras 2009, 7). World Development Report 1981 warned that “because of the perceived uncertainties about global supplies”, many countries had “bought increased self-sufficiency at considerable economic cost” and neglected other production opportunities, most obviously in export crops (World Bank 1981). It is precisely this shift from subsistence farming to export-oriented agriculture that was resisted by Vía Campesina: “Via Campesina rejects the neo-liberal policies that push countries into cash crop export production at the expense of domestic food production” (Vía Campesina 1999a). In 2000, Via Campesina decided to launch “a worldwide campaign against low priced food imports” (Vía Campesina 2000). Two decades after the Washington consensus (1989) was sealed, the “dualization” of the agricultural sector (De Schutter 2009b, 12) has become a key characteristic of most contemporary Southern economies. The dualization of agriculture has raised a number of controversial issues, many of which have been much debated since the global food crisis of 2007-08. Can small-scale agriculture in and of itself stimulate national economic development? Under which conditions, if it all, can corporate agricultural investment benefit smallholders? To what extent can subsistence farming thrive or even survive alongside large-scale agro-export production (including that of biofuels) seeing that both sectors inevitably compete for land, water, markets and government support? Although these issues are highly relevant for peasant movements, developing a shared position on some of them, such as contract farming, agricultural investment or agrofuels, has proven difficult, as we will discuss below. In the 1990s, peasants’ movements’ reactions to the impacts of the neoclassical counterrevolution of the 1980s crystallized around a new international actor: the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

2.2.3 Trade Liberalization in Agriculture and the WTO The creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on 1 January 1995 marked the biggest reform of international trade since after the Second World War. From 1948 to 1994, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) of 1947 provided the rules for much of world trade and presided over periods that saw some of the highest growth rates in international commerce. The original intention was to create a third institution to handle the trade side of international economic cooperation, joining the two “Bretton Woods” institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. But negotiations to set up an International Trade Organization (ITO) failed and for almost half a century, the biggest leaps forward in international trade liberalization were orchestrated by the GATT. Although Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage was the underlying theoretical premise of the drafters of the GATT 1947, the Agreement was drafted in a Keynesian theoretical environment that favored a “mixed economy”. GATT 1947 left ample room for state development strategies, within developing and industrialized countries alike, and for redistributive measures in favor of those adversely affected by greater openness. At the time GATT 1947 came into force, only ten developing countries were signatories. Most were not convinced of the benefits to them of open trade. Latin American countries in particular had committed to abandon the external focus of dependency and carve an independent development path (Moon 2008, 7). This view was to change only after the decolonization and independence movement began sweeping through Asia and Africa in the 1950s and 1960s and after the creation, in 1964, of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) which mission was to help increase developing countries’ access to the world market. Largely at the instigation of UNCTAD, a new Part IV, Trade and Development, was added to GATT 1947 in 1965, which entrenched the negotiating principle of non-reciprocity for developing countries. In 1968, another UNCTAD proposal was implemented: the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), within which industrialized countries were permitted to grant especially favorable tariff and other treatment to primarily industrial goods exported by developing countries. A series of trade rounds were held under GATT’s auspices. The Tokyo Round, which lasted from 1973 to 1979, with 102 countries participating, led to an average one-third cut in customs duties in the world’s nine major industrial markets (WTO 2011). It dealt very little with farm trade but brought down tariffs on tropical products. The long and tedious Uruguay Round (1986-94) led to the creation of the modern international trade law regime. The World Trade Organization was established, and agreements were achieved in an unprecedented number of areas such as agriculture (AoA), services (GATS), intellectual property (TRIPS), investment measures (TRIMS), and sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures. In the end, a more extensive, penetrating and “orthodox”

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

set of trade law obligations was imposed on developing countries, and the tolerance of protectionism and the principle of non-reciprocity were largely discarded (Moon 2008, 15). Agricultural trade, which had long escaped liberalization because of the highly strategic relationship between food security and national security, was incorporated in the negotiations. Up to then, agricultural products had been de facto excluded from the GATT by three of the world’s biggest economic powers (the US, the EU and Japan) and there were few effective regional trade agreements, hence also little agricultural trade liberalization from regional integration (at the exception of the a single market for farm products created among EEC members). In November 1992, the US and EU settled most of their differences on agriculture in a deal known informally as the “Blair House accord”, opening the way for a multilateral agreement on agriculture. Indeed, a final agreement in the Uruguay negotiations could only be achieved after the EU had finalized its domestic agricultural policy reforms and the process in the US was sufficiently advanced to ensure that the WTO rules would be compatible with the changes envisioned in domestic policies. In turn, the domestic reforms were shaped by the agreements that started to emerge from the GATT negotiations by the early 1990s. Designed to put an end to the subsidy race between the US and the EU and to accommodate the agriculture trade interests of the major industrialized countries, WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture (AoA)84 hardly addressed the specific needs of developing countries with food security problems, including the need to support and protect agriculture. Nor did the AoA satisfy the demand of export-oriented developing countries to significantly improve market access and effectively reduce unfair competition through the use of domestic and export subsidies (Reichert 2009, 31). Developing countries had to strike a difficult balance between aggressively seeking to conquer world markets in agricultural products, and protecting their own farming sectors. The aftermath of the debt crisis of the 1980s left them with little choice but to prioritize agroexport, which they hoped would bring them growth and much needed foreign exchange. Agriculture was often sacrificed in WTO’s single undertaking system of negotiation, forcing countries to liberalize all sectors and enter all WTO agreements at once. Although Southern country governments saw dumping of food imports as an important issue, they gave it lower priority than market access and subsidies in the actual negotiations. They were accused by Vía Campesina of “pandering to tiny but wealthy and politically powerful agro-export elites” (Rosset 2006, 30). Peasants lacked access to the levers of political power and were in effect excluded from decision making: 84

The Agreement on Agriculture rests on three pillars: market access (the objective of which is to simplify trade barriers and allow fixed tariffs as the only instrument to restrict market access); export competition (export subsidies must not be increased and no new subsidies may be introduced); and domestic support (governments have committed to reduce market distorting forms of support, such as domestic prices guaranteed by the government that are above world-market prices and direct payments to farmers linked to production volume) (WTO 1994).

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

“Those responsible for trade orientate themselves principally to the interests of the elite and transnational industries. They appear to be incapable of seeing the real problems, much less seeking solutions for them. They think only of increased trade, grabbing bigger market shares, more privatization, more accumulation and more profit. Their only concern in the agricultural sector is to deal with export interests. This is shameful given the fact that the existence of millions and millions of peasants, more than half the world’s population, depends on local and domestic production and marketing. Vía Campesina believes that we need to engage in this debate” (Vía Campesina 2003b).

The Impacts of Trade Liberalization, North and South In the last decades, nation states have become “increasingly entwined in a host of international economic arrangements and international laws, many of which affect local places” (Engle Merry 1992). Well before peasants heard of the WTO, they had experienced the impacts of trade liberalization, through the entry into force of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, the US and Mexico, in 1994, or following the reform of the European Common Agriculture Policy in 1992. The impacts were felt North and South alike. The US and the EU, in an effort to align with (future) WTO rules on domestic support, both decided to progressively move away from price support, and toward compensating farmers using direct payments instead. Their farmers were shielded against the disastrous effects of low commodity prices through a combination of protectionist and compensatory measures: “The US touts the benefits and professes the obligations of free trade, while at the same time scheming to continue subsidy programs to keep the US farm economy functioning in the face of disastrously low commodity prices for farmers” comments the President of the US National Family Farm Coalition, a Vía Campesina member (Naylor 2006). These subsidies operated a deep change in the identity and social role of Northern farmers. Marc, a peasant activist from the Confédération paysanne, recalls: “Subsidies were a terrible shock in my life as a peasant. We lost control over the surfaces, our knowhow, (…), culture, language”85. Peasants no longer derived their income from producing food. The direct relationship between the efforts they devoted to farming, the amount of food they produced and the income they obtained from selling their production was destroyed. This has led, over the last 15 years, to a shift in the nature of their claims, as Marc further explains: “We moved from a discourse about incomes through prices, thus a

“Les aides, c’est un choc terrible dans ma vie de paysan. On perd le contrôle des surfaces, le savoir-faire, (…) la culture, la langue” (interview, 5 May 2010).

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

confrontation in relation to economic structures, to a discourse about compensations (…) before, it was the means of survival, now it is the means of substitution”86. In the South, peasants did not benefit from such protections: “The forced liberalization of trade in agricultural products across regions and around the world is resulting in disastrously low prices for many of the foods we produce. As cheap food imports flood local markets, peasant and farm families can no longer produce food for their own families and communities and are driven from the land. These unfair trade arrangements are destroying rural communities and cultures by imposing new eating patterns everywhere in the world. Local and traditional foods are being replaced by low priced, often poorer quality, imported foodstuffs. Food is a key part of culture, and the neoliberal agenda is destroying the very basis of our lives and cultures” (Vía Campesina 2000). Adding to the impacts of trade liberalization, the technical transformation of farming through chemicalization and mechanization in the US and industrialized North resulted in increased concentration and in a growing labor and land productivity gap between large scale capitalist farmers in both North and South and small-scale farmers mostly in the South (H. Bernstein 2010, 71). Korean peasant leader Kyung Hae of Vía Campesina explains: “Increased productivity simply added further volume to over-supplied markets in which imported goods occupied the lowest price portion. Since massive importing began, we small farmers have never been paid as much as our production costs. Sometimes, prices would drop four times over, all of a sudden. What would be your emotional reaction if your salary drops suddenly to a half without knowing clearly the reason?” (Kyung Hae 2003) The impacts of trade liberalization in agriculture have been well documented. Southern countries, in particular least developed ones, have become increasingly dependent on food imports (Rosset 2006, 53), causing a severe deterioration of their balance of payments. International trade rules have become a substitute for the management of international markets: in the last three decades, the international community has made no serious attempts to neither organize and control global food supplies nor limit food prices volatility. The development of agroexport monocultures for cash has been achieved at the expense of public and private investments in small-scale farming and considerable damages to the environment. While it did create new opportunities for poor people to exploit new niche markets in the global economy (organic coffee, for example), liberalization “for the most part undercut both government-provided social safety nets and guarantees, and traditional community management of resources and cooperation in the face of crises” (Rosset 2006, 5).

“On est passé d’un discours sur le revenu à travers les prix, et donc une confrontation par rapport aux structures économiques, à un discours autour des compensations” (…) “avant, c’était les moyens de survie, maintenant, c’est les moyens de substitution” (interview, 4 May 2010).

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

Large transnational corporations have concentrated and amplified their power over smallscale farmers. The viability of the small-scale farming sector has been considerably reduced as a result, causing further dualization of the agricultural sector. The trade in high-value processed foods has increased, now making up two thirds of agricultural trade (Oxfam International 2004). Industrially produced foods are shipped over long distances and are responsible both for shifts in diets in many developing countries and for a sharp increase in Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions leading to climate change. The high content in saturated fats, salt and sugar of imported foods has brought new food-related plights to the South, such as diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases. Free trade is also blamed for causing “the further concentration of farm land within the ever-fewer largest farms” (Rosset 2006), in effect setting in motion a process of “peasant differentiation” (H. Bernstein 2009, 61). More importantly, some would argue, the wave of trade liberalization “has served to intensify already existing problems of poverty and underdevelopment, and to truncate the possibilities that the South has at its disposal to follow alternative development trajectories” (Rosset 2006, 52). To this day, most debates around food and international trade revolve around the issue of policy space i.e. whether developing countries have sufficient policy tools at their disposal to achieve food security and rural development goals. Proponents of further trade liberalization, such as the Director General of the WTO, Pascal Lamy, argue that “policy space will remain larger for food than for other products; for developing countries than for developed countries; for least developed countries (LDCs) than for developing countries”87. They further contend that policy flexibility is still available to the majority of developing country WTO members, most of whom have set their bound tariffs at the relatively high levels88 of (on average) 50 to 100 percent. The tricky matter is that most developing countries make no use of the policy space they have under WTO. Their average applied rates are much lower (around 20 percent) according to World Bank and FAO data (Reichert 2009, 32), largely a result of IMF and World Bank conditionalities. Opponents to trade liberalization have denounced the fallacy of the “level playing field” and of comparative advantage theory, highlighting that, for a typical third world country, comparative advantage may be “nothing more than a lower-paid, more exploited workforce” (Rosset 2006, 18). They stress that WTO agreements have limited governments’ ability to regulate and, in addition, set the baseline for the negotiations of bilateral and regional agreements that in turn need to be compatible with WTO rules. 87

Pascal Lamy, WTO, addressing the IATP Conference “The Global Food Challenge. Towards a Human Rights Approach to Trade and Investment Policies”, Geneva, 24-26 November 2008. 88 Many developing countries were able to bind their tariffs at a level higher than the levels they actually applied. This allowed developing countries that set their tariff bindings high to then lower the bound tariffs as required without having to change their actual tariffs. As long as the tariffs remain below the bound level, a variable tariff policy is possible, and can be used to protect domestic markets from fluctuations in world market prices (Reichert 2009, 32).

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

Such agreements often require the elimination of tariffs and other trade barriers on “substantially all” trade, thereby limiting the possibility to exempt sensitive agricultural products. Negotiations of this kind have taken place between the EU and the ACP countries in the context of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), but also with India, the ASEAN countries, and of course between the US and other regions. Bilateral and regional agreements have proliferated in the years 2000s as the Doha Round89 of negotiations was at standstill.

The World Trade Organization as a Target of Peasant Mobilizations The direct effects of the entry into force of WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) on developing countries were relatively limited since many countries had already dismantled trade policy instruments such as quantitative import restrictions, either as part of IMF /World Bank conditionalities or as a result of unilateral liberalization (Reichert 2009, 33). Yet the WTO became one of the predominant targets of the global justice movement (Reitan 2007), and certainly of Vía Campesina activists, in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Opposition to the WTO helped federate the movement. The WTO came under attack as an institution, and as a symbol, despite the fact that, according to members of the WTO secretariat, the WTO is a members-driven organization over which the WTO secretariat exercises relatively little influence90. The WTO Ministerial Conferences – the topmost decision-making body of the WTO, which usually meets every two years – have punctuated the life the food sovereignty movement. Peasant organizations had not yet sufficiently organized to make their voices heard at the first WTO Ministerial in Singapore (1996), and little did they know of the WTO at the time. But thousands marched in protest of the WTO in the streets of Geneva (1998), Seattle (1999), Cancun (2003) and Hong Kong (2005), although their presence in Doha (2001) was severely constrained, as was the participation of most activists. In contrast, with little progress anticipated in the conclusion of the Doha Development Round, the last WTO Ministerial in Geneva (2009) received less media coverage, and was attended by fewer peasant activists. In recent years, the WTO has lost its n°1 ranking in contemporary peasant struggles, which now feature land grabbing, climate change, food prices volatility and financial speculation. The international environment and agenda have evolved, and so have socio-economic and political realities on the ground.

Already during the negotiations in the Uruguay Round, it became obvious that the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) would achieve only limited additional liberalization. Consequently, the AoA included a clause that mandates further negotiations to begin after the end of the implementation period, i.e., 2000. After the failed attempt to start the WTO’s Millennium Round in Seattle in 1999, the agriculture negotiations were incorporated in the Doha Round launched in Qatar in 2001, at the fourth WTO Ministerial Conference. 90 Meeting with WTO staff, Geneva, 25 June 2008.

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

Yet the period ranging from 1985 to 2000 has been crucial to the constitution of today’s transnational peasant movement for food sovereignty. Looking at the emergence and transformation of disputes before they reach formal litigation, Felstiner, Abel and Sarat identify a three-stage sequence: “naming, blaming, claiming” (Felstiner, Abel, and Sarat 1980). A similar process can be observed here. In the course of the 1990s, peasants discovered shared problems (naming): “I believe that the situation of farmers in many other countries is similar. We have in common the problems of dumping, import surges, lack of government budgets” (Kyung Hae 2003). They identified a common enemy (blaming): “The negative impacts of globalization are acute and tragic in the countryside. The imposition of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and regional trade agreements is destroying our livelihoods, our cultures and the natural environment” (Vía Campesina 2000). They started dreaming together of another future (claiming): “An alternative framework to deal with food production is urgent. A framework that will be able to set limits and rules for the WTO and will establish the right of food sovereignty at the international level” (Vía Campesina 2001b). The kind of alternative framework for food and trade that peasant activists have imagined and the obstacles to its coming to existence will be discussed below.

2.2.4 Agribusiness Transnational Corporations According to van der Ploeg, the world food system has two ordering principles: the global market and the assembly line system, combined into so-called food chains, themselves constructed of endless series of elements that interrelate through the market (Van der Ploeg 2008, 255). Large private entities, better described as oligopolistic groups, play an increased role in this system. Over the years, food sovereignty activists have relentlessly targeted agribusiness TNCs, in particular those which have “sought to gain ownership of genetic material” (Vía Campesina 1996b), “control more than half of world seeds” (Vía Campesina 2009a), are “engaged in a privatization war” (Vía Campesina 2009b), have “sought to impose genetically modified crops” (Vía Campesina 2009a), and have “developed agrofuel production” (Vía Campesina 2008a). The “declared war on transnational corporations” specifically targets “Cargill, Monsanto, Nestle, Syngenta, Wal Mart, which are threatening directly our farming communities and indigenous people” (Vía Campesina 2009b). But it extends to all “companies involved in mineral extraction, monoculture tree plantations, big dams, those controlling the distribution markets, and in general, all of those which are involved in the expansion of the contaminating industries, and the dispute and appropriation of land, water and territory” (Vía Campesina 2009b). The last decades have seen a sharp increase in the demand for, and export of, seafoods and fruits and vegetables and a decrease in traditional mass produced tropical crops, such as bananas, coffee and sugar, established in earlier centuries (Friedmann and McNair

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

2008, 412). On the supply side, the explosion of world trade in fresh fruits, vegetables and fish is a direct result of the debt politics of the 1980s, which led many governments of the global South to push land and labor towards export of “non-traditional” crops. On the demand side, the quest for fresh, diverse, organic and green food from wealthy consumers in the North, combined with the rapid expansion of supermarket retail in the South, and the incorporation of new regions into animal protein chains (e.g., China and Brazil) (McMichael 2009a, 142) are reshaping the entire food system. As input-output chains are territorially optimized, and are no longer producer-driven but buyer-driven, farmers find themselves to be mere price-takers with little information at hand. Large retail chains, with their low prices and wide selection of products, are quickly replacing small local retail outlets as the primary source of consumer products in many parts of the world. As these chains grow, they often merge with, acquire or force out smaller retailers. Horizontal concentration of retailers leads to strong demands for large amounts of undifferentiated goods at lower prices. Vertical integration strategies allow retailers to control the entire chain from land to distribution point. This broad concentration gives global retailers great buyer power91. As a result, relatively few, very powerful produce buyers are able to extract lower prices and better terms for themselves at the expense of small-scale producers. Retailers also use buyer power to absorb the costs of complying with quality standards. Failure by governments to apply and inspect standards combined with the dismantling of government regulation and lowering of public standards under corporate pressure have led to the rise of new standards dictated by business. Such standards most often fail to reflect and integrate socio-economic and environmental sustainability concerns, leading to extensive pesticide and agrochemical use and labor exploitation. Private standards and traceability requirements in turn drive consolidation amongst suppliers – often in favor of large exporting firms whilst pushing smallholder farmers out of supply chains (Traidcraft and South Centre 2008). As Vía Campesina Secretary General Henri Saragih put it : “only the agribusiness sector can access overseas markets, while smallholders can only sell their… sweat”92. Increased concentration thus results in increased numbers of agricultural workers, although the exact proportion of small farmers who are in and out of global supply chains and the proportion of smallholders to wage labor are largely unknown93.

91 Buyer power is obtained or maintained through mergers and acquisitions, global sourcing, development of own label products and buyers groups or alliances (Traidcraft and South Centre 2008). It is directly proportional to the firm’s size, commercial significance to the seller, and ability to switch to other suppliers. 92 “(…) seul l’agro-business peut accéder aux marches d’outremer, tandis que les petits paysans ne pourront vendre que leur … sueur” (Saragih 2005, 353). 93 Expert, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), at consultation convened by UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on the Role of the Agribusiness Sector in the Realization of the Right to Food, Berlin, 19-20 June 2009.

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

Horizontal and Vertical Concentration The existence of horizontal and vertical concentration is well established in the global commercial seed and agrochemical markets94 as well. Concentration tends to inflate prices and decrease the diversity of products on the market, a trend which may diminish as patents on agrochemical products expire and generics gain strength. Also significant is the alarming degree of vertical concentration that results from convergence between the agrochemical and the seed markets. Commodity traders – corporations such as Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, and ConAgra that purchase commodities such as wheat, soy, coffee, cocoa, and sugar, from farmers then sell to food processors or directly to retailers – also play a key role in the global food system. Over the last 30 years, as a result of the development of new technologies and the liberalization of markets, commodity traders have grown and merged with other traders, leading to an increased concentration of market power among a few commodity traders (FAO 2004, 6). Commodity traders and food processors – food and beverage companies that transform raw output from farms into retail-ready product, generally adding significant retail value to products through branding – have developed market power through both horizontal concentration and vertical concentration. Like commodity traders, food processors use their buyer power to drive down prices and cut their costs. The same trends can be observed in the food service sector. Much as been written on the negative impacts of buyer concentration in global commodity value chains and on the ineptitude of multistakeholder initiatives to encourage “responsible purchasing” based on good and long term relationships with suppliers, clear and timely communication on expectations, sustainable prices (which allow living wages), clear lead times and payments, respect of human rights, and increased sourcing from smallholder farmers and cooperatives (Responsible Purchasing Initiative 2006). Yet the drive to a more competitive regulatory environment has led states to hand over regulatory responsibility for important areas of the food system to supermarkets themselves, despite evidence that “only command-and-control regulation can tame the supermarket sector” (Vorley and Fox 2004, 8). The international community has failed to adopt an international legal framework for competition policy, and has excluded global competition rules from the scope of the

94 Based on 2006 revenues, the top ten seed companies control 57 % of the market, with Monsanto occupying a dominant position at the top taking in 20 % of total global commercial seed revenue (ETC Group. 2007. “The World’s Top Ten Seed Companies”, p.1. http://www.etcgroup.org/upload/publication/pdf_file/656). Currently the top six agrochemical producers - BASF, Bayer, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, and Syngenta control roughly three quarters of the market (Ibisworld, 2009. “Global Fertilizers and Agricultural Chemicals Manufacturing”, p. 10). These figures are detailed in “TNCs and the Right to Food”, a paper authored by the Law Students for Human Rights at New York University School of Law, prepared at the request of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food in 2009.

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

WTO95. In fact, global competition has induced a drastic change in governmental action itself. As production processes are more and more fragmented, and exported products contain a growing fraction of imported components, the very meaning of free trade has evolved. Government intervention now concentrates on giving oligopolitistic groups logistical and infrastructure support as well as on attracting them on the national territory. In the world economic war, the “competitive” state does not seek to arbitrate between corporate/private interests; it is the partner of oligopolistic interests (Dardot and Laval 2009, 365). In response to globalization, trade unions have tried to negotiate framework agreements but their attempts to develop global industrial relations have been hindered by the lack of representation and organization of agricultural workers and rapid and constant transnational corporate (re)structuring96. The “financialization” of the global food system has also made it more difficult to control. The gyrations of finance capital have constituted the dominant dynamic of global capitalism in the 1990s97, despite the fact that the movement of productive capital – the transnationalization of production via the outsourcing of different phases of the production process – was expected to play this role. The elimination of capital controls among economies, to enable speculative capital to move quickly to take advantage of differentials in value of currencies, stocks and other financial instruments, has resulted in the emergence of a truly unified global capital market (Bello 2006, 1350). The salient role of the stock market in driving growth, combined with increased commodification of food, means that today’s world food system is not only shaped by the solvent demand of overserved consumers but by the interests of shareholders. An often overlooked impact of concentration in the agribusiness sector is the increased influence of corporations on legislatures and governments. Market concentration gives transnational corporations wealth and unity in order to influence favorable political outcomes. In the United States, commodity traders and food processors have played a large role in government regulation of agriculture (Murphy 2006, 18). The co-production of international norms and macroeconomic policies by public and private actors is a key feature of neoliberal governance. Public-private co-governance in economic policy leads to the production of fiscal and regulatory measures and devices which systematically favor large oligopolistic groups (Dardot and Laval 2009, 359).

Meeting with WTO staff, Geneva, 25 June 2008. Representative of the International Union of Food workers (IUF), at consultation convened by UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on the Role of the Agribusiness Sector in the Realization of the Right to Food, Berlin, 19-20 June 2009. 97 The centrality of finance capital in the last decades is a result of the declining profitability of industry brought about by the crisis of overproduction (Bello 2006, 1350). 96

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

2.2.5 The Global Food Prices Crisis The capitalist system is inherently vulnerable to instability, fluctuations and disequilibrium, and has an engrained set of historical-structural “crisis tendencies” (Gills 2008, 519). Reform and adaptation measures that are undertaken to respond to such crises transform the system and take it to the next stage in the history of (global) capitalist development. The chain of financial and economic crises that has plagued the world economy in the latest years is, to most observers, a reassertion of the underlying crisis of over-accumulation and under-consumption (Bello 2006, 1354) that struck the world in the first part of the 1990s. Yet the extent to which present “globalized capitalism” will be transformed by recent events is unknown (Gills 2008, 519). Will it involve a reorientation of the role of the state, the use of state directives over the financial system and over the production system, and to some extent the renewal of state planning? Will the logic of global economics evolve to place disciplining of capital (to serve the public purpose) above the interests of private wealth maximization by any means possible? (Gills 2008, 521) The global food prices crisis (2007-08) gave rise to a hot debate on the pros and cons of trade liberalization. This debate was characterized as “between liberalism and protectionism” by French Agricultural Minister Michel Barnier who advocated for the creation of regional economic zones based on agro-ecological characteristics98. The crisis reactivated fears that protectionist measures would be taken in response to the obvious failure of an outward-oriented market-led approach to national food security, as world markets demonstrated their inability to provide access to low priced food imports at all times. “Everywhere we go we hear self-sufficiency”99. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon set up a High Level Task Force (HLTF) on 28 April 2008 which gathered relevant UN agencies, funds and programs, Bretton Woods’ institutions and the WTO, in an attempt to devise a coordinated response to the crisis. The Task Force’s Comprehensive Framework for Action called for a rapid conclusion of the Doha Round and the removal of export bans and restrictions. It stated that the crisis “could threaten continued progress toward a fair and equitable international trade system, as countries consider refocusing on national food self sufficiency based solely on domestic production and stocks - policies which in the past have generally undermined agricultural growth and have had limited success in actually addressing the desired national food security objectives” (High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Crisis 2008, 6). World Bank President Robert Zoellick was adamant: “The poor need lower food 98

Michel Barnier, at the “Who will feed the world?” Conference at the European Parliament, Brussels, 3 July 2008. 99 Representative of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), at the consultation convened by UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Market Regulation, Brussels, 19-20 May 2009.

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

prices now. But the world’s agricultural trading system is stuck in the past,” he said, adding that “If ever there was a time to cut distorting agricultural subsidies and open markets for food imports it must be now” (Zoellick 2008).

Smallholder Farmers at the Forefront Small-holder farmers in the developing world were at the forefront of the food crisis. The Rome High-Level Conference Declaration (High-Level Conference on World Food Security 2008) and the High-Level Task Force presented the crisis as an opportunity to promote policies and programs that would benefit small-holder farmers. Vía Campesina also seized the crisis as an opportunity to reaffirm that “small farmers are key food producers in the world” and that “peasants are part of the solution” (Vía Campesina 2008a). Yet there was no consensus on how to go about assisting small farmers. On one hand, there was the view that “reducing trade barriers and market distorting” policies would “give farmers, particularly in developing countries, new opportunities to sell their products on world markets and support their efforts to increase productivity and production” (High-Level Conference on World Food Security 2008). World food production and increased small farmers revenues will be achieved, according to that perspective, and in particular in Africa, by launching a “new green revolution”, an agricultural development model which relies heavily on hybrid seeds and access to fertilizers. This view seeks to transform small farmers into “entrepreneurs” and to link them to export markets, an issue I will develop in chapter 3. On the other hand, the prevalent view was that “more free trade will not solve the crisis” (Vía Campesina 2008a). High food prices did not and were unlikely to translate into new opportunities for small farmers: “Most producers do not benefit from those high prices. Large traders, speculators, supermarkets and industrial farms are cashing in on and benefiting from this crisis” (Saragih 2008). Moreover, peasants, who are largely net food buyers, were themselves hit by food spikes. For these reasons, Vía Campesina, reiterated its “Agriculture out of the WTO” or rather “WTO out of agriculture” message, a slogan that had become popular in Seattle in 1999100. In April 2009, at the occasion of the G8 agricultural Ministers summit, it insisted on preventing the WTO, WB and IMF from intervening in domestic food policies (Louail 2009). Vía Campesina emphasized the necessity to rebuild national food economies, with a focus on giving priority to domestic food production, and on reducing the dependency on world markets (Vía Campesina 2008a). It demanded increased investments in peasant based and farmer based food production for the domestic market (Saragih 2008), and diverse production systems that are labor intensive and sustainable in their resource use. Agroecology should be 100

“The Vía Campesina, as an international movement responsible for the agricultural sector, demands that agriculture should be taken out of the WTO. Perhaps more appropriately, let’s take the WTO out of agriculture” (Vía Campesina 1999a).

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

supported because more intensive production patterns would not put an end to the crisis (Vía Campesina 2008a). In a joint call with 800 organizations, Vía Campesina stated that “industrialized agriculture and fisheries are no solution” and that “Green Revolution models should be rejected” (International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) 2008), because they create dependency on expensive and non renewable inputs and damages to the environment. Instead, “the right to implement import controls, set up programs to support the poorest consumers, implement agrarian reform and invest in domestic, farmer peasant-based food production has to be fully respected and supported at the international level” (Saragih 2008).

Re-investment in Agriculture and the Role of the State Much debated was the issue of public and private investment in agriculture and that of state intervention. Renewed interest for national food security, commitments to reinvest in agriculture, and spectacular public interventions in the years 2007-11 to save the capitalist financial system, led some activists and observers to conclude that a promising “return” of the state was upon us. Yet this diagnosis misguidedly assumes that state interventionism (associated with the social-democratic, Keynesian, Fordist compromise) is the exact opposite of free market or “laisser-faire” (associated with the neoliberal compromise). This naive and binary opposition overlooks the “strategic dimension” of neoliberal policies (Dardot and Laval 2009, 275) and fails to adequately apprehend the nature of state intervention. What characterizes the “big turn” of the 1980s is not the “retreat” of the state, despite the revival of the myth of the self-regulating market, it is the extension of the active role of the neoliberal state (Dardot and Laval 2009, 289). In fact, “deregulation” consisted in the reordering of economic activities, social relations, behaviors and subjectivities, not in the absence of any mode of regulation of capitalism (Dardot and Laval 2009, 286). Similarly, what characterizes the economic, social and financial crisis of recent years is not the rehabilitation of the role of the state but the strengthening of the “entrepreneurial state” (Dardot and Laval 2009, 475). The state has become responsible for creating market situations and for training individuals who can adjust to the logic of the markets; it has turned into the vigilant guardian of legal, monetary, and behavioral rules (in particular through competition laws and its collusion with oligopolistic groups) (Dardot and Laval 2009, 275).

Specialization, Diversification, Competition The 2007-08 food crisis shed light on a series of constraints and dynamics that are intrinsic to the “neoliberal rationality” (Dardot and Laval 2009, 13) that shapes the world food system: commoditization, specialization, standardization, and competition. Indeed,

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

neoliberalism is not only an economic policy or an ideology, but also and fundamentally a “rationality” (Dardot and Laval 2009, 13), which obliges individuals to govern themselves under the pressure of competition, and according to the principles of profit maximization. To grasp this neoliberal rationality – rather than simply locate neoliberal policies in a certain historical conjuncture – helps us understand the permanence of neoliberal policies over several decades, and the implementation of some of these policies by the “new right” and the “modern left” alike (Dardot and Laval 2009, 277). The importance of specialization as a key component of a successful development strategy is an old motto of neoliberalism. Emblematic of the economic rationality and progress paradigm, it has evolved over the years to respond to new challenges: “Specialization helps the environment and makes a better use of resources”101. It is applied both to the country and household level, and contrasted with the negative implications of diversification: “Diversification is a successful strategy to fight risk but it prevents households from specializing. It is the most common strategy in poor households”102. Diversification, as we will see below, is the main response that food sovereignty activists seek to bring both to the farm level (agroecology, preservation of biodiversity) and to the development of agriculture at the national level. Diversification opposes the growing prevalence of international public and private standards and the harmonization of norms (SPS, Codex Alimentarius, fair trade and organic agriculture standards) which have allowed international trade to develop. Shared norms indeed are necessary for competition to take place as they allow choices to be made between comparable products. In the neoliberal global food system, much of the power rests in the hands of those who define standards. Competition – more exactly the idea of competition as the organizing norm – is central to the development and boom of neoliberalism, to the extent that neoliberalism can be defined as “a certain kind of interventionism aimed at politically shaping economic and social relations ruled by competition” (Dardot and Laval 2009, 152). If competition and specialization are the organizing principles of world trade103, competition has, in the last decades, slowly displaced specialization as the central driver of progress in neoliberal thinking. In the specialization model, that of Smith and Ricardo, free trade leads to the division of labor and to the increased specialization of activities (at shop level and at the level of national production level alike). The market, national or international, is considered as a necessary mediator between activities, the mechanism by which they are coordinated. Everyone benefits from participating in the market as exchanges bring 101

Costa Rica representative at the special session of the WTO Committee on Agriculture during which the Special Rapport on the right to food presented the report of his mission to the WTO, WTO, Geneva, 2 July 2009. 102 Academic, University of London, at the consultation convened by UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Market Regulation, Brussels, 19-20 May 2009. 103 Neoliberalism today is characterized by the superposition of specialization and competition as two different conceptions of the drivers of progress (Dardot and Laval 2009, 138).

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

increases in productivity. In the competition model, conceptualized by Spencer at the end of the 19th century, the weakest will be eliminated by those who are fitter, and better equipped to fight. Competition is no longer considered as a condition for the smooth organization of trade, it is the very mechanism of progress by ensuring the elimination of the weakest (Dardot and Laval 2009, 138).

2.3 The Food Sovereignty Movement Fights Back: the Relocalization Project This section looks at the “Vía Campesina model for development”104, and presents the main characteristics of the relocalization project that is at the heart of the food sovereignty paradigm.

Globalization (neoliberal) project

Relocalization (food sovereignty) project

Deterritorialized global food system dominated by global supply chains and transnational agribusiness corporations

Re-embedding food and agriculture in the community and territory, re-building short supply chains

International food trade based on specialization, competition and specialization

Relocalized food systems based on diversification, solidarity, synergy and cooperation

Entrepreneurial state, supportive of oligopolistic interests

State intervention in the agrarian economy to support national and local food markets

Neoliberal objective of sustained economic growth, achieved through trade and investment liberalization and the exploitation of natural resources

Societal objective of conserving and rehabilitating rural environments, natural resources and food traditions and of ensuring that all people can live in dignity

Import-based food security

Locally-provided food security

Table 1 - The Globalization Project vs. the Relocalization Project

104

Interview with Diamantino Nhampossa of the União Nacional de Camponeses, Vía Campesina. “Organizing Food Sovereignty in Mozambique”. Matola, Mozambique. The interview was conducted (and later edited) by Nic Paget-Clarke for In Motion Magazine during the 5th International Conference of La Vía Campesina. Published in In Motion Magazine, January 16, 2009.

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

The relocalization project developed in reaction to neoliberal globalization, as was outlined above. As such, it opposes the “globalization project”, which can be understood as a “vision of the world and its resources as a globally organized and managed free trade/free enterprise economy pursued by a largely unaccountable political and economic elite” (McMichael 1996, 300). It also seeks to build an alternative to neoliberalism.

Re-embedding Food and Agriculture in the Community At the core of the food sovereignty paradigm is the community: “We will demand that our governments enact policies that eliminate corporate control and, instead, facilitate community control over food production and distribution” (Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum 2007a). Community control over localized food systems is seen as key to ensuring food sovereignty: “How can we rebuild our local food infrastructure and our local food economy in a way that is democratic and implies localized control with people having access to the resources they need at the local level”105. Food sovereignty gives peasants the “power to preserve, recover and build on” their “food producing knowledge and capacity” (Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum 2007b). The community level is where “cultural and productive diversity” (Vía Campesina 1996c), the “diversity of traditional knowledge, food, language and culture” (Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum 2007b) can be best valued, recognized and respected. Communities constitute the building blocks of the “decentralized and ecologically-grounded food regime” that food sovereignty activists have sought to build since the mid-90s”106 (McMichael 2009a, 148). Food sovereignty driven initiatives favor the development of a place-based food economy but do not necessarily exclude marketing to distant places. Innovations such as geographical indications (which have found institutional support at the WTO) and regional certification labels, which qualify products which are specific to diverse cultural/natural regions, also represent ways to anchor food and agriculture in the territory while food and agriculture are being deterritorialized107 by globalization. What distinguishes these initiatives is the attempt to elaborate standards from below (as opposed to certification from above, led by supermarkets, and to the enforcement of standard norms across the world) (Friedmann and McNair 2008, 408). 105

Interview with Logan Perkins of Food For Maine’s Future Local Economies and a Just Food System, National Family Farm Coalition, Vía Campesina. Matola, Mozambique. The interview was conducted (and later edited) by Nic Paget-Clarke for In Motion Magazine on October 20, 2008 during the 5th International Conference of La Vía Campesina. Published in In Motion Magazine, April 14, 2009. 106 It was already an important imaginary in the 1980s, as expressed in a range of practices in Southern peasant sites, Northern community agricultures, central Italy and even in Francis Moore Lappe’s prescient Diet for a Small Planet of the early 1970s (McMichael 2009a, 148). 107 The “corporate food regime” (McMichael 2009a) is not only grounded in the WTO system of organizing markets. It relies on the artificialization of food (designed to generate cash flows and profits) and has no clear political or territorial centre (while previous food regimes were grounded in British and then US hegemony) (Van der Ploeg 2008, 257).

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

Relocalized Food Systems The right to develop and maintain “localized food systems” (Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum 2007b) is a central element of food sovereignty. “There is no food sovereignty without relocalization”, states Spanish peasant leader Javier Sánchez, who sits on the International Coordination Committee of Vía Campesina and represents his organization, the COAG, within the European Coordination of Vía Campesina (ECVC)108. Localized food systems respond “to the food, climate and energy crises with local food grown by peasants and family farmers, attacking two of the principle sources of greenhouse gas emissions, the long distance transportation of foods and industrialized agriculture” (Vía Campesina 2008g). They should be protected “against dumping and dependency towards transnational corporations” and supported by “market, trade and price policies that prioritize local and national production and consumption and the needs of people for food” (International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) 2009c). A kind of “subsidiarity test” is envisaged to determine which products should feed the local/regional level and which food products should be sold at the regional and/or international level. This is the approach defended by the Coordination nationale des organisations paysannes (CNOP) in Mali, which argues that the development of commodity chains (filières) should prioritize local needs and sub-regional markets before considering international markets109. The belief that trade should be “mutually beneficial” – as in the often cited examples of barter or gift economies (Pérez-Vitoria 2010, 225) —, is at the core of food sovereignty110. At minimum, the food sovereignty idea translates into a do no harm principle. Javier Sánchez is adamant: “Food sovereignty is not autarchy or selfsufficiency. It is not protection at the borders. The condition is without dumping. We need rules to define what gets exported and what gets imported”111. It can take the form of regional zones that share agroecological characteristics, as suggested by Thierry Kesteloot, a food and agriculture specialist at the NGO Oxfam in Belgium: “The idea is 108

“No hay soberanía alimentaria sin relocalización” (Javier Sánchez, COAG, Vía Campesina, at seminar organized by the Collectif Stratégies Alimentaires (CSA) on “The Need to Regulate Agricultural Markets”, Brussels, 4-5 May 2009). 109 “La politique de développement des filières doit d’abord privilégier les besoins locaux, tant dans la production, la transformation, la commercialisation des produits, que dans l’approvisionnement des marchés régionaux et nationaux ainsi que la satisfaction des consommateurs maliens. Les marchés sous-régionaux seront également considérés avant les autres marchés internationaux” (Coordination nationale des organisations paysannes, CNOP 2005). 110 Interview with woman member of Indonesian organization SPI, 18 march 2010. 111 “La soberanía alimentaria, no es autarcía o autosuficiencia. No es protección a la frontera. La condición es “sin producir dumping”. Se necessitan reglas para definir lo que se exporta y lo que se importa” (Javier Sánchez, COAG, Vía Campesina, at seminar organized by the Collectif Stratégies Alimentaires (CSA) on “The Need to Regulate Agricultural Markets”, Brussels, 4-5 May 2009).

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

to complement each other at the regional level, without excessive specialization. To have a Common Agricultural Policy [for the EU] in parallel with the ECOWAS [for West Africa]”112. Food sovereignty is about rehabilitating regional food chains, an idea that is eloquently captured by Michael Pollan’s “foodsheds” (Pollan 2006, 263). Solidarity, synergy, and cooperation between regions of the world with radically different food systems are to replace competition113 and comparative advantage. Marc from the Confédération paysanne summarizes: “The richness of Vía Campesina is to say that the world market does/should not exist”114. The fact that farmers have very unequal access to farming animals, tools and machinery, and work in very diverse climatic and soil conditions, leading to extremely high differences in labor productivity115 (Mazoyer and Roudart 1997, 455), is often cited to explain that the world peasants should not be forced to compete with each other.

Conserving Rural Environments The neoliberal objective of economic growth is replaced by that of conserving and rehabilitating “rural environments, fish stocks, landscapes and food traditions based on ecologically sustainable management of land, soils, water, seas, seeds, livestock and other biodiversity, the very objective that states should pursue” (Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum 2007b). The view that “economic growth per se is an inappropriate and hence a disempowering “Western” imposition on less developed countries”, which is typical of the “new populist” discourse, is well represented within Vía Campesina (Pérez-Vitoria 2010, 119). This line of discourse advocates “a reversion to a subsistence agriculture” in order to protect/enhance the position of - and thus empower - a variety of Third World “others” (women, tribals and peasants) (Brass 1997, 219). It is expected that the food sovereignty paradigm will help ensure that “all peoples (…) are able to live with dignity, earn a living wage for their labor and have the opportunity to remain in their homes” (Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum 2007b). This view coexists with calls within the food sovereignty movement for the right of developing countries to develop through agriculture and for more equity in the world trade system, in particular via the implementation of special and differential treatment provisions in international trade agreements. In the North, the ability of peasants to make a living from their production 112

“L’idée c’est de se completer au niveau régional, sans spécialisation à outrance. Avoir une PAC en parallèle de la politique agricole de la CEDEAO” (Thierry Kesteloot, Oxfam Solidarité, at debate on Food Sovereignty organized by Campus Plein Sud, Louvain-la-Neuve, 26 February 2009). 113 Pérez-Vitoria, who has written extensively on food sovereignty contrasts, in French, “entraide” with “compétition” (Pérez-Vitoria 2010, 119), using Kropotkine and Bakounine as sources of inspiration. 114 “La richesse de Vía Campesina, c’est de dire que le marché mondial n’a pas lieu d’être” (interview, 4 May 2010). 115 The productivity ratio (per worker) between the most productive and the least productive agricultural system in the world was of 1:10 at the beginning of the 20th century, and of 1:500 at the end of the century (Mazoyer and Roudart 1997, 455).

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

and not to depend on government financial support programs is defended. “We are not asking money for the farmers, or more subsidies for the farmers. We are defending, in agriculture, a social perspective, which is an agriculture tied to society requirements. (…) food is not just something you eat but it is more. It is your health. It is your quality of life. It is a social perspective, employment, local identity, etc.”116

State Interventions to Support Relocalized Markets The intervention of the state in agricultural markets is called for because “agricultural markets cannot function in a socially just way without intervention by the state. Ending state intervention by eliminating agriculture policy instruments one by one would perpetuate the destructive restructuring of agriculture” (Vía Campesina 2003b). Instead, “government supports should go to small-scale food provision by local and indigenous communities that provide food for local markets” (International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) 2009c). “Food Sovereignty requires the protection and renationalization of national food markets, the promotion of local circuits of production and consumption, the struggle for land, the defense of the territories of indigenous peoples, and comprehensive agrarian reform” (Vía Campesina 2008g). Otherwise, “regions and entire countries will be left with no capacity to produce food. Finally, only those who have money to purchase food will be able to eat” (Vía Campesina 2003b). Food sovereignty requires adequate protection against dumping: “We will (…) win back the right of every country to protect its domestic production and market” (Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum 2007a). For these representatives of MPP and MPNKP, two Vía Campesina member organizations in Haiti: “It is a struggle against imported products. We need to encourage peasants to eat local. To promote national production”117. Food sovereignty, they argue, also implies a rejection of food aid: “Food sovereignty is against food aid. The organizations which accept food aid can’t join the network”118.

116

Interview with Paul Nicholson, EHNE, Vía Campesina. “Food Sovereignty and a New Way of Internal Democracy”. Matola, Mozambique. The interview was conducted (and later edited) by Nic Paget-Clarke for In Motion Magazine on October 17, 2008 during the 5th International Conference of La Vía Campesina. Published in In Motion Magazine, February 23, 2009. 117 “C’est une lutte contre les produits importés. Il faut sensibiliser les paysans à manger local. Promouvoir la production nationale” (Meeting with the Réseau national de souveraineté et sécurité alimentaire (RENHASSA), which gathers 2 peasant movements, MPP et MPNKP, members of Vía Campesina in Haiti, 26 may 2008). 118 “La souveraineté alimentaire c’est contre le manger sinistré [l’aide alimentaire]. Les organisations qui acceptent l’aide ne peuvent pas rentrer dans le réseau” (Meeting with the Réseau national de souveraineté et sécurité alimentaire (RENHASSA), which gathers 2 peasant movements, MPP et MPNKP, members of Vía Campesina in Haiti, 26 may 2008).

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

Locally-Provided Food Security The old domestic approach to food security is revisited to incorporate a multiplicity of levels where “communities and nations should be able to define the extent and boundaries of self sufficiency, build and strengthen local-national food production and distribution systems, and regulate trade and markets through democratically formulated public policies” (International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) 2009c). The world over, “concrete actions and feasible projects” seek to “protect food and farming cultures under threat of extinction as agrifood supply chains incorporate some and marginalize others” (Friedmann and McNair 2008, 408). Indeed, “as a general principle, Food Sovereignty is built on the basis of our concrete local experiences, in other words, from the local to the national” (Vía Campesina 2008g). Alliances with consumers have been sought in North America and Europe in particular, where arrangements119 to link producers with consumers modeled after the Teikei system in Japan have rapidly grown over recent years (Pleyers 2011). Such initiatives respond to consumers’ need to put a human face on the food they eat and constitute a way for producers to bypass agribusiness corporations, which capture most of the profits in food supply chains. Appeal to consumers and improved quality are vital to local experiments which seek to “re-embed agriculture and food consumption in socially and ecologically defined regions” (Friedmann and McNair 2008, 409). “Obviously, I think, especially in Europe, local product, sold locally, is one of the only ways that a small family farmer can survive. Produce locally, transform locally, and sell locally”120. Direct exchanges between producers and consumers of food are also pursued because they present the advantage of “transcending” commercial exchanges121 (Pérez-Vitoria 2010, 229).

2.4 Towards an Alternative Conception of Human Rights Evidence suggests that experienced dangers and injustices play a large role in the formulation of human rights (Nickel 2007, 71). Bills of rights often begin with a list of recently experienced injustices and complaints that make imperative the proposed rights.

119

In the US: Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA). In France: Associations pour le maintien de l’agriculture paysanne (AMAP). In Belgium: Groupe d’Achat Solidaire de l’Agriculture Paysanne (GASAP). 120 Interview with Paul Nicholson, EHNE, Vía Campesina. “Food Sovereignty and a New Way of Internal Democracy”. Matola, Mozambique. The interview was conducted (and later edited) by Nic Paget-Clarke for In Motion Magazine on October 17, 2008 during the 5th International Conference of La Vía Campesina. Published in In Motion Magazine, February 23, 2009. 121 In French, “dépasser l’échange marchand” (Pérez-Vitoria 2010, 229).

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

In the first part of this chapter, we explored the threats experienced by peasants over the last decades. In this section, I analyze food sovereignty from a human rights perspective. Several authors122 have commented on the fact that Vía Campesina’s claims and struggles are framed in terms of rights, and argued that the food sovereignty framework “applies a rights-based approach” (Windfuhr and Jonsén 2005, 24). Yet, none have looked at the implications of looking at food sovereignty as a human right, and none have analyzed the specificities of the conception of human rights that emanates from the food sovereignty movement. This double gap is what I seek to address in this chapter. In this section, I first show that, in addition to advocating for food sovereignty as an alternative development paradigm – indeed a fully fledged and well articulated one (Rosset and Martinez 2010, 169–170) – Vía Campesina has defended and demanded “the right to food sovereignty” and sought ways to “establish” this right “at the international level”123 (Vía Campesina 2001c). Taking seriously the demand formulated by Vía Campesina that “the right to food sovereignty” be recognized as a “new right”124 (Vía Campesina 2007b), I analyze the right of peoples to food sovereignty as a new, collective right. I compare this “new” human right with predecessors such as the – codified and recognized – right to selfdetermination, right to permanent sovereignty over natural resources, and right to development. I show how Vía Campesina has resurrected certain elements of these “old” collective rights, while adding new dimensions that reflect both the nature of contemporary rural struggles (i.e. neoliberalism in lieu of imperialism and colonization) and the vision of development defended by agrarian movements (including, but not limited to, the relocalization project described above). I also address a number of key conceptual questions that are at the core of the new right to food sovereignty, and have a long history in human rights literature125. As we will see, most of the issues linked to the proclamation of new, collective rights, already came up in debates surrounding the right to self-determination in the 1950s: is it a principle or a right? If it is a right, is it a human 122

Desmarais, for example, contends that the movement “approaches trade from a human rights perspective rather than the exclusive market-driven approach advocated by the WTO and its proponents” (Desmarais 2003, 19). 123 “Después de la Reunión Ministerial en Qatar, Vía Campesina está aún más convencida de que es necesario y urgente otro marco alternativo para tratar sobre la producción alimentaria. Un marco que sea capaz de poner límites y reglas a la OMC y establecer el derecho a la soberanía alimentaria a nivel internacional” (Vía Campesina 2001c). 124 “We, women from more than 40 countries, from different indigenous peoples of Africa, the Americas, Europe, Asia and Oceania and from different sectors and social movements, have gathered together in Sélingué (Mali) at Nyéléni 2007 to participate in the creation of a new right: the right to food sovereignty” (Vía Campesina 2007b). 125 Commenting on the creation of new rights in the 1980s, Human Rights Law Professor Philip Alston wrote that many of the issues raised by the proclamation of new rights “have been around since the UN began efforts to define and promote a concept of human rights” (Alston 1988, 5).

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

right or a people’s right or both? How can a people be defined adequately and how can such a vague and abstract formulation be meaningfully applied in practice? Does the right inevitably conflict with, and have priority over, other rights? If it is a collective right, does it also have individual dimensions? Finally, if it is accepted as a human right, won’t the coherence and credibility of that concept be irreparably damaged? (Alston 1988, 6) Finally, building on the main characteristics of the right to food sovereignty, I draw the contours of Vía Campesina’s conception of human rights more generally. This will enable me to show, in the next chapters, how this conception differs not only from the liberal approach to human rights but also from the “social democratic approach” (Stammers 1995, 488) to human rights that underlies the right to adequate food126 (and other economic, social and cultural rights). It will also enable me to demonstrate that, in the process of inventing, and claiming, new rights, and of revisiting, and contesting, existing and already recognized human rights, peasant activists seek to (re)activate the emancipatory potential of human rights127.

2.4.1 Food Sovereignty as a Human Right References to “the right to food sovereignty” are not extremely numerous in Vía Campesina official documents (compared to the broader term “food sovereignty”), but they exist128. Here are some of the ways in which the right to food sovereignty is used in Vía Campesina statements129, or in statements issued jointly by Vía Campesina and other civil society groups: “Each nation must have the right to food sovereignty to achieve the level of food sufficiency and nutritional quality it considers appropriate without suffering retaliation of any kind. Market forces at national and international levels will not, by themselves, resolve the problem of food insecurity. In many cases, they may undermine or exacerbate food insecurity. The Uruguay Round agreements must

126

As will result apparent from a comparison between the right to food sovereignty (presented in this chapter) and the right to food (presented in chapter 4), they also portray/are based on visions of (rural) development that are distinct. 127 I elaborate on this in chapter 5. 128 A websearch conducted on Vía Campesina’s website on 10 January 2013 provides 17 occurences of the “right to food sovereignty” between 2003 and 2011 in English, and 18 occurences of “el derecho a la soberania alimentaria” between 2001 and 2011 in Spanish. 129 In all the following excerpts, in English and Spanish, the relevant segments have been underlined by the author.

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

be reviewed accordingly. All countries and peoples have the right to develop their own agriculture” (NGO Forum to the World Food Summit 1996) 130. “La Vía Campesina rechaza a la OMC y considera que este no es el foro apropiado para resolver los aspectos internacionales de la soberanía alimentaria. La Vía Campesina pide a la FAO que "se moje" ante la crisis agraria mundial y como agencia de la Organización de las Naciones en materia de agricultura y alimentación, tome la iniciativa en la defensa del derecho a la soberania alimentaria de los pueblos, el derecho de comer alimentos sanos, de acceder a recursos productivos como la tierra, el agua y las semillas. La FAO tiene la obligacion de defender estos derechos frente a los intereses del comercio impuesto por la OMC” (Vía Campesina 2001a). “Después de la Reunión Ministerial en Qatar, Vía Campesina está aún más convencida de que es necesario y urgente otro marco alternativo para tratar sobre la producción alimentaria. Un marco que sea capaz de poner límites y reglas a la OMC y establecer el derecho a la soberanía alimentaria a nivel internacional” (Vía Campesina 2001c). “Food Sovereignty is every community’s fundamental right. Every community should have the right to produce their own food, the right to food sovereignty. This means that communities have the right to define their own agricultural and food policies, to protect and to regulate their national agricultural and livestock production, and to shield their domestic market from the dumping of agricultural surpluses from other countries. This also implies that they do not dump agricultural and food products under the cost of production on international markets. Priority has to be given to local and regional production over export production, authorising protection from low price imports, allowing public aid for peasants, supporting food production for domestic consumption and guaranteeing the stability of agricultural prices at an international level through agreements on supply management” (Vía Campesina 2003c). “Via Campesina has been mandated by civil society organisations to ask Kofi Anan, Secretary General of the United Nations, to recognise food sovereignty as a basic human right. (…) The struggle for the recognition of the right to food sovereignty, defined for the first time by Via Campesina at the World Food Summit in 1996, has been recognised as a priority by the non-governmental organisations present at the civil society summit” (Vía Campesina 2004a).

130

Although this statement is not a Vía Campesina document per se, I refer to this document because it contains the oldest written reference to the “right to food sovereignty” and was drafted with the participation of Vía Campesina representatives.

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

“During the meeting [held in 2006 with Pascal Lamy, DG of the WTO], La Via Campesina reaffirmed the proposal it has been defending since 1996: the recognition of the right to food sovereignty. It is the only credible alternative to solve this unprecedented economic and social crisis. The representatives of the peasant’s movement explained their struggle for the creation of an international system regulating agricultural markets based on co-operation, dialogue, responsibility and the respect of people and human communities” (Vía Campesina 2006b). “We, women from more than 40 countries, from different indigenous peoples of Africa, the Americas, Europe, Asia and Oceania and from different sectors and social movements, have gathered together in Sélingué (Mali) at Nyéléni 2007 to participate in the creation of a new right: the right to food sovereignty” (Vía Campesina 2007b). In addition to unequivocal references to the right to food sovereignty, many definitions of food sovereignty describe it as a list of rights or, even more explicitely, as the “right to”131: “Food sovereignty is the right of each nation to maintain and develop its own capacity to produce its basic foods respecting cultural and productive diversity. We have the right to produce our own food in our own territory” (Vía Campesina 1996c). “We define food sovereignty as the peoples’ right to define their own policies and strategies for the sustainable production, distribution and consumption of food that guarantee the right to food for the entire population, on the basis of small and medium-sized production, respecting their own cultures and the diversity of peasant, fishing and indigenous forms of agricultural production, marketing and management of rural areas, in which women play a fundamental role” (Forúm Mundial sobre soberanía alimentaria 2001). “What is Food Sovereignty? Food Sovereignty is the RIGHT of peoples, communities, and countries to define their own agricultural, labor, fishing, food and land policies which are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate to their unique circumstances. It includes the true right to food and to produce food, which means that all people have the right to safe, nutritious and 131

It is interesting to note here that, although it does not contain an explicit reference to the right to food sovereignty, the language used as early as 1993, in the Mons Declaration, nevertheless evokes it in the way it is framed: “The right of every country to define its own agricultural policy according to the nation’s interest and in concertación with the peasant and Indigenous organizations, guaranteeing their real participation” (Vía Campesina 1993).

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

culturally appropriate food and to food-producing resources and the ability to sustain themselves and their societies” (NGO/CSO Forum for Food Sovereignty 2002b). Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. (…) Food sovereignty promotes transparent trade that guarantees just income to all peoples and the rights of consumers to control their food and nutrition. It ensures that the rights to use and manage our lands, territories, waters, seeds, livestock and biodiversity are in the hands of those of us who produce food (Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum 2007b). References to the right to food sovereignty are also numerous in the everyday discourse of food sovereignty activists. “Food sovereignty is the right of a people to define an autonomous food policy, linked to an endogenous development process. It belongs to human rights. We need to repatriate this right”132. This definition of the right to food sovereignty by a Haitian NGO activist from Action Aid leaves no room for doubt: the right to food sovereignty has to do with development, with self-determination, and with human rights. It has an economic, and a political dimension. In the economic field, the right to food sovereignty asserts the role of small peasants133 in the economy. Peasants and their communities claim the right to produce and sell on local (and eventually national, regional and international) markets. In parallel, they claim the right for their nations to develop their national agriculture, rather than depend on food imports, and the right to special and differential treatment in agricultural trade negotiations. Sidney Ribaux, from the fair trade organization Equiterre in Quebec, summarizes: “Food sovereignty is more autonomy at the national level, more equity at the international level”134. In the political field, the right to food sovereignty is about democratic control and the right to participate in policy-making.

132

“La souveraineté alimentaire c’est le droit du peuple de définir une politique alimentaire autonome et liée à un processus de développement endogène. Ca fait partie des droits de l’Homme. Il faut rapatrier ce droit” (ActionAid staff responsible for the right to food and food sovereignty campaign in Haiti and in the Dominican Republic, at a meeting in Port au Prince, 26 May 2008). 133 Some aspects of the right to food sovereignty, such as its implications for consumers, will not be addressed at all. In Northern countries in particular, where farmers make a very small portion of the total population, food sovereignty responds to the growing need of consumers to know where their food comes from, what is in it, and who made it. It incorporates yet other aspects such as food safety, diversity, freshness, the desire for a lost interaction between consumers and producers, and for some level of connection between cities and the rural world. The focus of my research, however, is food producers and the perspective of food consumers will be discussed only insofar as it was evoked by those who produce food. 134 “La souveraineté alimentaire, c’est plus d’autonomie au niveau national, plus d’équité au niveau international” (Sidney Ribaux, Equiterre, at meeting between the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and members of the Coalition Souveraineté Alimentaire, Montreal, 8 November 2008).

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

As it appears clearly in the documents listed above, many of the explicit references to the right to food sovereignty are directly linked to WTO or trade summits, although some are more general in scope. For this reason, throughout this chapter, and for the sake of clarity, I will use the term right to food sovereignty when talking about peasants’ claims that deal with trade, the international economic order, and peasants’ ability to sell on local or regional (relatively protected) markets, as well as peasants’ demand to be involved in the elaboration of food and agriculture policies. The term food sovereignty, in turn (as a concept but not as a right), will be used to designate the paradigm that the movement has elaborated as an alternative and in response to neoliberalism. In the next sections, I discuss two central dimensions of the right to food sovereignty: the way rights-holders have been defined by the movement (2.4.2-2.4.5), and the way in which duty-bearers (addressees) have been characterized (2.4.6).

2.4.2 The Subjects of the Right to Food Sovereignty The right to food sovereignty is most often described as “the right of peoples, communities, and countries” (NGO/CSO Forum for Food Sovereignty 2002b) although several definitions include other rights-holders as well. The Declaration released at the occasion of the World Food Summit (1996), for example, lists the following categories of rights-holders: “peasant farmers”, “everyone”, “each nation”, “we”, “women”, and “we who work the land” (Vía Campesina 1996c). In other definitions of the right to food sovereignty, individuals, regions, territories and nations are put forward, leading to a fair amount of confusion. Walter135, a Belgian representative of the NGO Oxfam, asks: “The right to food sovereignty is the right of whom? It is not clear. Peasant organizations, who are they? Peoples, who are they?”136. At the time of its inception, the right to food sovereignty was generally associated with the right of states and governments. As Paul Nicholson argues: “It’s the right for governments to protect, to regulate markets, the import/export of food. To regulate prices”137. The focus was on policy space and alternative trade rules. Jean138, who works at the European Coordination of Vía Campesina (formerly known as the Coordination paysanne européenne, or CPE), recalls: “Food sovereignty was born in response to WTO

135

Name changed. “Le droit à la souveraineté alimentaire c’est le droit de qui? C’est flou. Les organisations paysannes c’est quoi, les peuples c’est qui?” (interview, 27 April 2009). 137 Interview with Paul Nicholson, EHNE, Vía Campesina. “Food Sovereignty and a New Way of Internal Democracy”. Matola, Mozambique. The interview was conducted (and later edited) by Nic Paget-Clarke for In Motion Magazine on October 17, 2008 during the 5th International Conference of La Vía Campesina. Published in In Motion Magazine, February 23, 2009. 138 Name changed. 136

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

1994, it was a motor to unite against the neoliberal model”139. The need to design and implement national and regional agriculture policies was paramount. Jean continues: “The rights of peoples and states, we contributed a lot to that sentence. We were talking about countries or groups of countries as places where things ought to be decided. Like the ECOWAS [Economic Community Of West African States]. Populations are very different, it should imply agricultural policies that are very different. We are not going to replace a WTO framework with a Vía Campesina framework”140. Over the years, the emphasis seems to have gradually shifted from states and nations to communities and local economies. Small projects have given life to food sovereignty practices on the ground, shaping alternative “market relations” (Friedmann and McNair 2008, 410). Commenting on such projects, Vía Campesina leader Paul Nicholson reflects: “It is food sovereignty as a citizen concept, a farmer’s concept, a local economy whose sovereignty is a right.”141 At the community level, food sovereignty is often associated with food autonomy142. For Diamantino Nhampossa of the UNAC, in Mozambique, where communities “would be something like 500 to 200,000 people”, “autonomy and sovereignty of the local communities means that the farmers in their own communities are able to satisfy most of their needs. It does not mean closing themselves up to the outside world but it is to use their resources to the best and satisfy their needs maintaining biodiversity (…) All the communities have to be able to affirm that they have their own culture, their own knowledge, their own capacity to produce so that they can share with others” 143. Food sovereignty makes the link between alternative economic, trade, agrarian, and food policies and the way these policies are designed. As important as the possibility of alternative economic relations – inevitably fragile in an otherwise unaltered global neoliberal economic environment – is the value attributed to local democratic control: 139

“La SA [souveraineté alimentaire] est née en réponse à l’OMC 1994, c’est un moteur pour fédérer contre le modèle néolibéral” (ECVC staff, at workshop on the Right to Food Sovereignty and Trade organized by the Confédération paysanne for European organizations of Vía Campesina, Paris, 7 and 8 January 2009). 140 “Les droits des populations et des états, on a beaucoup contribué à cette phrase. On parlait de pays ou groupes de pays comme lieux ou cela se décide. Comme la CEDEAO. Les populations sont très différentes, cela devrait impliquer des politiques agricoles très différentes. On ne va pas remplacer un cadre OMC par un cadre Vía Campesina” (interview, 2 June 2009). 141 Interview with Paul Nicholson, EHNE, Vía Campesina. “Food Sovereignty and a New Way of Internal Democracy”. Matola, Mozambique. The interview was conducted (and later edited) by Nic Paget-Clarke for In Motion Magazine on October 17, 2008 during the 5th International Conference of La Vía Campesina. Published in In Motion Magazine, February 23, 2009. 142 In some contexts, like Colombia, efforts have been made to distinguish food sovereignty and food autonomy conceptually by making them refer to the national and community levels respectively (interview, 10 December 2008). 143 Interview with Diamantino Nhampossa of the União Nacional de Camponeses, Vía Campesina. “Organizing Food Sovereignty in Mozambique”. Matola, Mozambique. The interview was conducted (and later edited) by Nic Paget-Clarke for In Motion Magazine during the 5th International Conference of La Vía Campesina. Published in In Motion Magazine, January 16, 2009.

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

“That people, within their local communities, have a say over how their food system works and how their local economy works.”144 Where should alternative policies be elaborated? According to Vía Campesina, efforts should be put in (re)defining policies at four distinct levels: the international, national, and local levels, as well as the level of “our own policies, that we implement ourselves, among organizations of consumers and producers to construct another food and farming system from below” (Vía Campesina 2008e). The use of the emblematic term peoples as the main holders of the right to food sovereignty can be interpreted as a way to embrace the multiplicity of levels where food sovereignty policies ought to be discussed. Indeed, these different levels – which broadly correspond to different categories of food sovereignty-holders – are complementary and do not mutually exclude each other. For Patel, “to ascribe rights to different scales of collectivity is to invite a series of conflicts” because, “within each of these levels of analysis, power is multiply contested” (Patel 2006, 83). This leads Patel to assert that “one of the explicit goals of food sovereignty is to politicize an agrarian policy that has for too long been depoliticized” (Patel 2006, 85). What exactly is the meaning of the rights of people? Are they individual rights with a collective dimension? Are they rights of states in disguise? Or are they properly rights of people? (Crawford 1988a, 56)

2.4.3 Peoples’ Rights The history of peoples’ rights dates back to the 19th century and the period between the two World Wars. Certain guarantees or protections were granted, mostly within the Ottoman or Austro-Hungarian empires, to groups or communities which did not constitute states (Crawford 1988b, 161). Minority rights, as applying to ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities and indigenous peoples, form an integral part of international human rights law145. Yet, no reference to minority rights is made in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which recognizes only rights of the individual, and not group rights such as rights of minorities or of peoples (De Schutter 2010a, 681).

144

Interview with Logan Perkins, Food For Maine’s Future Local Economies and a Just Food System, National Family Farm Coalition, Vía Campesina. Matola, Mozambique. The interview was conducted (and later edited) by Nic Paget-Clarke for In Motion Magazine on October 20, 2008 during the Vía Campesina conference. Published in In Motion Magazine, April 14, 2009. 145 The first post-war international treaty to protect minorities, designed to protect them from the greatest threat to their existence, was the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Subsequent human rights standards that codify minority rights include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 27), the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, two Council of Europe treaties (the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, and the OSCE Copenhagen Document of 1990 (Crawford 1988b, 161).

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

The Right to Self-Determination, the Right to Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources, and the Right to Development In the 1950s, the notion of collective human rights became tied to the right to selfdetermination, which first appeared in the UN Charter of 1945 (Chapter 1, Article 1, paragraph 2), and to the right of everyone to “a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized” (Article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948). The era of decolonization in the 1960s and the insistence of newly independent states, particularly in the 1970s, on reclaiming not only their political, but also their economic sovereignty, led to the right to selfdetermination being revived in the instruments adopted during that period146 (De Schutter 2010a, 681). Despite the fact that the right to self-determination was ignored in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it was asserted in Article 1 of both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) of 1966. Both read: “All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.” During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the newly formed states attempted to transform international law (Rajagopal 2003, 73) through the use of UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions, the establishment of new international institutions and the introduction of new elements into the doctrinal corpus of international law. The doctrine of Permanent sovereignty over natural resources (PSNR) was asserted as an essential constituent of the right to self-determination (UN General Assembly 1962). The principle of PSNR147 means that “peoples and nations must have the authority to manage and control their natural resources and in doing so to enjoy the benefits of their development and conservation”. The principle was advocated in the early 1950s, to ensure that the people emerging from colonial rule would benefit from the natural resources within their territories. It was also to give newly independent States the legal authority to combat and redress the infringement of their economic sovereignty arising from oppressive and inequitable contracts and other arrangements orchestrated by other States and foreign companies (Daes 2004, 5). 146

The right to self-determination is recognized in the Declaration on Granting Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (UN General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV) adopted on December 14, 1960); the Declaration on Social Progress and Development (UN General Assembly resolution 2542 (XXIV) of 11 December 1969); and the Declaration of Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Co-Operation Among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations (UN General Assembly resolution 2625 (XXV) of 24 October 1970). The right to self-determination was reaffirmed by the Vienna Declaration and Program of Action, as adopted by the World Conference of Human Rights on 25 June 1993. 147 It is recognized as a right in UN General Assembly Resolution 1803 of 1962, which declares “the right of peoples and nations to permanent sovereignty over their natural wealth and resources in the interest of their national development.”

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

Also defined as a right of the people, the right to development was first envisioned in the late 1960s. Justice Keba M’Baye expressed his vision for a right to development in a speech to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 1972. He sought to add the language of rights to Third World voices that were articulating universal principles and prescriptions for the world economy that they believed would speed economic development in the South. With his call, M’Baye attempted to fuse the legacy of the Bandung Conference of 1955 and the demands emanating from United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) with the United Nations human rights architecture. The UN Declaration on the Right to Development was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1986148. It defines development as “a comprehensive economic, social, cultural and political process, which aims at the constant improvement of the wellbeing of the entire population and of all individuals on the basis of their active, free and meaningful participation in development and in the fair distribution of benefits resulting therefrom” (UN General Assembly 1986). The right to development established a strong relationship between development, national sovereignty, popular participation and the rights of peoples (Peemans 2002, 476) The Declaration on the right to development focused on self-determination, on the “fair distribution of benefits” resulting from the development process and underlined the crucial importance of international cooperation. It stressed that “appropriate economic and social reforms should be carried out with a view to eradicating all social injustices” (Sengupta 2000, 3). Peoples’ rights to self-determination, permanent sovereignty over natural resources, and development, were widely supported by Southern states, lawyers and political leaders in the 1970s. The 1976-1981 period saw the drafting of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Peoples (also know as the Algiers Declaration) of 1976149 which states that “the effective respect for human rights necessarily implies respect for the rights of the peoples” (Universal Declaration of the Rights of Peoples 1976) and of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (also known as the Banjul Charter) of 1981, which came into effect in 1986.

Conflicting Interpretations of Collective Rights Conflicting interpretations of collective human rights have been debated over the last three decades. At the core of these debates is the issue of whether a right borne by a group 148

The right to development was previously asserted by UN General Assembly resolution 34/46 in 1979, five resolutions by the UN Commission on Human Rights between 1977 and 1981, the Conference of the Heads of States of Non-Aligned Countries in 1979, and the Banjul Charter in 1986. 149 The Declaration was drafted by a gathering of distinguished jurists, political leaders, and figures of high moral authority brought together largely at the initiative of the Italian legislator Lelio Basso. (http://www.socialjusticejournal.org/SJEdits/35Edit.html).

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

can be a human right at all. For some analysts, the answer is an obvious no. Human rights are the rights of human beings and, self-evidently, each human being is an individual being. Others argue that to grant rights to people is crucial to ensure that our conception of human rights match “the social reality of the human condition” since what is fundamentally important to human beings is experienced collectively rather than individually (Jones 1999, 80). International human rights law recognizes certain rights of groups – where and when group recognition is seen as essential for the effective protection of individuals – but human rights instruments usually provide protection to individuals belonging to groups, and not to groups directly. While emphasizing that the individual has primacy as the ultimate beneficiary of human rights, Rich has argued that the full enjoyment of individual human rights requires certain human rights to devolve upon groups. The right to self-determination, for example, and the right of peoples and nations to “permanent sovereignty over natural resources” (Article 1 of UN General Assembly resolution 1803 (XVII) of 1962) require groups themselves to have rights (Rich 1988, 44–45). The same argument has been developed for other, so-called third generation or solidarity rights, such as the right to peace, the right to a clean environment, the right to popular participation or the right to development (Alston 1988, 612–613). Yet some scholars have opposed group rights on the ground that they constitute potential threats to individual rights. Group rights are often rights claimed against, or over, individuals while traditionally, a major purpose of the doctrine of human rights has been to protect individuals from the power of groups, whether or not that power is institutionalized (Jones 1999, 81–82). The recognition of peoples’ rights as human rights brings forward another delicate issue. What is it that distinguishes a population as a “people”150 entitled to self-determination (or any other group right)? That question has proven difficult to answer with any theoretical precision (Jones 1999, 96), a conceptual difficulty which has been rendered even more complex by the international political environment of the last decades in which peoples’ right to self-determination has become conflated with the right of states. Reflecting on 150

According to Golay and Özden, the problem is that there is no definition of “people” recognized at the international level. They argue: “This explains perhaps that the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination leaves to the “individual concerned” the liberty of determining if he/she belongs to particular racial or ethnic group or groups. On the other hand, the UN expert Aureliu Cristescu, on the basis of discussions within the United Nations, suggests the following definition that could be taken into consideration to determine whether or not an entity constitutes a people fit to enjoy and exercise the right of selfdetermination: “(a) The term ‘people’ denotes a social entity possessing a clear identity and its own characteristics; (b) It implies a relationship with a territory, even if the people in question has been wrongfully expelled from it and artificially replaced by another population; (c) A people should not be confused with ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities, whose existence and rights are recognized in article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights” (Golay and Özden 2010, 14).

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

this situation, Crawford argues that “rights of people must mean rights of people against their government otherwise it would simply mean rights of states” (Crawford 1988a, 56).

The Internal and External Dimensions of Collective Rights To distinguish between rights of peoples and rights of states, it is useful to look at selfdetermination as having an internal as well as an external dimension (Jones 1999, 102). Internal self-determination151 speaks to the right of a people to freely choose its own political, economic and social system. It can also be understood as meaning that “the population has a right to a government representative of all the groups within the population” (De Schutter 2010a, 687). External self-determination regards the international status of a people, it equates freedom from external intervention, from colonialism and imperialism (Felice 1996, 58). The right to development similarly has an internal and an external aspect. Two principles are indeed required for realizing this right: “the right of people to decide their own development policies (external) and the participation of the people in all phases of decision-making concerning all aspects of development policies” (internal) (Golay and Özden 2010, 7). To distinguish between the internal and external dimensions of collective rights152 is very relevant to apprehend the right to food sovereignty. Collective rights such as the right to self-determination and the right to development – which have lost visibility over the last two decades – can be considered historic predecessors of the right to food sovereignty. Let us now explore the internal and external dimensions of the right to food sovereignty, keeping in mind that both are central to the concept and have been very much present since the beginning, as appears clearly in this statement by Vía Campesina which dates back from 1993: “The right of every country to define its own agricultural policy according to the nation’s interest (external) and in concertación [sic] with the peasant and Indigenous organizations, guaranteeing their real participation (internal)” (Vía Campesina 1993).

151

As emphasized in General Comment n°21, para. 4, on the right to self-determination, “the right to selfdetermination of peoples has an internal aspect, that is to say, the rights of all peoples to pursue freely their economic, social and cultural development without outside interference. In that respect, there is a link between the internal dimension and the right of every citizen to take part in the conduct of public affairs at any level” (Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination 1996). 152 In their internal dimension, these rights insist on the separation between the state and its peoples. They highlight peoples’ rights against their government when their concerns and priorities are not reflected in government policy. In their external dimension, these rights defend the idea that “all peoples have the right to determine freely their political status and their place in the international community based upon the principle of equal rights and exemplified by the liberation of peoples from colonialism and by the prohibition to subject peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation” (Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination 1996).

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

2.4.4 Internal Food Sovereignty In its internal dimension, peoples’ right to food sovereignty expresses claims that are close to peoples’ (internal) right to self-determination. Internal food sovereignty expresses peasant activists’ widespread perception that they have no voice in decisionmaking and that government policies fail to integrate their concerns153. Walter, an Oxfam representative, explains: “What I feel about food sovereignty? It is a reaffirmation of an anchoring in society and of the control of peoples over what escapes us”154. Internal food sovereignty makes visible the divergence of interests between a state and its people/peasants. In the opinion of Jean, European Coordination of Vía Campesina (ECVC) support staff, it clarifies whose rights should come first: “The rights of populations and states… (…) the term populations indicates that it is the aspirations of peasants and populations which should be taken into account first”155. It raises crucial issues such as: “who represents the people? How and when can the state be a credible spokesman?” (Makinson 1988, 77)

The Community as Subject of Rights At the core of the principle of self-determination is “the right of a community which has a distinct character to have this character reflected in the institutions of government under which it lives (based on race, culture, religion, language, ...)” where community is to be understood as minorities, nationalities, peoples or indigenous peoples (Brownlie 1988). For Makinson, “some degree of self-determination” should be “granted to any collectivity that manifests felt distinctiveness” (Makinson 1988, 76). But what kind of collectivity is envisioned by the food sovereignty movement? 153

In the early years of the movement, there was little faith in potential change from the top and general mistrust of governments. As this Vía Campesina statement put it: “In spite of the deterioration of the standard of living of peoples, particularly in rural areas, governments of each country go on supporting neoliberal policies, accepting the subjugation of their sovereignty, the criminalizing the struggle of the peoples in defense of their basic rights” (Vía Campesina 2003a). This perception has accentuated over the years, leading to a more localized interpretation of the right to food sovereignty, as we will see below, yet one that coexists with the belief that “the number of countries with progressive governments is on the rise, gaining power as a result of years of popular mobilizations. A good number of local and national governments have accentuated their resistance, and their interest in the agenda of Food Sovereignty” (Vía Campesina 2008g). In such a context, the opposition between states and peoples may be perceived as less relevant: “A un moment on a entendu “peoples’ food sovereignty”, pour souligner les people et pas les nations. Mais maintenant ça a disparu en faveur de food sovereignty, avec l’avènement de la gauche au pouvoir en Amérique latine” (interview, 21 March 2010). 154 “Ce que je ressens par rapport à la SA [souveraineté alimentaire]? C’est une réaffirmation d’un ancrage dans la société et de la maîtrise des populations sur les politiques. C’est une réaction par rapport à quelque chose qui nous échappe” (interview, 27 avril 2009). 155 “Les droits des populations et des états… (…) Le terme populations indique que ce soit d’abord les aspirations des paysans et des populations qui soient prises en compte” (interview, 2 June 2009).

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

The concept of peoples’ right can be said to conflate two distinct meanings: if people are a part of the population, they should consent; if the people are the entire population, there should be public scrutiny (Crawford 1988a, 64). These two meanings – peoples as a part of the population, here peasants; and peoples as the entire population – can be found in most food sovereignty statements. On one hand, peasant activists demand the active involvement of peasant organizations in the elaboration of the policies that will impact their livelihood. On the other hand, the term “peoples” covers the entire population – producers and consumers of food. The food sovereignty movement speaks, it could be argued, in the name of society as a whole156. If the definition of the right to food sovereignty more or less reiterates peoples’ right to self-determination (as recognized in the ICESCR/ICCPR Article 1), it is interesting to note that it goes beyond this by introducing the term “community”, a term which is not applied in international law as it is not sufficiently distinct (Morten Haugen 2009). “Food sovereignty (…) assumes the recognition and empowerment of people and communities to realize their economic, social, cultural, and political rights and needs regarding choice of food, access to food and food production” (People’s Food Sovereignty Network Asia Pacific and Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific 2004a). In fact, one of the latest definitions of the right to food sovereignty prepared for the 2007 Nyeleni Forum in Mali “adds an interesting category of “food sovereignty-holders” under the phrasing of “legitimate democratic communities”157, thus avoiding the narrowing to states and macroeconomic dimension which the term food sovereignty could seem to imply” (Ratjen, Monsalve Suárez, and Valente 2007). In its internal, political dimension, the right to food sovereignty conveys a call for smaller political units within a world society, and evokes what John Dunn, writing in 1979, called “the search for a more intuitively plausible scale of community”158. In that sense, the right to food sovereignty is kin to the right to autonomy or self-government which has been recognized in the International Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a way for indigenous peoples to exercise their right to self-determination (Golay and Özden 2010, 24). But what would legitimate democratic (peasant) communities look like? Could international human rights law accommodate such a vague subject of rights? Self-determination has long presented human rights experts with the difficult status of entities which “lie uncomfortably between individuals and peoples” (Makinson 1988, 72). 156

This is illustrated by statements such as: “we do not need WTO. We need the sovereignty of the ordinary people. We want to bury WTO.” (Vía Campesina 2007a). In doing so, the food sovereignty movement gives peoples a powerful meaning – a meaning that escapes us if we conceptualize peoples as the nation state – that of the “heterogeneous, yet massive category of rightless human beings” (Baxi 2007a, 137). 157 Input from Frie Boender, Denmark, via the Nordic farmers and smallholders coordination, Nyeleni Forum, 22-28 February 2007, Mali, cited in (Ratjen, Monsalve Suárez, and Valente 2007). 158 The quote is by John Dunn (Dunn 1979, 65), cited in (Felice 1996, 40).

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

Yet there is a growing and positive trend in international law and practice to extend the concept and principle of self-determination to peoples and groups within existing States. While understood to no longer include a right to secession or independence (except for a few situations or under certain exceptional conditions), nowadays the right to selfdetermination includes a range of alternatives including the right to participate in the governance of the State as well as the right to various forms of autonomy and selfgovernance (Daes 2004, 7). The problem remains that there “are many variations and graduations of social bonding” and therefore that it will always, by definition, be extremely difficult to characterize what counts as peoples (Makinson 1988, 74). To indigenous peoples’ rights activists, “self-determination has to mean that the self gets to determine who the self is. Otherwise rights get lost”159. So far, the same approach appears to have been taken by peasant activists who have argued that the proposed “rights of peasants”, that we will explore in chapter 3, should protect all those who self-identify as peasants.

The Individual Dimension of the Right to Food Sovereignty While the individual dimension of the right to self-determination and its implications are hard to capture (De Schutter 2010a, 434), the right to development has been conceptualized as the right of people and simultaneously the right of individuals160 (Rich 1988, 44–45). The Declaration on the right to development reads: “equality of opportunity for development is a prerogative both of nations and of individuals who make up nations” (UN General Assembly 1986). Moreover, the Declaration on the right to development sees development as a process through which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized (De Schutter 2010a, 183), making a clear connection between the individual and collective dimensions of this right161. The individual dimension of the right to food sovereignty has been less explored although it seems that “at some point there were discussions within Vía Campesina on how to individualize food sovereignty and link it to self-determination”162. Discussions between the food sovereignty movement and human rights activists, as we will see in chapter 6, have often revolved around clarifying the relationship between the rights claimed by the 159

Representative of the Forest Peoples Programme, at the consultation convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Land Rights, with civil society from South-East Asia, coordinated by PAN-AP, Kuala Lumpur, 23 and 24 March 2010. 160 But, in fact, not as a right of communities, a dimension that is striking in the proposed new right to food sovereignty. 161 It is interesting to note that the individual right to development has been recognized by the US but not that of states, in part because a recognition of states’ right to development would imply that states, and not the individual people themselves, are responsible for defining the kind of development to pursue (Maggio and Lynch 1997, 14). 162 Interview with FIAN representative, 23 June 2009.

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

movement and internationally recognized rights. When trying to interpret peasants claims – often with the purpose of lending them legitimacy by connecting them to existing rights or in order to try to get peasant activists to use codified human rights —, human rights activists have tended to focus on the two extremes of the continuum, the individual and the nation state: “The first key element of food sovereignty is to restore national and individual sovereignty over food security policy”163 (Ziegler, Way, and Golay 2005, 344). This is not surprising considering how the international legal community has conceptualized collective human rights. The common assumption that lies behind classical formulations of human rights is that group rights would be taken care of automatically as a result of the protection of the rights of individuals, although the issue of land rights in traditional territories, for example, is proof of the contrary (Brownlie 1988, 1–16). If it was conceptualized, the individual right to food sovereignty would need to extend to all citizens, beyond food producers, and its content would need to incorporate not only access to decision-making when it comes to food and agricultural policies, but also the individual ability (as a consumer) to make autonomous food choices.

2.4.5 External Food Sovereignty External food sovereignty evokes a number of collective human rights – the right to selfdetermination, the right to permanent sovereignty over natural resources, the right to development – that motivated decolonization in the interwar period, and in the postwar period up to the 1980s. These rights, which gave life to an unprecedented movement for moral justice and political solidarity against imperialism, have somewhat fallen in oblivion164. Yet, some of the ideas of that period are captured by the right to food sovereignty. For example, the right to food sovereignty brings to mind “the right of every country to adopt the economic and social system that it deems the most appropriate for its own development and not to be subjected to discrimination of any kind as a result” (UN General Assembly 1974b), a right that was proclaimed in the 1974 Declaration on a New International Economic Order (article 4.d). If we look further back, we even find language in UN General Assembly Resolution 523 (VI) of 12 January 1952 on Integrated Economic Development and Commercial Agreements that captures the essence of the right to food sovereignty particularly well: “commercial agreements shall not contain economic or political conditions violating the sovereign rights of the under-developed countries, including the right to determine their own plans for economic development” (at para. 1 (b))(Schrijver 2010). 163

“Le premier élément clé de la souveraineté alimentaire est la restauration de la souveraineté nationale et individuelle sur la politique de sécurité alimentaire” (Ziegler, Way, and Golay 2005, 344). 164 I am grateful to Professor Stephan Marks for pointing this out.

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

By claiming people’s (external) right to food sovereignty, the food sovereignty movement reactivates the “old” (external) peoples’ right to self-determination, development, and sovereignty over natural resources but applies them to a changed international context. Peasant activists no longer emphasize liberation from colonization but react to neoliberalism and economic imperialism. They also share the growing perception that states are captured by transnational corporations and global capital interests, including of course, in the North. Marc, from the Confédération paysanne, explains: “the right to food sovereignty of states evokes the right to independence, it is anti- or post-colonial. Here we are not talking about political independence but economic independence. Today, decolonization is not about a state in relation to another, but about a state in relation to transnational corporations”165. The right to permanent sovereignty over natural resources is not emphasized as it was in the past, to demand foreign investment or to claim the right to nationalize companies in charge of exploiting natural resources, but efforts have been made by civil society to show the relevance of the concept in a context of increased international land grabs (Golay and Özden 2010)166. The right to development is rarely mentioned. But, just as newly independent states called for and demanded a New International Economic Order (NIEO)167 in 1974, the food sovereignty movement calls for structural changes. The alternative world order that peasant movements envision, however, is of a radically different nature.

165

“Le droit à la souveraineté alimentaire des états évoque le droit à l’indépendance, c’est anti ou post colonial. Ici on ne parle plus d’indépendance politique mais économique. Aujourd’hui, la décolonisation n’est plus d’un état par rapport à un autre, mais d’un état par rapport aux transnationales” (interview, 4 May 2010). 166 In the same manner, it is likely that article 1 paragraph 2 of both the ICESCR and the ICCPR will receive increased attention by civil society in the near future, which reads: “All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out of international economic co-operation, based upon the principle of mutual benefit, and international law. In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.” 167 The context which led to the Declaration on a NIEO, which was to be “based on equity, sovereign equality, interdependence, common interest and cooperation among all States” (UN General Assembly 1974b) is worth recalling here. When the world economy experienced a series of grave crises in the 1970s, developing countries were severely hit because of their generally greater vulnerability to external economic impulses. They started considering their integration in the world economy as indispensable to their national development, but wanted this integration to be realized on radically different terms: “changes in international trading systems” had to ensure “steadily expanding levels of trade and earnings” (FAO 1981). In 1974, Members of the United Nations solemnly proclaimed their determination to work urgently for the establishment of a NIEO (UN General Assembly 1974b). A “just and equitable relationship” was to be found “between the prices of raw materials, primary commodities, manufactured and semi-manufactured goods exported by developing countries and the prices of raw materials, primary commodities, manufactures, capital goods and equipment imported by them with the aim of bringing about sustained improvement in their unsatisfactory terms of trade and the expansion of the world economy”(UN General Assembly 1974b).

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

The New International Economic Order Revisited Some of the aspects of the New International Economic Order, such as, to some extent, the right to development and special and differential treatment168 for developing countries, have found their way into the right to food sovereignty. In the context of the Doha Development Round of negotiations, Vía Campesina systematically denounced economic imperialism on the part of the EU and the US and defended the principle of special and differential treatment for developing countries. But the vision of development that dominated in the 1970s has little to do with the relocalization project that is defended by Vía Campesina. The search for a Third World alternative to US capitalism and Soviet communism, which characterized the Bandung Conference in 1955 and continued to be reflected in the NIEO proposals in 1974, was premised on the need to accelerate the “modernization process” and achieve economic growth – “the acceleration of the economic growth of developing countries with a view to bridging the economic gap between developing and developed countries”169 was one of the objectives of the NIEO170 (UN General Assembly 1974a). Normative goals (such as the doctrine of PSNR, or the right to nationalization) and institutional reforms sought to eliminate the widening gap between the developed and developing countries (Rajagopal 2003, 79). In essence, the proposed NIEO repeated the thinking that lay behind colonial and development discourses instead of challenging the categories of western modernity and rationality that were inherent in the economic and political systems that international law supported (Rajagopal 2003, 73–74). “The teleological imperative of catching-up, based on the superiority of the West, was never challenged” (Rajagopal 2003, 85). This is in sharp contrast with the food sovereignty paradigm which suggests an alternate development path for developing and developed countries alike, one which, as spelled out above, is not grounded in modernization, progress or economic growth. Indeed, discomfort with the idea that food sovereignty could be invoked to defend the right to

168

The justification of preferential trading arrangements, for example, which had a powerful and lasting influence on the international economic order, finds its roots in the dependency critique that was placed at the heart of the UNCTAD (Rajagopal 2003, 84). 169 As stated in the Preamble of the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States which was adopted as part of the resolutions on the NIEO. 170 The right of every state “to engage in international trade” (article 4) was, however, restricted by a number of duties seeking to ensure that Southern countries would reap the anticipated benefits of international trade – a substantial increase in their foreign exchange earnings, the diversification of their exports, (…) a substantial improvement in the conditions of access for the products of interest to the developing countries and, wherever appropriate, measures designed to attain stable, equitable and remunerative prices for primary products” (article 14). The duties imposed on states included: “to conduct their mutual economic relations in a manner which takes into account the interest of other countries” (article 24) and “to co-operate in achieving adjustments in the prices of exports of developing countries in relation to prices of their imports so as to promote just and equitable terms of trade for them, in a manner which is remunerative for producers and equitable for producers and consumers” (article 28) (UN General Assembly 1974a).

Claiming Rights and Reclaiming Control

grow or the right to export171 is widespread within Vía Campesina, marking a departure from the vision that was portrayed in the NIEO. The right of Southern countries to develop through agriculture (NGO Forum to the World Food Summit 1996) is one of the several meanings of the right to food sovereignty, but the movement has insisted more on the negative impacts of dumping and on the necessity to shield small peasants from the threat of trade liberalization, than on the importance of increasing market access for developing countries products172. The proclaimed North-South solidarity between peasants in countries with drastically different economic environments represents another departure from the “old” right to development: although the focus of the right to food sovereignty is usually on developing countries, Northern states are also entitled the right to define their agricultural policy provided it does not have a negative impact on the ability of Southern States to develop their agriculture. Adding to these differences is the fact that, while the Declaration on the right to development essentially saw development as to be undertaken by states, the food sovereignty movement no longer places the focus on the state as the main driver of social change. To the contrary, just as the responsibility for realizing rights lies with all actors of society, as we will see below, food sovereignty is to be realized by all segments of society173.

2.4.6 Unspecified Duty-Bearers Definitions of the right to food sovereignty leave duty-bearers most often unspecified. Some statements explicitly refer to States’ obligations: “We condemn the deplorable and inhuman conditions in which our brothers and sisters, displaced by wars and the expropriation of their land, must live, as a consequence of neoliberal policies. We assert that their rights must be respected and their needs met by their governments” (Vía Campesina 2003a). In most statements, however, the role that states are expected to play with regard to the promotion, respect and implementation of the rights claimed is not emphasized. Contrary to what we find in liberal theory but also in social-democratic approaches to human rights, where duties for implementing social and cultural rights are essentially ascribed to the state (Stammers 1995, 495), food sovereignty claims appear to target all perceived violators of human rights. At the heart of the right to food sovereignty are what Makinson called unspecified correspondents: diffuse claims are tied to 171

Both terms were evoked by food sovereignty activists during my fieldwork. The controversy that sparked in 2002 within the global justice movement following the release of Oxfam’s “Rigged Rules and Double Standards” report (Watkins and Fowler 2004) which demanded increased market access for developing countries is illustrative of this. For a critique of the Oxfam campaign, see (Bello 2002). 173 Such a non-statist view of development is closer to the ideas portrayed by the concept of the “other development” which focused rather on the rights of ethnic minorities or indigenous peoples whose very existence was threatened by diverse interventions, among which large modernizing development projects (Peemans 2002, 169). 172

The Right of Peoples to Food Sovereignty

corresponding pre-obligations, where the bearer of the obligations is not specified (Makinson 1988, 78,79). The food sovereignty movement’s unconventional approach to the human rights obligations of states is manifest in its strategy which, contrary to that of human rights organizations, does not seek to get states to comply. Patel notes that “La Via Campesina’s approach to rights is transgressive, insofar as it orients itself not toward the institutions that enshrine, enforce, and police rights, but toward the people who are meant to hold them” (Patel 2007). While the first tactic – that of monitoring states’ activities to ensure enforcement of human rights – runs the risk of sustaining existing power structures (Stammers 1999, 989) (in particular if experts, and not the people, do the monitoring), the danger of the second tactic – forcing public debate through mobilization – is for activists to stop watching what the state does altogether. It also makes it difficult for activists to make demands on the state174. These strategic considerations, as we will see in chapter 5, largely determine how and where rights are claimed and play a central role in the institutionalization of new rights.

A Broader Conception of Responsibility Rather than focusing on the duties of states – as do liberal and social-democratic approaches to human rights – a broader conception of responsibility appears to emanate from the food sovereignty movement175. Does the right to food sovereignty concept address what Baxi has characterized as one the “silences” in the Declaration on the right to development i.e. that “states remain the primary addresses of obligations to implement the right to development” (Baxi 2007a, 135)? A 2004 document from the People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty and PAN-AP, an Asian network alternative to Vía Campesina, states that “Systems of food production, distribution and exchange is a preeminent responsibility of the community and society” (People’s Food Sovereignty Network Asia Pacific and Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific 2004a). The 2008 Maputo Declaration states that “We have the right to continue being peasants and family farmers, and to shoulder the responsibility of continuing to feed our peoples” (Vía Campesina 2008g). By using such language, the movement reasserts communities’ 174

Overall, the movement calls for strong state intervention in the agrarian economy and for an alternative global governance framework for food and agriculture wherever hope remains that the state could eventually be led to respond to peoples’ demands and play its role as a development actor – where it is not the case, localism tends to dominate as a political and economic response. On this issue, important divergences can be noted across regions. “Dans la définition, il s’agit du droit des peuples et des états. En Europe, le plaidoyer vise l’état et en Afrique ils visent la construction d’une politique agricole en commun avec l’état. C’est différent en Amérique centrale où l’état est perçu comme une menace. La priorité est à la survie et à se renforcer pour faire contre-poids par rapport à l’état” (interview, 27 April 2009). 175 We will explore other aspects of the food sovereignty movement’s conception of responsibility in chapter 3, which looks at the right to accessing natural resources.

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control over food and reclaims food systems that are increasingly controlled by corporations. The 2007 Nyeleni Declaration marks a very clear departure from the idea that the primary responsibility for realizing food sovereignty lies primarily with the state: “food sovereignty is considered a basic human right, recognized and implemented by communities, peoples, states and international bodies” (Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum 2007b). Interestingly, such language is typical of the third generation rights/solidarity rights category. This grouping has been distinguished from the other two categories of human rights in that its realization is predicated not only upon both the affirmative and negative duties of the state, but also upon the behavior of each individual: “[Third Generation Rights]...may be both invoked against the State and demanded of it; but above all (and herein lies their essential characteristic) they can be realized only through the concerted efforts of all actors on the social scene: the individual, the State, public and private bodies and the international community” (Maggio and Lynch 1997, 53). It is striking, indeed, looking at duty-bearers, that food sovereignty movement claims target society as a whole176.

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Is this to say that all actors on the social scene share the same responsibility? While numerous commentators have criticized the indeterminacy regarding those obliged to effect the realization of third generation rights, as well as the substantive content entailed by such rights (Maggio and Lynch 1997, 53), Sengupta proposes an interesting analysis of the Declaration on the right to development. To realize this process of development to which every human person is entitled by virtue of his right to development, there are responsibilities to be borne by all the concerned parties: “the human persons,” “the states operating nationally,” and “the states operating internationally.” According to Article 2, Clause 2, “all human beings (persons) have a responsibility for development individually and collectively,” and they must take appropriate actions, maintaining “full respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms as well as their duties to the community.” Human persons thus are recognized to function both individually and as members of collectives or communities and to have duties to communities that are necessary to be carried out in promoting the process of development. But “the primary responsibility for the creation of national and international conditions favorable to the realization of the right to development” is of the states, as Article 3 categorically suggests. This responsibility is complementary to the individual’s responsibility as mentioned above, and is only for the creation of conditions for realizing the right and not for actually realizing the right itself. Only the individuals themselves can realize the right. The actions of the states needed for creating such conditions are to be undertaken at both the national and the international levels (Sengupta 2000, 3). More research would be needed to assess the extent to which the food sovereignty movement’s conception of responsibility resembles that proposed by Sengupta or goes further in (re)inventing a notion of responsibility that is better able to tackle contemporary challenges.

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A Challenge to the Statist Framework Collective rights constitute a potential countervailing force to state sovereignty177. Indeed, they present the people as being the ultimate repository of sovereign rights and hold the sovereignty of the people over that of any government or nation state (Felice 1996, 19). For this reason, they challenge what Falk has called the “statist framework” (Falk 1988, 18). If the right to food sovereignty represents a clear departure from the statist framework which dominates all major strands of the intellectual debate on human rights (Stammers 1995, 498), to think of the right to food sovereignty (or any rights of people) outside of the interstate framework (Crawford 1988b, 174,175) represents a real challenge: to be mindful of statist claims but receptive to societal claims of an anti-statist character (Falk 1988, 23). Advocates of collective human rights believe that indigenous peoples and contemporary social movements hold the key to building an alternative human rights framework. They often depict international civil society, transnational social movements, indigenous peoples, and permanent people’s tribunals initiatives178 as constituting a challenge to existing international law, procedures and structures, in the sense that they challenge the state as the only legitimate source of law-making179 and law-applying (Falk 1988, 27). My research work is an attempt to look at how contemporary transnational agrarian movements contribute to the reinvention of human rights, despite the fact that an alternative, non-statist, conception of rights remains difficult to imagine. Let us know turn to the strategies the food sovereignty movement has put in place to achieve the international and national recognition of the proposed new right to food sovereignty180.

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Authors who oppose the statist human rights framework argue that there is a conflict between selfdetermination (which includes the rights of ethnic minorities within states and the rights of groups beyond ethnicity), and state sovereignty, which objective is to preserve the structure of the international order and has been essential to the UN since its inception (Baxi 2007a). Because of the primacy of state sovereignty, they contend, it is impossible to protect human rights and realize self-determination (Felice 1996, 27). In this respect, Felice argues that modernization theory, Marxist theories, world system and dependency theories are too state-centered and too focused on power at the top. This does not reflect the reality in the third world, he says, where many strong social relations exist independently of state’s control and are distributed among many autonomous groups (Felice 1996, 38). 178 Permanent Peoples Tribunals (PPT) have been initiated in Italy in the late 70s using the framework of the Algiers Declaration. 179 Although it is likely that state interests will continue to predominate (Triggs 1988), the increased role played by international institutions, the influence of international NGOs, and the increased recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples all tend to indicate that states are no longer the only entities with a recognized role (Maggio and Lynch 1997, 8). 180 Institutional developments are also taking place at the sub-national level, as Patrick Mulvany pointed out to me, but these developments are not explored here.

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2.5 Efforts to Institutionalize the New Right to Food Sovereignty “What are we fighting for? a world …. (…) where food sovereignty is considered a basic human right, recognized and implemented by communities, peoples, states and international bodies” (Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum 2007b). This section analyzes efforts by the food sovereignty movement to achieve the universal, regional or national recognition of the human right to food sovereignty. What drives and characterizes attempts to institutionalize the new right to food sovereignty? There are two entry points for law and social movements: movements may seek to change the law in the name of superior principles such as human rights or they may seek to protect themselves from repression (…) against, with and via the law (Agrikoliansky 2010, 225). In the case of the food sovereignty movement, the ambition is clearly “to construct a new legality and a new institutionality at the national and international levels” (Vía Campesina 2008e). The objective pursued by Vía Campesina is well summarized by Walter, at Oxfam: “They want to create a new legal paradigm or I don’t know because they don’t recognize themselves in the existing instruments”181. Efforts to institutionalize the new right to food sovereignty constitute a response to “one of the most important challenges for society”, i.e. the “appropriate regulation of food, fisheries and agriculture markets which are currently controlled by wealthy traders and corporations who manipulate food and commodity prices and wages to amass profits”182 (International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) 2009, 28). By invoking the right to food sovereignty, but also the right to produce, the right to continue to exist as such, or the right not to disappear (which we will explore in chapter 3), peasant activists demand and justify the need for an alternative set of international trade rules: “We need to think about measures to put in place so that human rights are stronger than trade”183. 181

“Ils veulent créer un nouveau paradigme légal ou j’en sais rien car ils ne se reconnaissent pas dans les instruments existants” (interview, 27 April 2009). 182 This is well summarized in the document prepared by the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) which puts forward civil society solutions to the food prices crisis of 2007-08: “Laws and regulations must prevent the concentration of assets by the elite, control and manipulation of markets by middlemen and corporations, dumping, and appropriation of resources by corporate investors. National initiatives for developing these laws and regulations must be supported by international institutions, frameworks and conventions. Particularly urgent is the need for new trade and financial regimes based on diverse needs, especially for food, of people and communities and preservation of the environment” (International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) 2009, 28). 183 “Il faut réfléchir aux mesures à mettre en place pour que les droits de l’Homme soient plus forts que le droit du commerce” (peasant woman, member of the Confédération paysanne, Vía Campesina, at workshop on the Right to Food Sovereignty and Trade organized by the Confédération paysanne for European organizations of Vía Campesina, Paris, 7 and 8 January 2009).

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The need to secure local alternatives is also expressed quite strongly. A Portuguese farmer, member of Vía Campesina, insists: “We agree on the principles. How can we have policies which guarantee them?”184. Alternative laws, policies, human rights are perceived as the much needed shield to protect peasants against the threat of more trade and investment liberalization, and against the enormous powers of transnational corporations. Marc, from the Confédération paysanne, suggests: “as long as it is not written down, it is WTO law”. And he adds: “to write down rights is to oppose the supremacy of the market through the law”185. In this sense, the right to food sovereignty explicitly opposes the “right to export”186 – that some have described as one of the pillars of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture. If peasant activists seek to establish an alternative legality that reflects peasant activists’ values and principles, if they use the language of human rights, it is precisely because they feel threatened by the “rights” of corporate actors, powerful governments and international institutions. What is striking in the use of a rights discourse by the food sovereignty movement is how the rights claimed oppose neoliberalism’s use of law as a way to shape exploitative and inequitable relations between human beings, between Northern and Southern countries, and between peoples and nature. New rights are claimed, a new legal order is demanded, because international agreements and institutions “have imposed legal changes that have destroyed basic principles used to protect human and social rights and which serve to create the conditions in which transnational companies can maximize their profits” (Vía Campesina 2004b). As clearly put by Françoise187, a French women activist who used to be a member of the Confédération paysanne: “we called on to rights to oppose the law”188. Talking about indigenous peoples, but making a similar case for peasants, she goes on to explain: “They were living in peace with their customary rights, then we attacked them with the law, with the right to exploit mines, forests, they are coming back on stage with rights to oppose the law, they want the right to be there”189.

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Portuguese farmer, at workshop on the Right to Food Sovereignty and Trade organized by the Confédération paysanne for European organizations of Vía Campesina, Paris, 7 and 8 January 2009. 185 “Tant que c’est pas écrit, c’est le droit de l’OMC” ; “inscrire des droits c’est s’opposer au tout marché via la loi” (interview, 4 May 2010). 186 Einarsson, Peter. 2000. “Agricultural trade policy as if food security and ecological sustainability mattered: Review and analysis of alternative proposals for the renegotiation of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture”. A report from Church of Sweden Aid, Forum Syd, the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation and the Programme of Global Studies. Stockhom: Forum Syd. Cited in (Desmarais 2003, 40). 187 Name changed. 188 “On a fait appel aux droits pour s’opposer au droit” (interview, 15 October 2010). 189 “Ils vivaient avec leurs droits coutumiers tranquilles [les peuples autochtones], on les a agressés avec du droit, d’exploiter les mines, leurs forêts, ils reviennent sur la scène avec des droits pour contrecarrer le droit, ils veulent le droit d’être là” (interview, 15 October 2010).

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The next section discuss the proclamation of new rights and their recognition by the United Nations (2.5.1), before analyzing the recognition of the right to food sovereignty at the international level (2.5.2) and national level (2.5.3).

2.5.1 The Proclamation of New Rights and their Recognition by the UN Claims that are presented as rights are usually claims presented as having a special kind of importance, urgency, universality or endorsement (Kamenka 1988, 127). The proclamation of new rights is a proven technique to mobilize public support through the invocation of high moral principles in a given cause or struggle. In the last decades, diverse pressures to proclaim new rights have born fruit: the right to development, the right to popular participation, the right to a clean environment, the right of people to peace, the right to humanitarian assistance (Alston 1984, 609–611), and more recently the right to water190, have all, to varying degrees, achieved some level of institutionalization. Some attempts have failed to achieve the expected results, as is the case, for example, of civil society advocacy in the 1980s for a third international covenant featuring so called third generation or solidarity rights. Rights are considered “new” if they do not find explicit recognition in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or in one of the two International Human Rights Covenants, which shows the central role played by the United Nations in the recognition of new rights. The UN General Assembly (UNGA) is an established “arbiter”: it has been granted the authority to determine which claims should be deemed rights and which should not (Alston 1984, 607–608). Several other bodies within the UN, however, have proclaimed new rights without going through the UNGA. While civil society groups usually turn to the UN in their efforts to get new rights universally recognized, recognition can also take place at the regional or national levels as well, as we will show below. If Vía Campesina ambitioned, as Marc from the Confédération paysanne suggests, to “transform food sovereignty into a right/law, against the WTO, the United Nations”191, it is important to note that the movement did not approach all UN institutions and international institutions in the same way. As will become clear in chapter 5, most attempts to institutionalize the right to food sovereignty have been directed at the FAO – although the food sovereignty message has been brought to a wide array of other UN 190

On 30th September 2010 the UN Human Rights Council adopted by consensus resolution A/HRC/15/L.14 affirming that water and sanitation are human rights (http://www.righttowater.info/right-water-and-sanitationaffirmed/). 191 “Transformer la souveraineté alimentaire en droit face à l’OMC, face aux Nations Unies” (interview, 4 May 2010).

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settings192 –, while dealings with the Bretton Woods institutions and the WTO have been avoided in order to avoid cooptation. This point is crucial because social movements’ efforts to institutionalize new rights are inevitably connected to – in the sense that the outcome of such efforts directly depend on – the nature of the relations that movements entertain with the institutional world193.

The UN and Civil Society Dialog Before following tactical efforts by peasant movements to get the right to food sovereignty recognized by the UN, it is useful to describe the context of UN-civil society dialog. The past two decades have seen a phenomenal transformation in the scope of world affairs in the direction of a multi-actor global governance system, in which the private sector and civil society have joined States as players in global governance processes. This transformation has confronted the UN system with the difficult “challenge of balancing various interests”. It has raised the issue of whether the UN should be “a neutral forum for intergovernmental processes” or whether it should “act as an advocate for the poor and in defense of values on which it was founded” or at the very least constitute “a forum in which the voices of all stakeholders, not only member state governments, can be heard” (McKeon and Kalafatic 2009, 1) The global summits of the 1990s have highlighted the capacity of civil society organizations (CSOs) to bring emerging issues to the attention of the general public and to get them placed on the agenda of intergovernmental bodies. UN entities have found that CSOs operate as a particularly effective “early warning system” on emerging issues like the food price crisis and climate change because their members perceive and react to them on the ground, often long before official institutions become aware of them” (McKeon and Kalafatic 2009, 7). Certain actors within the UN have also come to appreciate the contribution of peoples’ movements to the current search for alternative, more equitable and sustainable paradigms in a context in which profound crises have called into question dominant development approaches and have opened up new opportunities to address global governance goals while, at the same time, exacerbating power struggles between conflicting interests. On their end, small farmer platforms and indigenous peoples have looked to the United Nations system as a potentially significant forum for the advancement of their objectives and have reached up to the global sphere in order to defend their autonomy and the 192

Notably, at the FAO, World Food Summits (2002 and 2008), the Committee on World Food Security, in contacts with the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, and at the IFAD Farmers’ Forum. 193 Stammers distinguishes between the institutionalization of social movements (their dealings with the institutional world) and the institutionalization of human rights but does not explore the interaction between the two (Stammers 2009, 125–126, 237).

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values, livelihoods and cultures of their members. Describing civil society organizations’ participation at UN summits, McKeon notes that CSOs were attracted to the summits by the spaces they opened up and the opportunities they offered both to influence the substance of the discussions and the decision-making processes themselves and to build their own networks and alliances. “They achieved the first objective to varying degrees in different venues”, she argues, “and the second beyond expectations”194 (McKeon 2009, 11).

2.5.2 Translating the Right to Food Sovereignty in International Law When Vía Campesina representatives first attended the World Food Summit – NGO Forum195 in 1996, they had to win a place at the table. Jean from ECVC recalls: “In 96, at the parallel forum of development NGOs, we did not know where to go nor which status we had. We put forward food sovereignty but the NGOs refused. For them food security was enough. Food sovereignty was associated with withdrawal, while we were in a period of full openness”196. Endorsement of the food sovereignty concept was, at the time, considerably hindered by tensions between NGOs, which had tended to position themselves as “spokespersons for the rural poor and the marginalized of this world”, and the peoples’ organizations that were emerging in a context of globalization and liberalization and “questioned the right of others to speak on their behalf” (McKeon 2009, 29).

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In their assessment of the perceived potential benefits of engaging with the UN system as experienced by small farmers’ platforms, McKeon and Kalafatic list the following: opportunity to gain credibility with governments and public opinion; access to financial resources; access to technical information to help build advocacy positions/ influence UN experts; access to global policy space; and facilitating participation in policy dialog at country or regional level. According to the Vía Campesina and ROPPA peasant networks, the overall verdict is low. Civil society views are now voiced, at least in some UN forums, but their impact on outcomes is open to question. The limiting factors as perceived by small farmers platforms have been: complicated UN administrative and procedural requirements; lack of resources; lack of necessary support for real consultation to take place because the nature and the mode of functioning of peoples’ organizations is not taken into account; the fact that debate in UN forums is often de-politicized by privileging technical terms and, in some forums, by requiring a consensus among civil society constituencies which in fact have very different positions; heavy influence on UN agendas of transnational corporations and large foundations; local/global gap and weak relationship between the UN and civil society at the country level; perceived gap between the international work and country-level realities (McKeon and Kalafatic 2009, 12). 195 The World Food Summit and the NGO Forum were completely separate events although they took place at the same time and in the same city (McKeon 2009, 34). 196 “En 96, au forum parallèle des ONGs de développement, on ne savait pas où se mettre ni quel statut on avait. On a proposé la souveraineté alimentaire mais les ONGs ont refusé. Pour eux sécurité alimentaire c’était assez. La souveraineté alimentaire était associée à un repli sur soi, alors qu’on était en pleine époque d’ouverture” (interview, 2 June 2009).

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Despite the fact that the right to food sovereignty is mentioned in the NGO Forum Statement to the World Food Summit197 – i.e. “the right of each nation to achieve the level of food sufficiency and nutritional quality it considers appropriate without suffering retaliation of any kind” – the assembly of NGOs and recently integrated social movements did not envisage the institutionalization of this right, neither as a recognized human right nor as an instrument of alternative international governance in food and agriculture. In fact, food sovereignty was barely used or understood in civil society circles at the time (McKeon 2009, 39). Instead, participants essentially debated two proposals: one centered on food security and the demand to establish “a Global Convention on Food Security to support governments in developing and implementing national food security plans and to create an international network of local, national, and regional food reserves”; the other centered on the right to food and the demand to develop a “Code of Conduct to govern the activities of those involved in achieving the Right to Food, including national and international institutions as well as private actors, such as transnational corporations” (NGO Forum to the World Food Summit 1996). The Global Convention on Food Security, which was intended to “build a framework at the international level that would allow governments to define and implement the specific packages of policies required to ensure that food security be given highest priority in the national context” – through actions such as supply management, exemption of staple foods from WTO rules when the latter undermine national food security, international commodity agreements, an international network of food reserves, etc. (McKeon 2009, 40) – failed to ever materialize198. The idea of a Code of Conduct on the right to food, to the contrary, turned into Voluntary Guidelines to support the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security, which were negotiated by FAO member states and finally adopted by the FAO Council in November 2004. The right to food underwent numerous conceptual developments between the first and second World Food Summit, which we will analyze in detail in chapter 4. 197

Vía Campesina refrained from underwriting the final declaration of the NGO Forum on the grounds that the text failed “to express a clear position in favor of oppressed groups and peoples of today’s global agricultural systems” but stated their appreciation that their representatives had been “fully accepted and involved throughout the work of the NGO Forum”. Indeed, conscious efforts were made to facilitate the participation of peoples’ movements: the NGO Forum was the only one of the NGO Forums held in parallel to the UN summits of the 1990s that adopted specific procedures to ensure balanced civil society participation. The NGO Forum was divided into two phases: the first was limited to 600 delegates with voting rights, 50% of whom represented local or national organizations of peasants, women and indigenous peoples from the South; the second was open to all interested organizations subject to a light registration process and was attended by 800 organizations from 80 countries (McKeon 2009, 36). 198 It resuscitated during the global food crisis in the form of a proposed Convention on the Eradication of Hunger and Malnutrition (MacMillan and Vivero 2009) but was received with mixed feelings by those consulted in civil society who wanted to favor the reformed Committee on World Food Security (CFS) as the new forum to discuss food governance issues.

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It took several years before peoples’ organizations gained sufficient strength to impose their protagonism on a largely ambivalent NGO universe, but it is generally considered that this was achieved by the time of the civil society Forum for Food Sovereignty which was organized in parallel of the World Food Summit five years later (fyl) of 2002 (McKeon 2009, 43). In the same period, the food sovereignty concept was increasingly incorporated in peasant movements’ discourse. Jean from ECVC summarizes: “The adhesion to food sovereignty took place between 96 and 2002. (…) In 2002, from that time dates the yellow flag, Vía Campesina was in the organizing committee and food sovereignty had a central place”199.

An International Convention for Food Sovereignty Around 2000, the idea that the right to food sovereignty should be enshrined in an International Convention started to circulate in social movements and NGO networks200 which were building alliances and joining efforts in the run up to the WTO ministerial of Doha (2001). Desmarais describes how, only days before the Doha Conference began, the Vía Campesina’s “lone calls for food sovereignty and to get agriculture out of the WTO (voiced as early as the Geneva Ministerial Conference in 1998) were now being supported by numerous civil society organizations201 from around the world with the launching, on November 6, 2001, of the “Priority to Peoples’ Food Sovereignty – WTO out of Food and Agriculture” campaign” (Desmarais 2003, 31). The campaign stressed that, to ensure peoples’ food sovereignty, governments must act immediately to remove food and agriculture from the WTO jurisdiction and to begin working on a new multilateral framework to govern sustainable agricultural production and the food trade (Our World is Not for Sale 2001).

199

“L’adhésion par rapport à la SA [souveraineté alimentaire] a eu lieu entre 96 et 2002. (…) En 2002, de cette époque date le drapeau jaune, la Vía Campesina était dans le comité organisateur et la souveraineté alimentaire avait une place centrale” (interview, 2 June 2009). 200 Demands for such a convention can be found in the 2001 “Priority to Peoples’ Food Sovereignty – WTO out of Food and Agriculture” statement of the Our world is not for sale coalition; and in the Final Declaration of the World Forum on Food Sovereignty which was held in Havana, Cuba, September 7, 2001. An actual draft People’s Convention of Food Sovereignty was elaborated by the organizations members of the People’s Food Sovereignty Network Asia Pacific network in 2004 (People’s Food Sovereignty Network Asia Pacific and Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific 2004a). The People’s Food Sovereignty Network, however, made the conscious decision not to pursue the institutionalization of this Convention. 201 The campaign was launched by the Vía Campesina; COASAD; Collectif Statégies Alimentaires; the ETC Group (formerly RAFI); Focus on the Global South; Foodfirst/Institute for Food and Development Policy; Friends of the Earth Latin America and Caribbean; Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland; GRAIN; the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP); the IBON Foundation Inc.; and the Public Citizen’s Energy and Environment Program (Desmarais 2003, 41).

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Central to the alternative multilateral framework was the demand for an International Convention on Food Sovereignty202 that would replace the current Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) and relevant clauses from other WTO agreements. Such a convention “would implement, within the international policy framework, Food Sovereignty and the basic human rights of all peoples to safe and healthy food, decent and full rural employment, labor rights and protection, and a healthy, rich and diverse natural environment. It would also incorporate trade rules on food and agricultural commodities” (Our World is Not for Sale 2001). At the World Forum on Food Sovereignty which was held in Havana, Cuba, in September 2001, this demand had already been formulated: “In defense of the principle of the people’s inalienable right to food, we propose the adoption by the United Nations of an International Convention on Food Sovereignty international trade and other domains” (Forúm Mundial sobre soberanía alimentaria 2001). Other instruments were proposed at the time, not in the form of “a coherent package, but rather a list of incomplete ideas”(Windfuhr and Jonsén 2005, 44): a World Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Food Sovereignty which would undertake a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of trade liberalization on Food Sovereignty and security, and develop proposals for change203; a reformed and strengthened United Nations (UN), as being the appropriate forum to develop and negotiate rules for sustainable production and fair trade; an independent dispute settlement mechanism integrated within an International Court of Justice, especially to prevent dumping and, for example, GMOs in food aid; an international, legally binding treaty that defines the rights of smallholder farmers to the assets, resources, and legal protections they need to be able to exercise their right to produce204 (Our World is Not for Sale 2001). A consensus emerged within the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) that the FAO, based on its mandate of fighting hunger, was the best-placed global institution to take charge of issues of food and agricultural trade. But while civil society organizations had hoped that attempts at developing an alternative framework to WTO 202

The 2002 NGO Forum for Food Sovereignty adopted two documents: a statement (Food Sovereignty: a Right for All) and an Action Agenda. The statement called for “a Convention on Food Sovereignty in order to enshrine the principles of Food Sovereignty in international law and institute food sovereignty as the principal policy framework for addressing food and agriculture” (NGO/CSO Forum for Food Sovereignty 2002b). The Action Agenda invited movements to “call that WTO, as it is presently, must be taken out of food and agriculture; call for a Convention on Food sovereignty which defines the principles and concerns related to food and agriculture and must include new trade rules. If need be, a new institution should be created, based on democracy, transparency, and generating fair trade” (NGO/CSO Forum for Food Sovereignty 2002a). 203 These would include the agreements and rules within the WTO and other regional and international trade regimes, and the economic policies promoted by international financial institutions (IFIs) and multilateral development banks. Such a commission could be made up of and directed by representatives from various social and cultural groups, peoples’ movements, professional institutions, democratically elected representatives and appropriate multilateral institutions (Our World is Not for Sale 2001). 204 This idea was initially pursued by the Indonesian peasant movements and later materialized in the form of a Declaration on the Rights of Peasants, Women and Men, which was adopted by Vía Campesina in 2008. It will be further explored in chapter 3.

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would benefit from the support of the FAO, the FAO was under very strong pressure from some of its powerful member countries to stay out of the WTO’s space and to avoid excessive critiquing of the neoliberal agenda (McKeon 2009, 87–88). The Declaration of the WFS:fyl (2002) – which took place between the WTO ministerials of Doha (2001) and Cancun (2003) – reiterated WFS commitments of 1996205 and urged “all members of the WTO to implement the outcome of the Doha Conference, especially the commitments regarding the reform of the international agricultural trading system” (FAO 2002). French activist José Bové brought Vía Campesina’s call for a Convention on Food Sovereignty to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, at a 2004 meeting during which he “asked him to support Via Campesina organizations in their efforts to have food sovereignty recognized as a new basic human right” (Vía Campesina 2004a). Bové explains: “the future convention of Vía Campesina is indeed an example of using international law in order to improve current living conditions. At least it is what we are betting on. Starting from a fundamental human right, universally recognized, the right to food, today still limited, we are hoping to promote the concept of food sovereignty. The idea is to be able to produce and to be able to protect ourselves from the economic logic, by putting forward the right of peasants and food self-determination. It is an entirely distinct conception of development which underlies this question. It will enable us to link the collective interests of populations with the interests of states. We are mobilizing to get food sovereignty (…) internationally recognized as a right. We need to go to the UN for this”206. This excerpt is a good illustration of how recognized human rights (here the right to food) and new rights (food sovereignty, peasants’ rights, food self-determination) are entangled in the discourse of peasant movements. It also illustrates how, as pointed out by Thivet, two kinds of institutionalization processes are actually involved: the recognition of a new human right in international human rights law and the achievement of an alternative trade framework (in international trade law). The movement in fact seeks to reconcile two sets and levels of norms which are competing and contradictory (Thivet 2009, 26). 205

In fact the Declaration did not bring anything new apart from a commitment to establish “an Intergovernmental Working Group, with the participation of stakeholders, in the context of the WFS followup, to elaborate, in a period of two years, a set of voluntary guidelines to support Member States’ efforts to achieve the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security” (FAO 2002). 206 “La future convention de la Vía Campesina est effectivement un exemple d’utilisation du droit international en vue de l’amélioration des conditions de vie actuelle. C’est du moins le pari que l’on fait. A partir d’un droit fondamental reconnu universellement, en l’occurrence le droit à l’alimentation, limité aujourd’hui, on espère promouvoir le concept de souveraineté alimentaire. L’idée est de pouvoir produire et de pouvoir se protéger contre la logique économique, en mettant en avant le droit des paysans et l’autodétermination alimentaire. C’est toute une autre conception du développement qui est sous-jacente à cette question. Cela permettra de lier les intérêts collectifs des populations avec les intérêts des Etats. Nous militons pour que la souveraineté alimentaire (…) soit un droit reconnu mondialement. Il faut passer par l’ONU pour cela” (Bové 2005, 368).

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Attempts to institutionalize the right to food sovereignty peaked between 2001 and 2005 then somewhat disappeared from the movement’s agenda. As Jean from ECVC put it: “we moved from 2003, food sovereignty as a right, to 2007, Nyeleni, food sovereignty as a concept expanded to agricultural policy. This reduced the importance of the law”207. Although the idea of an International Convention on Food Sovereignty was discussed in Nyeleni in 2007 (Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum 2007a), calls for a Convention on Food Sovereignty have not been reactivated by the global food prices crisis208 of 2007-08 nor brought so far to the reformed Committee on World Food Security (CFS). In chapter 5, we will explore what happened in those pivotal years. We will analyze the internal debates that have taken place within the movement on the advantages and dangers of trying to get the new right to food sovereignty recognized internationally, be it in international human rights law or as the basis for an alternative framework for international trade in agriculture.

2.5.3 Institutionalizing the Right to Food Sovereignty at National Level Over recent years, the emphasis has shifted from the international level to local and national food sovereignty policies209. At the national level, a series of states, in alliance or

207

“On est passé de 2003, la souveraineté alimentaire comme droit, à 2007, Nyeleni, concept de souveraineté alimentaire élargi à la politique agricole. Ca a réduit l’importance du droit” (interview, 2 June 2009). 208 The most recent call mentioning food sovereignty in relation to international governance states: “There is an urgent need to overhaul international trade and investment rules based on the rights of peoples and nations to determine their levels of self sufficiency in meeting food and other consumption needs, and the structure of their domestic economies. Negotiations on a new trade regime based on the diverse needs of people and societies, and the preservation of the environment should be within the UN system. Proposals for policies and actions: • Multilateral trade agreements must be subservient to the International Bill of Human Rights and associated rights and environment conventions of the United Nations. In case of conflicts between trade agreements and human rights or environment conventions, the latter should prevail. • All countries (peoples and states) must have the right to make decisions about their desired levels of selfsufficiency, and be able to implement appropriate policies to protect and support sustainable food production for domestic consumption. • International trade agreements must respect and be based on the principles of food sovereignty, serve the needs of peoples, societies and nations, and be compatible with environmental priorities. They should be governed through genuinely multilateral platforms where negotiations and decision-making processes are transparent and open. They should be subject to democratic, public scrutiny and regulation at the most appropriate local levels in each country” (International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) 2009, 30). 209 This point will be discussed in chapter 5.

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under the pressure of peasant movements, have initiated efforts to recognize the right to food sovereignty and translate it in public policies. These two aspects of the institutionalization process are important to distinguish. Constitutional recognition of the right to food sovereignty has been achieved in a number of countries, notably Ecuador, Bolivia, Nepal, and Venezuela. The three countries in South America have all gone through shifts in presidential power as well as constitutional reforms, which have led to the establishment of a legal framework for food sovereignty. But legal recognition does not necessarily translate into the implementation of food sovereignty laws and policies, a process which, as the experiences of Bolivia and Ecuador demonstrate, can be slow and uncertain. In other countries, such as Mali or Senegal, food sovereignty laws and policies have been passed following the perseverance and advocacy work of peasant organizations. In all of these countries, the trajectory of the right to food sovereignty has been greatly influenced by the efforts of their respective peasant organizations210 (Beuchelt and Virchow 2012; Beauregard 2009). A succinct overview of the recognition of the right to food sovereignty in national constitutions, laws and policies is provided in Appendix 4.

Lessons Learned from the Institutionalization of the Right to Food Sovereignty at National Level The exploration of all the challenges involved in translating the right to food sovereignty in national legislation is beyond the scope of this study. Yet, the influence of the agrarian transnational movement Vía Campesina is notable in most, if not all, the legislative developments presented above211. This undeniably testifies to the success of efforts undertaken by the movement and their allies to institutionalize the right to food sovereignty. Despite important differences between country examples, the translation of the food sovereignty paradigm in public food and agriculture policies shows a general trend towards policies aiming at:

210

“Riots in various countries, provoked by the world crisis of food prices, have forced everyone to pay attention to food and agriculture, especially progressive or semi-progressive governments in countries like Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Nepal. And many other nations, from Mali to Indonesia and Argentina, have expressed concern and have taken at least partial measures. In many cases it has been Vía Campesina member organizations who have sensitized their governments on these topics either through protests and other forms of political pressure, and/or when these governments have sought out La Vía Campesina’s advice on public policy” (Vía Campesina 2008e). 211 As described in Appendix 4.

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Promoting agriculture as the motor of the economy (Mali, Nicaragua, Venezuela), meaning that agriculture should not only feed the national population but contribute to economic growth; Boosting local and peasant-based food production for food security, often in the context of a self-sufficiency strategy, although agroexport remains seen as an opportunity for rural economic development; Compensating the inherent weaknesses of the agricultural sector (Venezuela, Bolivia) and if possible bringing rural incomes at par with those of urban inhabitants; Favoring alternative farming practices (less industrial, more family-based) although industrial farming and large-scale agriculture have been difficult to move away from; Providing access to land and limiting the invasion of transgenic seeds.

Moreover, the external dimension of the right to food sovereignty is often emphasized. When recognized in national constitutions, laws or policies, the right to food sovereignty tends to be equated with the right of states to determine their food and agriculture policies (Mali, Ecuador, Nicaragua). On the contrary, the internal dimension of the right to food sovereignty (understood as guaranteeing public participation in the elaboration of food and agriculture policies) tends not be translated into legislation/policies. Although the prominent guidance from peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s movements (Beauregard 2009, 64) is a key feature in many of the countries where food sovereignty principles have been implemented at the local, regional, and/or national level, the extent to which civil society participation will be encouraged under a different political context is questionable. Public policies for food sovereignty generally generate much enthusiasm within the movement, although they are inevitably limited in scope and fail to cover all the dimensions of food sovereignty (the trade aspects, the focus of this chapter, but also its other dimensions such as access to natural resources, biodiversity, seeds, marketing, state support, etc., as we will explore in the next chapter). Public policies for food sovereignty also generate frustration because of the perceived implementation gap. The key factors behind the lack of implementation of food sovereignty laws or policies are a) the lack of mechanisms that states would need to use to de-link the prices of food on national markets from the prices on international markets; b) the structural constraints imposed by WTO derived obligations, leading to an incompatibility with food sovereignty policies. The fact that no state that has recognized food sovereignty as its strategic objective or in its legal/institutional framework has questioned, so far, its WTO membership, makes some food sovereignty activists skeptical. Jean from ECVC explains: â&#x20AC;&#x153;This strategy does not lead to much. A few countries make legislative efforts but it is more a communication exercise. Is there really a change in agricultural policy? Then why is Mali still in the

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WTO? It is incompatible”212. Similarly, the lack of market regulation mechanisms – such as adjustable tariffs, buffer stocks, production controls213 – that governments could use to support food sovereignty is often cited as a major issue. Gaëtan214 from the Collectif Stratégies Alimentaires (CSA), a small expert organization that works closely with peasant organizations in West Africa, argues: “For Mali, it is not enough to put food sovereignty to make it happen. We don’t have the instruments anymore. Same at the ECOWAS level which wants to reduce its dependency over food imports”215. In this chapter, we explored the trajectory of the right to food sovereignty as a social movement idea. In chapter 5, we will present some of the debates that the proposed institutionalization of the new right to food sovereignty gave rise to within the movement. Three main issues will be discussed: the challenge of moving from protest to proposal and in particular of adequately translating the concept of food sovereignty into an operational definition; the challenge of engaging with the institutional world to advance rights claims and of assessing and taking advantage of legal opportunity structures; the need to build alliances and the ability of the right to food sovereignty to embody a new societal project.

212

“Cette stratégie ne débouche pas sur grand-chose. Quelques pays font des efforts législatifs par rapport à la SA [souveraineté alimentaire] mais c’est plus de la communication. Est-ce qu’il y a un vrai changement de politique agricole? Alors pourquoi le Mali est toujours dans l’OMC? Pourtant c’est incompatible” (interview, 2 June 2009). 213 These instruments were discussed at the seminar organized by the Collectif Stratégies Alimentaires (CSA) on “The Need to Regulate Agricultural Markets”, Brussels, 4-5 May 2009. 214 Name changed. 215 “Pour le Mali, il ne suffit pas de mettre la souveraineté alimentaire pour que ça se réalise. On n’a plus les instruments. Idem au niveau de la CEDEAO qui veut réduire sa dépendance par rapport aux importations alimentaires” (interview, 13 May 2009).

3 The Rights of Peasants While the right of peoples to food sovereignty (which we explored in the previous chapter) has been mostly deployed by Vía Campesina to contest neoliberalism in agriculture, a number of other new rights – such as the right to the means of production, the right to determine which varieties of seeds to plant, the right to reject land acquisitions, which exist today in their pre-institutional form – have also found their way in the movement’s vocabulary. These rights address deeper, long term, “agrarian transformations” (Borras 2009, 5) and in particular the transition of agriculture to capitalism. This chapter continues the exploration of the rights-based tools and narrative that Vía Campesina uses to build its alternative model, this time focusing on the defense of alternative ways of farming, after having explored, in chapter 2, the movement’s call for an alternative global governance framework for food and trade in agriculture. There are now some 1.2 billion “peasants” worldwide, more than ever before on the planet. Peasants today constitute about 2/5 of humanity. In this chapter, emphasis will be put on the difficulties relating to adequately defining the “peasantry”. If the peasantry is omnipresent, it is also invisible, which represents a considerable challenge for any contemporary agrarian movement. A second central theme of this chapter is the agrarian transition to capitalism, a very complex and much debated phenomenon that we will delve into in order to analyze its effects on the peasantry. This chapter explores the “contradictory nature of the peasant condition”, torn between its propensity towards “system integration” (and consequent transformation into the form of the agricultural entrepreneur) and its ongoing “struggle for autonomy” (Van der Ploeg 2008, xiv). This chapter, following the structure used in chapter 2 to explore the new right of peoples to food sovereignty, presents a general introduction to the new rights of peasants (3.1) that are claimed by Vía Campesina. It analyzes the context of emergence of such rights (3.2) and briefly discusses their content. A description of the vision of rural development (3.3) and of the conception of human rights (3.4) that underlie peasants’ rights is presented in the second part of this chapter. The chapter then looks at efforts by the

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movement to get the new rights of peasants “recognized” (Vía Campesina 2008i) by the United Nations (3.5) and presents some of the challenges that Vía Campesina faces in this process.

3.1 The Emergence of a New Category of Rights Over the last decade, the rights vocabulary of Vía Campesina has flourished to include a large number of new rights, such as the “right to land and territory”, the “right to means of agricultural production”, the “freedom to determine price and market for agricultural production”, the “right to the protection of agriculture values”, and the “right to biological diversity” (Vía Campesina 2008b). Over the years, these rights have found their way into a single document. A “Declaration of the Rights of Peasants – Women and Men” was adopted by the International Coordinating Commission of Vía Campesina in March 2009. In chapter 2, we explored how the right to food sovereignty emerged in reaction to trade liberalization and to the application of neoliberal policies to agriculture in the 1980s. In a somewhat similar process, the elaboration of a Declaration of the Rights of Peasants is a response to exploitation and “oppression” (Vía Campesina 2006a, 1). For Baxi, the various declarations of rights offered by or drafted under the auspices of diverse peoples’ movements – such as the Ken Saro Wiwa Declaration of Human Rights of the Ogoni People or the Zapatista Declaration concerning the universal human rights of the indigenous peoples – “prefigure different orders of the promise and pertinence of human rights” (Baxi 2007b, 46). On the 10th of December 2008, at the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Vía Campesina issued a “call to action”. This call encouraged all members of La Vía Campesina and their allies to get mobilized in their respective countries to “demand the institutionalization of the rights of the peasants!” (Vía Campesina 2008i). What are the rights that are claimed to belong to peasants? What kind of institutionalization process is envisaged for these rights?

3.1.1 An Introduction to the Rights of Peasants The very first draft of the Declaration of the Rights of Peasants was elaborated in Indonesia in August 1999. Following the end of President Suharto’s regime (1967-1998), a regime that was marked by violent repression of rural protest, a number of movements for rural democracy emerged in the Indonesian countryside. During the period of the New Order, rural protest was limited. The New Order regime saw the mass extermination of people branded as communists as an effort to clear the ground for capitalist rural development based on top-down green revolution without land reform. This significantly

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reduced the potential of rural villagers to organize themselves but rural protest took place nevertheless216. It focused on land struggles and on the control over forests and other lands classed as belonging to the state, landlessness and limited access to land and natural resources being one of the heritages of Dutch colonialism (Bachriadi 2009, 1–4). After 1998, this continued organization and mobilization around land issues benefited from the support of urban-based students and activists. The important role of urban leadership in rural movements is a particularity of the Indonesian context. As early as the mid-80s, student movements and NGOs had supported poor people in land cases and coorganized protests with rural people (Bachriadi 2009, 6). Henri Saragih, the current General Coordinator of Vía Campesina, belonged to the student movements before he joined the Vía Campesina member organization SPI (Serikat Petani Indonesia), previously called the Federation of Indonesian Peasants Unions (FSPI, Federasi Serikat Petani Indonesia). FSPI was formed in 1998 following the establishment of a local autonomous peasant organization in West Java in 1991 and the consequent creation of three other autonomous peasant organizations in Java and Sumatra two years later. Throughout the 1990s, these groups mostly worked underground217. The “Peasants’ Rights Charter” (Fakih, Rahardjo, and Pimbert 2003, 153) was originally elaborated by peasants (from 24 provinces), universities, and NGO activists. The Charter was one of the end results of a project on Community Integrated Pest Management218 carried out by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in the late 1990s. It was led within the broad tradition of Participatory Action Research (PAR), the aim of which was “not only to conduct research, but in the process to also bring about political change and the empowerment of those involved” (Fakih, Rahardjo, and Pimbert 2003, x). The project involved discussions with all relevant actors including representatives of government, NGOs, farmer organizations, academic institutions and the media. The Secretary General of Vía Campesina evokes: “I don’t know exactly where and when but it came from the village meetings. Our methodology. Peasants ask: what is 216

Rural unrest in Jenggawah, East Java and in Siria-ria, North Sumatra in the 1970s, as well as the Badega incident in West Java in the early 1980s, are good examples of how land issues framed locally generated protests (Bachriadi 2009, 6). 217 Despite a strong commitment to the idea that peasants ought to fight themselves to defend their class interests, urban-based, ex-student and ex-NGO activists have dominated the organization’s leadership since its establishment (Bachriadi 2009, 8–9). 218 The objective of the research project and national consultation process initiated in 1999 with the help of IEED was to assess the extent to which Community IPM (integrated pest management, a joint program by the government of Indonesia and the FAO) had been institutionalized at the local level (Fakih, Rahardjo, and Pimbert 2003, x–xii). Discussions with a wide range of actors led to a variety of campaign strategies, including a national IPM farmers’ congress and the “development of a charter for peasants’ rights” (Fakih, Rahardjo, and Pimbert 2003, xii–xiii). The first participatory impact studies were launched in 1998. Researchers Conducted serial workshops on “peasants’ rights” in July-September 1999. Subsequent discussions took place at a Workshop on Peasants’ Rights in Medan, North Sumatra, in 2000, and at a Conference of Agrarian Reform in Jakarta in April 2001, as well as at a Regional Conference on Peasants’ Rights held in Jakarta in April 2002, leading to the elaboration of a 2002 draft (Vía Campesina 2008b).

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our right? How to fight for our right? Many people talk right at that time. Peasants ask “what is rights to us?””219. The farmers who decided in the early 2000s to package the variety of problems they were confronted with into one statement, initially sought to oppose the “green revolution” and “corporate farming” (Fakih, Rahardjo, and Pimbert 2003, 28). Soon they realized that a much longer list of (essentially new) rights was needed to remedy their situation. At the heart of the list of new rights they established was the fight against capitalism. The following section describes the economic and political environment in which the rights of peasants were born. Whilst chapter 2 focused on the different dynamics that make up today’s globalized neoliberal food system, and proposed an in-depth analysis of the particular developments that have affected the global peasantry since the 1970s approximately, the next section concentrates on earlier developments and on what characterizes capitalism as a “mode of production” (H. Bernstein 2010, 26–27). Indeed, the food sovereignty movement not only opposes neoliberalism but also opposes, more generally, the transformation of the rural world by capitalism, “this economic system” which “treats both nature and people as a means to an end with the sole aim of generating profits” (Vía Campesina 1996b).

3.2 Context of Emergence of Peasants’ Rights: a Reaction to the Agrarian Transition to Capitalism Capitalism is a complex social logic (Beaud 1981, 18). It is essential to have a good definition of capitalism, one that adequately describes the relationship between people and production, because markets have existed at all times and because the nature of capitalism cannot be captured by a narrow association with the market economy. As a mode of production, capitalism can be described as a system of production and reproduction based in a fundamental social relation between capital and labor, in which “capital exploits labor in its pursuit of profit and accumulation, while labor has to work for capital to obtain its means of subsistence” (H. Bernstein 2010, 1). The following connected features contribute to the defining character of capitalism as a mode of production. In capitalism, commodity production is uniquely systematic and generalized. An ever-increasing range of goods and services is produced as commodities for market exchange in order to make profit. Profit is then reinvested to make more profit in an endless cycle of further production and profit – the imperative of accumulation. 219

Interview, 22 March 2010.

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Productive capital is of crucial importance to capitalism: capital invests in means of production such as land, tools, machines, raw materials and labor power, to make new commodities, create new value and make profit on the investment. Capitalism is the only mode of production that presupposes that labor power (variable capital), and means of production (constant capital), not least land natural resources, are widely available as commodities. Capitalism is founded on a social relation between capitalists (owners of the means of production) and workers who exchange their labor power for subsistence (or means of reproduction). Although workers in capitalism are legally free, the dull compulsion of economic forces leaves them with little choice. Surplus value is the source of capitalist profit: it is constituted by the difference between the value of variable capital and the value of the commodities produced. It represents the specific form in which surplus labor is appropriated in capitalist production (H. Bernstein 2010, 26–27). There are many complexities and challenges involved in describing the influence of capitalism on agrarian formations, in part because there are many debates about the origins and development of capitalism. There is a wide variety of explanations on the origins of capitalism but two main “schools” can be distinguished: one identifies paths of agrarian transition (the English, Prussian and American, and East Asian paths respectively), the other defends the idea that commercial capitalism developed through cycles of financial accumulation and state formation at world historical level or in other terms that capitalism was world historical in its very origins (H. Bernstein 2010, 34). A key concept in those debates is primitive accumulation: the process through which precapitalist societies undergo transitions to capitalism (H. Bernstein 2010, 27). One much debated issue associated to primitive accumulation is the extent to which colonialism allowed for the emergence of capitalism (H. Bernstein 2010, 56). A related matter is the impact of colonial conditions on agrarian questions. A wide diversity of such impacts have been documented, such as: the forcible integration of Southern economies in international markets, global divisions of labor dominated by centers of developed industrial capital, the development/underdevelopment of capitalist agriculture in the periphery (H. Bernstein and Byres 2001, 17, 21), and the use of colonial law to create a wage labor force available to the plantation, mine, and factory out of peasant and subsistence producers, and to convert communal land into individual property ownership, thereby facilitating the commodification of land and its extraction from precolonial users (Engle Merry 1992, 363). Equally challenging is an adequate description of the range of institutions that have made, and continue to make, the development of capitalism possible, among which private property, the social organization of labor, the market, and the nation state. The critical role of the state – as a regulator (Van der Ploeg 2008, 239) – in the expansion of neoliberalism has been discussed in chapter 2. The profound and related impact of regulatory rules on social practices is worth exploring here in some detail. The capitalist global food system is governed by a mode of ordering of the social and the natural, which van der Ploeg has termed controllability. Controllability can be defined as a “set of

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centralized rules and parameters” that governs specific local practices. As capitalist agriculture expands, codification and formalization tend to rule out autonomy and create non-agency. Everything has to be carried out in accordance with pre-established and centrally defined rules; deviating from the rules in order to make things work better is considered an infringement. As a result, responsibility and agency are increasingly marginalized or banned (Van der Ploeg 2008, 234, 241). Also worth noting is the fact that state and market no longer counterbalance each other. They are aligned and fused into one comprehensive technology of regulation. Mutual copenetration, a new symbiosis of state and markets, penetrates and reorders civil society, and subjects it to external control and planning (Van der Ploeg 2008, 253, 252). Autonomy, responsibility, and trust are being replaced by procedures, rules, and protocols. As we shall see, these changes are at the heart of Vía Campesina rights claims. Today’s peasantry is confronted with three “destructive tendencies”: the resource base on which peasant modes of farming are grounded is the object of considerable distortions, if not total disintegration; precariousness and deprivation are experienced by large segments of the farming sector; and the takeover of strategic resources as well as the creation of new parallel circuits for the production of specific commodities de facto sentences growing numbers of peasant producers to redundancy, leading to re-feudalization and to the commoditization of increasing parts of productive infrastructures (Van der Ploeg 2008, 263). To analyze agrarian change – change in the total system of relationships concerned in agrarian economies and societies220 (Harriss 1982, 15) – requires analyzing the interplay between structures, institutions and actors (Borras 2009, 22). It is a complex exercise because there is no consensus about the causes and consequences of agrarian development processes (Borras 2009, 13). Nor is there, as we shall see below, an established and unequivocal definition of the peasant condition (Van der Ploeg 2008, 23– 52). Two fundamental aspects of agrarian transformations (Borras 2009, 5) will be discussed below, because they are at the heart of Vía Campesina’s claims: the commoditization of labor, which has “created dramatic constraints on farmers throughout the world, pushing them to the brink of irredeemable extinction” (Vía Campesina 1996b); and the commoditization of nature, which has placed “land, wealth and power in the hands of large land owners and transnational corporations” and “unjustly denies peasants and farmers the possibility of controlling their own destinies” (Vía Campesina 1996b).

220

An agrarian system includes technological and environmental factors and relationships, as well as social and cultural ones, and is thus broader than a farming system (Harriss 1982, 15–34).

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In this section, different aspects of the agrarian transition to capitalism are discussed: depeasantization (3.2.1), the transformation of the local into a non-place (3.2.2), the incorporation of farmers into markets (3.2.3), the commoditization of nature (3.2.4) and, in addition, the modernization of agriculture (3.2.5).

3.2.1 Depeasantization The right to be a peasant, the “right of rural peoples to produce”, and the “right to continue to exist as such” (Rosset and Martinez 2010, 150) constitute a direct response to the perceived threat and experienced reality of “global depeasantization” (Araghi 1995), a post-World War II development which is directly related to the expansion of world capitalism. For Bernard Lambert, a key figure of French peasant activism in the 1980s notes: “It is in the interest of the system to have us disappear with no fuss, one after the other. Any collective response raises our chances of survival”221. Characterized by deruralization (depopulation and decline of the rural areas of the world) and overurbanization (massive concentration of peoples and activities in growing urban centers of the world), global depeasantization reflects a pattern of differentiation of geographical space particular to the second half of the 20th century (Araghi 1995, 338). Although it has been described by Araghi as the “experience of Third World peasantries between 1945 and 1990, when an increasing number of people who were involved in agriculture with direct access to the production of their means of subsistence became rapidly and massively concentrated in urban locations”, this phenomenon has not spared the industrialized regions of the world, where it has taken alternative forms, and has taken place prior to 1945, although at a lower rate. The effects of depeasantization have been wide ranging. As a member of the French Confédération paysanne put it to his fellow peasants during the organization’s general assembly in 2010: “People are dismayed. They have no neighbours anymore. The wife is gone. There is no village party”222.

The Transition Debate The issue of depeasantization has been much debated historically. It is central to the agrarian question and has long been at the heart of the “transition debate” (Brass 2005, 160). The end of the peasant, or small-scale or family farmer has been announced, and contested, in different places at different times for two centuries of more (H. Bernstein 221

“Le système a intérêt à nous faire disparaître sans histoire, les uns après les autres. Toute réponse collective augmente nos chances de survie” (Lambert 2003, 81). 222 “Les gens sont dégoûtés, ils n’ont plus de voisins, la femme est partie, il n’y a pas de bal” (peasant, Confédération paysanne, General Assembly, Montreuil, 4 may 2010).

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2010, 85). It is contested empirically: has it happened or not, where, to what extent? And it is contested analytically: how was the rural workforce transformed by capitalism? Did capitalist penetration of agriculture always and everywhere entail dispossession of smallholders, and if so to what did such depeasantization lead: to the formation of a proletariat, or something else? (Brass 2005, 160) At the core of these debates was theoretical disagreement on the impact of the transition to capitalist agriculture on peasant “differentiation” (Borras 2009, 14). Lenin, writing in 1899 on the “Development of Capitalism in Russia”, anticipated that the agrarian transition to capitalism would lead to the concentration and the centralization of production in larger units (Harriss 1982, 120–129). He believed that class differentiation of the peasantry into agrarian capital and labor respectively223 would be a central dynamic – both an expression and a driver – of that transition, thereby making a significant contribution to Marx’s model of agrarian transition which was based on the British experience and the enclosure model of primitive accumulation (H. Bernstein 2009, 58, 61). By contrast with Lenin, Chayanov224 defended the idea that the “peasant economy” was specific in its aim or “motivation” and therefore needed to be distinguished from the conventional capitalist enterprise (H. Bernstein 2009, 59). Chayanov defended the idea that peasants tend to farm more intensively than capitalists, albeit at lower levels of labor productivity, and are often constrained to buy or rent land at higher prices, and to sell their product at lower prices, than capitalist farmers are prepared to do. The imperatives of family survival recurrently lead them to what he called “self-exploitation” (H. Bernstein 2009, 59), a concept which has been widely used225 to explain “resistance” of peasant farming to capitalism (H. Bernstein 2009, 67). History was to prove both Lenin and Chayanov wrong but their contributions had a lasting impact on agrarian and development studies and are, to this day, used as a framework (Harriss 1982, 26) for agrarian transition debates. Differentiation, as predicted

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Lenin provided a model of three basic peasant classes – rich, middle and poor peasants – which anticipated their (eventual) transformation into classes of agrarian capital (rich peasants) and proletarian labor (poor peasants), with a minority of middle peasants joining the ranks of the former and the majority joining the ranks of the latter (H. Bernstein 2009, 58). 224 His main writings include: “On the Theory of Non-capitalist Economic Systems” (published in Germany in 1924; in English in 1966), “Peasant Farm Organization” (Moscow 1925; English 1966), and “The Theory of Peasant Cooperatives (Moscow 1927; English 1991) (H. Bernstein 2009, 56). 225 A similar argument was made by Kautsky to explain that the peasantry is tolerated and even encouraged by capital as long as peasant or family farming can continue to produce cheap food commodities that lower the costs of labor power to capitalists, and indeed itself produces cheap labor power (in the case of peasants who also sell their labor power and can be paid less since their needs are partly met through farming) (H. Bernstein 2010, 95).

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by Lenin, did not happen226 but commodity relations indeed deepened and widened in agrarian societies as he anticipated. At the same time, a wide variety of farms survived the transformation of agriculture by capitalism: family farms, but also marginal farms, which are not adequate to supply the livelihoods of the families operating them, and landless households. These farms have not been squeezed out by capitalist farming but are subject to exploitation, attesting that there was some truth to Chayanov’s theory. Yet many do not have the positive characteristics of family farms (Harriss 1982, 120–129). The resulting “segmentation” of agriculture (see chart 4 below) may be broadly conceptualized as three unequal but interrelated constellations.

Chart 4 - Capitalist, Entrepreneurial and Peasant Farming Source: (Van der Ploeg 2008, 5)

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As noted by Bourrigaud in the French context, we are not faced with a radical polarization between large landlords and dispossessed workers. Instead, modernization in agriculture is eliminating its real proletarians (agricultural workers) but a middle class is surviving (with some variations within it). Peasant differentiation has not happened, which gives the illusion that there is a unified peasantry, an idea that Bernard Lambert, founder of the Paysans-travailleurs in the 1970s, which was later to become the Confédération paysanne, has sought to deconstruct (Bourrigaud 2003, 185).

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The first constellation is large-scale corporate farming comprising an extended web of “mobile farm enterprises”, employing salaried workers and geared towards profit maximization. Capitalist farming, which almost disappeared following agrarian reform processes across the world, resurfaced under the aegis of the agro-export model. It increasingly conditions major segments of food and agricultural makets. The second constellation is entrepreneurial agriculture, which is built upon financial and industrial capital. Entrepreneurial farmers are highly dependent on markets for their farm inputs and usually receive support from the state through agricultural modernization programs. Their production is highly specialized and oriented towards markets. The third constellation is peasant agriculture. It relies on family or community labor and family or community owned land and means of production. Peasant production is oriented towards both the market and the reproduction of the farm unit (Van der Ploeg 2008, 1, 2).

Repeasantization? The multitude of questions underlying the “Lenin-Chayanov debate” attracted a lot of attention in the 1970s and 1980s, at a time when academic research focused on the issue of whether or not capitalism was already present in particular rural areas of Third World countries. By the 1990s, however, it became increasingly obvious that there was no place on the face of the globe wholly unaffected by market forces (although the persistence of pre-capitalist of non-capitalist modes of farming remains an open question). As a result, the focus of the debate changed. Increasingly, research in agrarian change focused on two related issues: the extent to which peasants generally are able to survive227 as such under international capitalism, and the degree to which they are – and can ever be – empowered thereby (Brass 2005, 153). Various arguments were also advanced to explain why the evolution of capitalist agriculture did not comprehensively generate capitalist farming (H. Bernstein 2010, 95), one of them being that capitalist agriculture found ways of incorporating/subsuming small or family farmers within its market structures and dynamics of accumulation in a profitable manner, as will be discussed below. Resistance to depeasantization has been at the heart of Vía Campesina’s discourse and can be said to be the foundation of peasants’ rights. Depeasantization is depicted by Vía Campesina activists both as an ongoing trend and as a growing menace for the future, one that has been reactivated by the global food prices crisis of 2007-08. “Since our last conference, we note that: The number of peasant families continues to decline at an alarming rate. With each minute that passes, agricultural policies and the agro-industrial 227

The term “simple reproduction squeeze” designates the fact that households may go on producing in circumstances in which capitalist firms would go out of business for lack of adequate returns to investment (Harriss 1982, 37–49).

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model cause the disappearance of one family farm in the newly expanded European Union. The situation is equally dramatic in Canada and the United States. Massive and forced displacements of people, and overt and covert wars, are also causes of the disappearance of peasants in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America. In some regions the increase in peasants’ suicides is a growing tragedy” (Vía Campesina 2004b). Interestingly, rejection of depeasantization has remained a key discourse of resistance in spite of claims by prominent agrarian researchers that a double movement of “repeasantization”228 is in fact taking place, both in the developing world and in industrialized countries (Van der Ploeg 2008, 7). The agrarian transition to capitalism has had wider effects than depeasantization, the impacts of which have been equally denounced by the movement. Two central elements of this transition include: the transformation of farming – essentially a localized activity – into agriculture, followed by the expansion of agroexport as a strategy for rural accumulation; and the deepening and widening of commodity relations and the incorporation of peasantries in the capitalist economy as producers of export crops (cotton, oil palm, coffee, cocoa, tobacco, groundnuts), of food staples for domestic markets, and of labor power via migrant labor systems (H. Bernstein 2001, 33).

3.2.2 The Transformation of the Local into a Non-Place The apparition of an “agricultural sector” or in general the apparition of “social divisions of labor between agriculture and industry229, and between countryside and town” is a key feature of capitalism. As capitalism expanded, farming – an activity once limited in both social and spatial scales, and embedded in relatively simple social divisions of labor, meaning that non-farming groups or classes generally had little impact on how farmers farmed – gave way to agriculture, a sector which encompasses “farming together with all the economic interests and specialized institutions and activities both upstream and downstream of farming, and that affect the activities of reproduction of farmers” (H. Bernstein 2010, 65). The formation of global markets and divisions of labor in agriculture, as well as the industrial basis of technical change, are key aspects of the shift from farming to agriculture (H. Bernstein 2010, 61). 228

What has been observed in certain regions, van der Ploeg contends, is a process of “deactivation” meaning that levels of agricultural production have been reduced (in sub-Saharan Africa in particular, where the last decades have shown a dramatic decrease of agricultural production per capita) or actively contained by state apparatuses (such as in the case of the European Union), translating directly into de-agrarianization. Although deactivation has happened on a relatively minor scale so far in most regions, it might become a more common response if more and more entrepreneurial farmers are confronted to decreasing agricultural prices (Van der Ploeg 2008, 8). 229 It only made sense to distinguish an agricultural sector because an industrial sector was rising to prominence in the North and subsequently when industrialization became the main economic objective of national development in the South following independence (H. Bernstein 2010, 65).

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The ultimate stage (and direct legacy) of the progressive transformation of farming into agriculture is the transformation of agriculture into today’s international food system. To grasp this transformation, food regime analysis, which looks at how the “agrofood complex” (the products, activities and industries associated with food) is organized, is useful. The first two food regimes identified by Friedmann and McMichael (the third, possibly emerging corporate food regime, was discussed in chapter 2) illustrate how capitalism gradually transformed agrarian systems on a world scale. The first food regime (1870–1930s) combined colonial tropical imports to Europe with basic grains and livestock imports from settler colonies, provisioning emerging European industrial classes. To complement monocultural agricultures imposed in the colonies, 19th century Britain outsourced its staple food production to the emerging settler states (notably USA, Canada, and Australia), overexploiting virgin soil frontiers in the New World. A capitalist crisis of overproduction led to the formation of second international food regime which found its solution in farm support (H. Bernstein 2010, 72). The second food regime (1950s–70s) re-routed flows of (surplus) food from the United States to its informal empire of postcolonial states on strategic perimeters of the Cold War. Agribusiness elaborated transnational linkages between national farm sectors, which were subdivided into a series of specialised agricultures linked by global supply chains, such as the transnational animal protein complex linking grain/carbohydrate, soy/protein, and lot-feeding (McMichael 2009a, 141). Also named the mercantile-industrial food regime to emphasise its foundations in agro-industrialization and its state-protectionist origins, this second regime included export subsidies as a defining feature, transforming the US into a dominant exporter (as a result of the domestic focus on commodity programs rather than on rural development per se). In turn, it transformed Japan, the colonies and new nations of the Third World from self-sufficient to importing countries (laying a foundation for the subsequent conversion of agricultures to the agro-export model), and Europe into a self-sufficient and eventually major export region (McMichael 2009a, 143). As a result of these developments, the places where value used to be determined were gradually eliminated and replaced by networks or temporary non-places. Food and agricultural prices are no longer determined by labor time or production costs, but respond to the creation of shareholder value. The agrarian transition to capitalism led to the evaporation of the very notion of value230 (Van der Ploeg 2008, 259).

230

Marx described how commodities have a double character: they combine a “use value” with an exchange value”. This value is normally/traditionnaly determined within the factory or the farm (a relatively autonomous unit of production, a self-organizing space). Today, the notion of exchange value mainly resides in reproduction of places of wealth and places of poverty (Van der Ploeg 2008, 259).

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3.2.3 The Incorporation of Farmers into Markets The commodification of subsistence is another key feature of capitalism in agriculture. It designates the process by which once largely self-sufficient farmers come to rely increasingly on markets (commodity exchange) for their reproduction. In effect, farmers come to depend on a money income: to pay taxes and/or rent in cash (rather than in kind or in labor service); to buy consumption goods they can no longer supply from their own labor or source from the local economy; and to buy their means of production (fertilizers, tools, …) (H. Bernstein 2010, 65). The commodification of subsistence, Bernstein argues, may provide a more generic basis of the subsumption of labor by capital than the outright dispossession usually suggested by notions of proletarianization (H. Bernstein 2010, 34). Smallholders are drawn into (global) supply chains by an growing range of business models – contract farming, outgrower schemes, leases and management contracts, joint ventures, etc. (Vermeulen and Cotula 2010) – which extend the power of agribusiness transnational corporations over the global food system. These arrangements, which link farmers with processors and retailers in what the World Bank has termed “farm-firm-fork linkages” (World Bank 2007, 237), are increasingly perceived as a way to increase productivity and as a potential engine of growth (they also explore the potential contribution of agriculture to development under a new light). The very role of those who traditionnaly produce food is redefined as a “new agriculture” emerges, that is “led by private entrepreneurs in extensive value chains linking producers to consumers”. The necessary transformation of yesterday’s peasants into tomorrow’s “entrepreneurial smallholders” (World Bank 2007, 8) is a central aspect of the new development narrative which promotes investment in small-scale farming as a way to boost national development and to achieve long-term food security (High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Crisis 2008). This smallholder narrative is based on the idea of capital intensive, small-scale farming, and seeks to build on the efficiency of small farms. It finds its inspiration in the examples of Japan and Taiwan and the “redistribution with growth” (Chenery et al, 1974) model of development. It was given considerable emphasis in World Development Report 2008 (World Bank 2007) and figured prominently in the panoply of responses devised by the international community to address the global food prices crisis of 2007-08231. This

231

For example, one of the policy proposals that are presented in the Comprehensive Framework for Action (CFA) in order to facilitate immediate access to food is to “boost small farmer production”; in order to reach long term food security, it is similarly suggested to “enable sustained small farmer-led increase in production” (High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Crisis 2008).

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narrative of neo-populist inspiration – typical of a strand of neo-populist232 analysis that derives from the work of Chayanov and promotes small-farm(er) development (H. Bernstein 2009, 56) — ambiguously revisits the “modernist narrative of smallholder obsolescence” (McMichael 2009a, 141). Indeed, it represents a departure from the necessity to develop large-scale units of production, long advocated by both marxists and liberal economists (Harriss 1982, 44) but it bets on the untapped potential233 of only a very small fraction of the planet’s smallholders destined to capture the entire attention of newly designed development assistance programs: those that are well connected to infrastructures/markets and are able to turn unprecedented input provision into prodigious productivity increases. Interestingly, the much promoted connection of smallholders to supply chains does not necessarily induce the disintegration of the household form of production. As research on the industrialization of agriculture demonstrates, vertical concentration of capital did not entirely eliminate the smallholder (Djurfeldt 1982), it binded him instead to the monopsonistic power of the factory and converted him into a serf of industrial capital (Harriss 1982, 120–129). Similarly, it could well be the case that contemporaryg business models, and smallholder development programs, rather than expropriating peasants, allow them to retain a “nominal independence through the possession of some of their means of production”, while capital exercises a substantial degree of control over what is produced and how, and finally appropriates so much of the produce that households are left with the equivalent of a bare wage, turning them into “wage-labor equivalents” (H. Bernstein 232

Technicist populism or neo-populism is based in conventional economics and its associated policy discourses, with claims to Chayanov as intellectual ancestor. It champions an equitable agrarian structure of small farms as most conducive to efficiency and growth. The economic case for efficiency incorporates arguments about the intrinsic advantages of the deployment of family labor in farming (lower supervision and transaction costs) and the factor endowments of poorer countries (plentiful labor, scarce capital), and combines them with arguments about equity (the employment and income distribution effects of small-scale farming). The neo-populist case thus rests on belief in the “inverse relationship”: that smaller farms manifest higher productivities of land – output per area – than larger farms, as well as generating higher net employment (albeit at necessarily lower levels of labor productivity). A successful small farmer path of development also requires conducive market institutions, and a supportive state. The obstacle to achieving these conditions, in another central term in the vocabulary of contemporary neo-populism, is the power of “urban bias”: the notion that policies in the South in the period of statist developmentalism (1950s–70s) favored cheap food policies in the interests of strong urban constituencies and a (mistaken) emphasis on industrial development, at the expense of smaller and poorer farmers. This was a notable component of the World Bank’s encompassing assault, from the 1980s, on state-led development strategies and their outcomes. For Bernstein, most recent and more technicist neo-populist approaches have adapted to new conceptions of market-led land and agrarian reform, closely associated with the World Bank, and have been reduced to a set of arguments from neo-classical economics that can be accommodated to the dominant neo-liberal paradigm (and in fact seek to reconcile the contradictions of capitalist development). The effect is that household enterprises (“family” farms) should be constituted on the basis of individualised property rights and production in properly competitive markets for land, as well as other factor and product markets, a view that Chayanov would not have endorsed (H. Bernstein 2009, 69–70). 233 The capacity of farmers to intensify their labor is central to neo-populist approaches to agricultural development (H. Bernstein 2009, 67).

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1982). In this scenario, peasant production would be further subordinated to capital, dependency would increase and “compulsive involvement in markets” – the fact that farmers are compelled to sell at an inadequate time for lack of storage or need for cash – would be on the rise (Harriss 1982, 37–49). This smallholder-based development model was denounced by Vía Campesina and the other members of the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) during the global food crisis: “existing policies are directed towards integrating smallscale food providers into ‘global value chains’, where they and agricultural and fisheries workers have no voice in determining prices and wages” (International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) 2009, 28). As a result, “millions of peasants will be pushed out of food production, adding to the hungry in the rural areas and the slums of the big cities. The few that remain will work under full control of the transnational companies as workers or contract farmers” (International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) 2009a). The table below compares the “multi-sided autonomy” of the peasant way of farming with the market dependency of entrepreneurial modes of farming:

Entrepreneurial mode of farming

Peasant mode of farming

Disconnecting from nature; artificial modes of farming

Building upon and internalizing nature; coproduction and co-evolution are central

High market dependency; high degree of commoditization

Distancing from markets on the input side; differentiation on the output side (low degree of commoditization)

Centrality of entrepreneurship and mechanical technologies

Centrality of craft and skill-oriented technologies

Scale enlargement as the dominant trajectory; intensity is a function of methodology

Ongoing intensification based on quantity and quality of labor

Specialized

Multifunctional

Ruptures between past, present and future

Continuity of past, present and future

Containing and redistributing social wealth

Increasing social wealth

Table 2 - Entrepreneurial vs. Peasant Modes of Farming Source: (Van der Ploeg 2008, 113–114)

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3.2.4 The Commoditization of Nature The previous sections analyzed the impacts of the agrarian transition to capitalism on labor (depeasantization, the commodification of subsistence and the incorporation of farmers into markets). This section looks at the impacts of this transition on nature. The widespread conversion of land, the basis of farming, into a commodity234 (that can be bought, sold, rented or leased) is one of the defining characteristics of capitalism (H. Bernstein 2010, 23). If Marx and Polanyi both identified the “enclosure” of land and its conversion into private property as the decisive moment in primitive accumulation in England, Bernstein shows that other sequences of commodification are possible235 (H. Bernstein 2010, 102). This historical process of commodification is not complete: legally constituted and enforced private property rights in land are still not established effectively, and are contested and resisted in some rural zones in the South (H. Bernstein 2010, 98–99). In many places, such as India, the conversion of agricultural land into industrial sites, economic partnership zones (EPZs), the production of agrofuels, and non-agricultural uses, leads to evictions, resistance, and conflict236. The transformation of land into a transnational investment opportunity, as demonstrated by the current trend towards global “land grabs” or large-scale acquisitions or leases of land, can be seen as the ultimate stage of land commoditization (Vía Campesina and GRAIN 2009; De Schutter 2009e; Borras and Franco 2010; High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) 2011). Vía Campesina denounces: “In the rural zones of the world, we have seen a ferocious offensive of capital and of transnational corporations (TNCs) to take over land and natural assets (water, forests, minerals, biodiversity, land, etc.), that translates into a privatizing war to steal the territories and assets of peasants and indigenous peoples. This war uses false pretexts and deliberately erroneous arguments, for example to claim that agrofuels are a solution for the climactic and energy crises, when the truth is exactly the opposite” (Vía Campesina 2008g). The legacy of colonial rule in Latin America was the widespread dispossession of land and its concentration in haciendas; the restriction of most indigenous farming to subsubsistence holdings; and widespread rural wage labor, often combined with marginal farming and elements of debt bondage and state coercion (H. Bernstein 2010, 46). This probably explains why struggles against large landed property were especially intense 234

Commodification or commoditization designates the process through which the elements of production and reproduction are produced for, and obtained from, market exchange (H. Bernstein 2010, 102). 235 For example, in some colonies, the commodification of crops came first (typically as a result of “forced commercialization”), followed by the commodification of tools and instruments of labor, then labor and only finally land (H. Bernstein 2010, 102). 236 I thank Ujjaini Halim for pointing this out.

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when combined with anti-colonial struggles. Land reforms from below – the redistribution of property rights in land following peasant political action – culminated in the 1900-1970s period in countries such as Mexico, Russia, eastern and southern Europe, China, Bolivia, Vietnam, Algeria, Peru, Mozambique and Nicaragua. Land reform from below, as we will see below, continues to be a major Vía Campesina demand237. The appropriation of nature by capital has had devastating consequences for the rural world. In 1996, Vía Campesina stated: “Peasants and small farmers are denied access to and control over land, water, seeds and natural resources” (Vía Campesina 1996c). The privatization of natural resources has not limited itself to land: seeds, water, plants, forests, fish stocks, biodiversity but also food are being commoditized i.e. converted into alienable commodities. An increasing range of common pool resources, on which most rural communities depend alongside farmland, such as grazing, woodlands, and wetland areas are being appropriated. These collectively managed resources are vital for livestock, foodstuffs, fishing and other activities, of particular benefit to poorer members of the community, such as those with little land, women, incoming migrants and herding groups (High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) 2011, 27). This evolution is opposed by Vía Campesina: “The patenting of life forms, which gives private ownership and control over genetic resources and even human genes, is absolutely unacceptable. We will not cede the ownership of our common heritage and the basis of all of our lives to the transnational corporate sector” (Vía Campesina 2000). The privatization of resources has been intimately connected to two other processes typical of capitalism: the rejection of social and environmental externalities, and the reckless exploitation of supposedly infinite natural resources, leading to growing inequalities, and to an unprecedented ecological crisis. Rapid and uncontrolled environmental degradation brought with it the ultimate stage of capitalist appropriation of nature: the privatization of the environment is now advocated as the most efficient way to ensure the conservation of resources, as suggested by the myriad of new global programs 237

Land reforms “from above”, in contrast, were initiated by modernizing regimes between the 1950s and 1970s in India, Egypt, Iran, or responded to the threat of social upheaval in the post-war period in Italy, Japan and Korea and in some Latin American countries under US influence in the 1960s. By the 1970s, land reform from above disappeared from the development agenda but it returned in the 1990s, this time replacing “stateled” reform by a “market-led” (willing seller, willing buyer) version (H. Bernstein 2010, 98–99). Market-led land reforms have been criticized for equating “secure land rights with formal property rights” (Vía Campesina 2002), for being unable to effectively redistribute land to the poor and for encouraging disengagement of the state. Moreover, evidence suggests that modernizing and market-led land reforms have contributed to capitalist development in farming. This is only logical considering that the economic rationale of land reform from above is that small farmers with secure tenure and the right incentives will increase productivity, contrary to large landowners who leave the land idle, speculate or fail to invest the rents they obtain from leasing their land in farm production. As a result, such reform targets certain profiles of smallholders and inherently facilitates the elimination of those who fail as entrepreneurs (H. Bernstein 2010, 98–99).

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designed to tackle climate change and deforestation238. Schneider and McMichael argue that contemporary ways of dealing with the energy, food and climate crises rely on the widespread application of the “economic calculus” to environment relations. If the economic calculus enables us to underline how capital undermines agriculture and its ecological base and hydrological and atmospheric cycles, it also, unfortunately, constrains us to “see like capital”. It leads us to discount “the ecological calculus”, proposed by the food sovereignty movement and other counter-movements, and whereby the social reproduction of alternative food cultures depends on restorative ecological practices beyond a market episteme (Schneider and McMichael 2010). Such alternative practices will be explored below.

3.2.5 The Modernization of Agriculture From the late 1940s onwards, the rapid modernization of agriculture added to the effects of its gradual transition to capitalism. In the US and the industrialized North generally, there was a marked acceleration in the rate of technical transformation of farming through “chemicalization”, mechanization and the development of high-yielding seeds and animals. This induced the expansion of monocultures, the concentration of agri-input corporations upstream of farming and the rapid growth of the gap in labor and land productivity between large-scale capitalist farmers in both North and South and smallscale farmers mostly in the South239 (H. Bernstein 2010, 71). If the industrialization of agriculture was mostly enforced in the 1950-90 period (Bourrigaud 2003, 77), its historical roots are to be found as early as the 1870s in the second industrial revolution. The material basis of the second industrial revolution was steel, chemicals, electricity and petroleum (in lieu of iron, coal and steam power for the first industrial revolution). Over time, the second industrial revolution and its innovation transformed productivity in farming by the use of chemical fertilizers to increase yields, the use of scientific and animal breeding, and the use of tractors and other farm machines which transformed the productivity of labor (H. Bernstein 2010, 66).

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Such as the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD). 239 The consequence of this “radical transformation of agriculture” (Bové and Dufour 2004, 117) are wellknown: the push by corporations to patent intellectual property rights in genetic plant material under the provisions of WTO Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement and the issue of corporate biopiracy; the technical frontier of engineering plant and animal genetic material (GMOs) that, together with specialized monoculture, contributes to the loss of biodiversity; the health consequences, including rising levels of toxic chemicals in industrially grown and processed foods, nutritional deficiencies of diets composed of junk foods, fast foods and processed foods, the growth of obesity and obesity-related illness; the environmental costs of all the above, including levels of energy use and ther carbon emissions; and the resulting issue of sustainability of the current global food system (H. Bernstein 2010, 83).

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Modernizing agriculture was a key component of national development between 1950 and 1970 (H. Bernstein 2010, 73). The modernization in agriculture assumes several of the elements that have been explored above: an agricultural entrepreneur, a farm enterprise that is highly integrated within markets on both the input and output sides, a high degree of commoditization and specialization, a strategic orientation towards the most profitable activities, and the dissolution of the peasantry into either proletarians (according to Marxists) or entrepreneurs (according to modernists) (Van der Ploeg 2008, 17). For the Executive Director of Food First, Eric Holt-Giménez, this has led to “the restructuring of the countryside without peasants”240. To this list, modern capitalist agriculture adds the adoption of new technologies and a highly specialized farm enterprise. One characteristic tendency of modern (capitalist) agriculture is to try to bring farming in line with industrial production: to simplify, standardize and speed up natural processes as much as possible. The effect of this trend is to liberate capital from land and localespecific constraints, which characterized the whole history of farming up to now241 (H. Bernstein 2010, 90–91). As French peasant activists José Bové and François Dufour explain, this induced a radical transformation of agriculture, which became a formidable market for all sorts of activities upstream. For the first time in history, the fields had to adapt to the machines. The objective of intensive agriculture was to ensure that the soil adapts to the crop (rather than the opposite) (Bové and Dufour 2004, 117). The revolution of agricultural techniques led to the gradual depreciation of peasant know-how. From peasant (“paysan”) one was to become producer (“producteur”). Peasants who persisted in using their own techniques started to feel at fault (Bové and Dufour 2004, 113). The Confédération paysanne242, a founding member organization of the Vía Campesina, emerged in the 1980s from a critique of productivism243. The formulation of this critique marked a rupture in union history and traditions, as peasants started to focus less on the defense of a job and income and questioned the social and ecological dimensions of their 240

“El gran plan neoliberal de restructuración del campo sin campesinos” (Eric Holt-Giménez, Food First, at First National Forum on Alternative Rural Education (Educación Rural Alternativa) organized by CEDRSSA and UNICAM-Sur, Mexico City, 11 September 2008). 241 Two prime examples of this disconnect are the intensification of field crop cultivation (breaking away from historical closed loop agro-ecosystems) and the widespread development of confined animal feeding operations (used to produce as much meat in as concentrated a space as possible in as short a time as possible) (H. Bernstein 2010, 90–91). 242 The Confédération paysanne was born in 1987 from the merging of two organizations: the Confédération nationale des travailleurs paysans and the Fédération nationale des syndicats paysans (Bové and Dufour 2004, 234). 243 The context in which the Confédération paysanne emerged evokes that of Central America in the 1980s, in the sense that peasant movements liberated themselves from the autority/influence of political parties and became more horizontal; they were also influenced by contestation in other places (Lambert 2003, 8) (Bourrigaud 2003, 8). In France, peasant movements criticized product support policies (such as storage organizations and intervention mechanisms, called “sociétés d’intervention”) for being unfair (they mostly benefit the largest farmers) and inefficient (they don’t protect the smallest) (Lambert 2003, 17).

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activity (Bové and Dufour 2004, 234). The struggle against productivism led the Confédération paysanne to embrace several fights throughout the years: the fight against the use of growth hormones in veal the 1980s, against Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in the 1990s, and against GMOs in the years 2000 (Bové and Dufour 2004). In the mid-90s, the “increasing impoverishment of farmers and rural peoples in general” and the “increasing degradation of nature, land, water, plants, animals and natural resources” led Vía Campesina to organize and collectively react against the “global market oriented system”, which puts “vital resources under centralized systems of production, procurement and distribution” (Vía Campesina 1996b). The next section will analyze the alternative food system the movement is putting forward.

3.3 The Food Sovereignty Movement Fights Back: the Repeasantization Project This section presents the various alternatives that Vía Campesina is seeking to develop in response to the threats and trends associated with the worldwide transition of agriculture to capitalism. The various dimensions of that struggle are presented in the table below.

Capitalist project

Repeasantization (food sovereignty) project

Depeasantization and transformation of the local into a non-place

Repeasantization and anchoring in the local, social, cultural, and historical

Incorporation of farmers into markets

Autonomy

Commoditization of nature

People’s control over land and territories

Industrialization and modernization of agriculture

Agroecology and peasant farming

Table 3 - The Capitalist vs. the Repeasantization (food sovereignty) Project

Repeasantization Vía Campesina resists the elimination of peasants: “We reaffirm that the permanent existence of peasant agriculture is fundamental for the elimination of poverty, hunger, unemployment and marginalization” (Vía Campesina 2004b); “We, the peasant and

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small-scale farming societies are not defeated. We are strong and determined and we are the majority in the world. We are proud of our work, which is to produce safe foods for our families and humankind. We cherish our diversity, both biological and cultural. The future belongs to us” (Vía Campesina 2000). In France, the vision defended by the Confédération paysanne – well summarized by the slogan: “Une agriculture avec des paysans” – is to maintain a large number of peasants on the territory and to distribute production across regions and countries (Bové and Dufour 2004, 211). The peasant union emphasizes peasants’ longing to produce and make a living from their work244 245, but also the important public function of agriculture246. As a member of the “Conf” explained during the 2010 general assembly of the organization: “We need to convince others that agriculture can create jobs”247. In Mexico, peasant leader Alberto Gomez from UNORCA, a Vía Campesina member, celebrates the resistance of “those who have not disappeared” and of “those who are appearing”248. Described by Vía Campesina support staff Peter Rosset as “stubborn resistance to give up on the land, despite migration by part of the family”, the persistence of Mexican peasants in increasingly hostile environments – who “themselves are subsidizing national maize production (through wage labor, commercial activities and remittances)” (Rosset 2006, 58) – gives strength and hope to the movement. In parts of the world where the number of farmers has already dramatically dropped, such as in Europe, repeasantization takes a different shape. Across Europe, for example, efforts have been undertaken by the youth to find ways to facilitate the “installation” of young farmers. A lively “constellation” has taken shape within Vía Campesina, called “Reclaim the Fields”249, which gathers “young peasants, landless people, prospective peasants, people who want to take back control over food production” (Reclaim the Fields 2010a, 8), but also “climate guerrilleras, housebuilders, city gardeners, shepherds, seed savers, and land squatters” (Reclaim the Fields 2010b, 7). Some authors, like McMichael, characterize this phenomenon as “global agrarian resistance” (McMichael 2006, 474), emphasizing the “heroic” staying in power of smallscale/peasant farming (H. Bernstein 2009, 67). For van der Ploeg, the current trend towards global “repeasantization” is manifest, North and South alike. Repeasantization is the result of a quantitative increase in numbers through an inflow from outside and/or through a reconversion of entrepreneurial farmers into peasants, and the result of a 244

“les paysans veulent produire et vivre de leur travail” (Confédération paysanne et al. 2008). The organization has argued that governants should adopt the objective of maintaining all peasants in all regions of Europe: “Les gouvernants doivent se fixer pour objectif le maintien de tous les paysans dans toutes les régions d’Europe” (Confédération paysanne et al. 2008). 246 “l’agriculture doit être reconnue d’utilité publique” (Confédération paysanne et al. 2008). 247 “Il faut convaincre que l’agriculture peut être un vrai gisement d’emplois” (peasant from the Confédération paysanne, General Assembly, Montreuil, 4 May 2010). 248 “los que no hemos desaparecido, los que somos apareciendo” (Alberto Gomez, UNORCA, Vía Campesina, at Conference on the Global Food Crisis organized by the Critical Development Studies network, Zacatecas, Mexico, 13-15 August 2009). 249 http://www.reclaimthefields.org/nl 245

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qualitative shift, through a progressive distanciation of productive activities from the markets (Van der Ploeg 2008, 7). Much of what constitutes Vía Campesina’s global repeasantization project has been characterized as being of “agrarian populist” inspiration (H. Bernstein 2009, 74). Agrarian populism, Brass argues, has emerged time and again in history – in the 1890s, 1930s, 1960s, and 1990s – in reaction to industrialization, urbanization, and capitalist crises (Brass 1997, 204). At the core of agrarian populism is the defense of the small “family farmer” or “peasant” against the pressures exerted by the agents of a developing capitalism or by projects of state-led national development in all their capitalist, nationalist and socialist variants (H. Bernstein 2009, 68). Agrarian populism – as defense of a threatened (and idealized) way of life – encompasses often strong elements of anti-industrialism and anti-urbanism and tends to be backward-looking and explicitly reactionary (H. Bernstein 2009, 69). It defends the “intrinsic value and interests of the small producer, both artisan and “peasant”, as emblematic of the “people” (H. Bernstein 2009, 68). Described by Brass as “romantic anti-capitalism”, agrarian populism endorses the “resistance” of tribal/peasant/gender/ethnic “communities” and hence recognizes the voice and action of oppressed historical categories (“those below”) usually perceived as mute and/or dominated250. The extent to which Vía Campesina and other contemporary rural social movements have managed to articulate a vision that expresses “specific, novel and strategic conceptions of modernity” that go beyond the “nostalgia” of agrarian populism – and therefore constitute a serious alternative to the global capitalist world food system – is open for debate (H. Bernstein 2009, 75). Two related challenges confront the food sovereignty movement in that respect. First, will the movement continue to find ways to elaborate an alternative model that responds to the experiences, beliefs and practices of its “socially heterogeneous membership” (H. Bernstein 2009, 76)? So far, the international discourse of the movement has managed to provide a unifying and motivational narrative but it has done so by conceptualizing the “people of the land” as a “unitary and idealized” group with qualities close to those once attributed to “the international proletariat” (H. Bernstein 2009, 76). This international discourse or “official” Vía Campesina ideology (H. Bernstein 2009, 76) is often at odds with the complex and contradictory nature of national or sub-national level struggles over land and ways of farming, as will be explored below. Second, will the movement be able to develop “an adequate political economy” i.e. to adequately specify the alternative systems of production that the “peasant way” may generate as the basis of a future post-capitalist, ecologically friendly social order (H. Bernstein 2009, 75)? If the “relocalization” project that opposes neoliberal globalization has been relatively well fleshed out, as we saw in chapter 2, the challenge of framing (and experimenting with) alternatives to capitalism in agriculture –“articulating the value of 250

For Brass, agrarian populism shares a number of characteristics with neo-populism in general, which he describes as influenced by postmodern theory and antagonistic to Eurocentric meta-narratives premised on Enlightenment rationality and to Marxist theory/practice in particular (Brass 1997, 208).

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peasant production and the creation of sustainable economic relationships that are outside of capitalist market rules” (Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum 2007a) – is much more ambitious. This issue will be discussed hereafter.

Autonomy Peasants respond to their environment in ways which seek to create degrees of autonomy (Van der Ploeg 2008, 261). They resist by reassembling strategic connections that are taken over or eliminated by corporate agriculture; they find new ways to create value; they develop cooperatives to enlarge their autonomy (Van der Ploeg 2008, 269). They join forces to “strengthen local formal and informal markets and direct links between consumers and food providers by promoting community supported agriculture and fisheries” and they “create opportunities for an alternative market through initiatives such as community funds and product exchanges, such as bartering, seed fairs etc., which will reinforce links and solidarity among small scale food providers” (Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum 2007a). Building on Shanin who stated that “the peasantry exists only as a process” (Shanin 1971, 16), van der Ploeg puts forward the idea that the “struggle for autonomy” in a context characterized by “dependency relations, marginalization and deprivation” is central of the “peasant condition” (Van der Ploeg 2008, 23). Flexibility, fluidity and autonomy are particularly emphasized in relations with the outside world: “distrust” presides over relations with outsiders such as political authorities and market agencies, a typical response to “hostile environments” which translates into the construction of autonomy; relations with markets are managed so as to avoid “becoming entrapped” for example by allowing contraction or expansion at moments deemed appropriate (Van der Ploeg 2008, 27). Looking at the different processes entailed in farming – the mobilization of resources, their conversion into (end) products and the marketing/reuse of such (end) products251 – van der Ploeg proposes an interesting way of using autonomy to measure what he calls “degrees of peasantness”. A farm unit will be considered more “peasant” or less “peasant” depending on how much it develops its resource base over time (improving the quality of the land, developing plant varieties, achieving higher productivity), the extent to which it reuses a part of the total production in the farm itself (instead of selling it all), and the extent to which it manages to create, through repetitive cycles, a form of self-

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Two ratios are considered strategic from the autonomy standpoint: how does the flow of resources mobilized via markets compare to that of marketable output; and how does the flow of resources reproduced and (re)generated on the farm compare to that of resources obtained through market transactions (Van der Ploeg 2008, 29).

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sufficiency or self-provisioning (not at the level of the family consumption of food but at the level of farm operations as a whole) (Van der Ploeg 2008, 30). Building on autonomy as a criteria, van der Ploeg shows how “institutionalized distanciation from markets” (Van der Ploeg 2008, 42) can be considered a defining feature of the peasantry. The charts below present the distinction between the autonomous and market-dependent schemes of reproduction.

Chart 5 - Autonomous, Historically Guaranteed Scheme of Reproduction Source: (Van der Ploeg 2008, 44–45)

Chart 6 - Market-Dependent Scheme of Reproduction Source: (Van der Ploeg 2008, 44–45)

Everywhere, the pursuit of autonomy reinforces the self-esteem of food producers: “Charity? No! Let them work again!” a Korean peasant leader says at an international protest in Cancun (Kyung Hae 2003). These words are echoed by Brígida Chautla, an indigenous woman from the Vía Campesina member organization UNORCA in Mexico:

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“We are capable of producing”, she asserts at a public forum in Mexico252. Peasants have a role to play in social change, argues Bernard Lambert, a prominent figure of the peasant left in France in the 1980s: “Peasant” meant retarded, backwards, he writes, “Nobody needed their help, their cultural contribution, to build a new world”253 (Lambert 2003, 31). In areas of the world where the threat of depeazantization is felt more strongly and associated with state policy, as is often the case for indigenous groups, the quest for economic autonomy is undertaken as a means to achieve both political and cultural autonomy. The preamble to the Vía Campesina Declaration of Rights of Peasants, which lists experienced violations of peasants’ rights, echoes such a conception of autonomy: “As they lose their land, communities also lose their forms of self-government, sovereignty and cultural identity” (Vía Campesina 2008b). But in general terms, local or peasant autonomy does not exclude state support. Although distrust in state apparatuses and in the regulatory schemes they impose (Van der Ploeg 2008, 272) is widespread, the claimed right of peasants to the “means of agricultural production” (Vía Campesina 2008b, VI) encompasses access to a number of goods and services provided by the state254: “the right to obtain funds from the State to develop agriculture”, “access to credit”, “the right to obtain the materials and tools for agriculture, “the right to water for irrigation”, “the right to transportation, drying, and storage facilities” as well the “right to be actively involved in planning, formulating, and deciding on the budget for national and local agriculture” (Vía Campesina 2008b, VI).

Control over Land and Territories Resisting the appropriation of nature, and in particular the appropriation of land, by capital, is a central aspect of Vía Campesina’s struggle. The movement does not only claim the “right of peoples and communities” to “define their own models and production and consumption of food”, it also defends “their right to access and control over their local resources” (Vía Campesina 2006c). Access and control over resources is of particular importance to women, who “play a central role in household and community food sovereignty” and hence “have an inherent right to resources for food production,

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“Somos capaces de producir” (Brígida Chautla, UNORCA, Vía Campesina, at Public Forum “Sin maíz no hay paíz”, Mexico City, 15 September 2009). 253 “Personne n’avait besoin de son concours, de son apport culturel, pour bâtir un monde nouveau” (Lambert 2003, 31). 254 The International Declaration of the Rights of Peasants actually goes further and claims the “freedom to determine price and market for agricultural production”. This claim is indicative of the transnational agrarian movement’s expectation that peasants – and the state – be jointly in charge of determining prices, ensuring peasants get a fair payment for their work, get a beneficial/fair price for their production, foster traditional local markets and develop community-based commercialization systems in order to guarantee food sovereignty (Vía Campesina 2008b, VIII).

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land, credit, capital, technology, education and social services, and equal opportunity to develop and employ their skills” (Vía Campesina 1996c). The right of peasants to “determine the varieties of the seeds they want to plant” and the “right to reject varieties of the plant which they consider to be dangerous economically, ecologically, and culturally” (Vía Campesina 2008b, V) have stirred the movement’s struggle against genetically modified (GM) crops and the use of sterile seeds (Vía Campesina 2004b). Protests against GM crops were at the forefront of peasant struggles in the late 1990s (Desmarais 2008a, 163). The destruction of GMO seeds in Nérac, France, in 1998, marked the beginning of a series of mobilizations against GMO trials in the whole French territory (Bové and Dufour 2004, 325). Mobilizations against GM crops were also fierce in India, South Africa and Brazil (Scoones 2008) where peasants defended their “right to grow and develop their peasants varieties and to exchange, to give or to sell their seeds” (Vía Campesina 2008b, V). Seeds are perhaps peasants’ most precious and sacred resource. La Vía Campesina regularly engages in the ritual of exchanging seeds. In virtually all gatherings, representatives bring seeds from their homeland to exchange with their counterparts from afar (Desmarais 2008b, 141). The right of peasants to “own land, collectively or individually, for their housing and farming”, to “toil on their own land”, and to “toil and own the non-productive state land on which they depend for their livelihood”, the right “to manage, conserve, and benefit from the Forests” and “the right to reject all kinds of land acquisition and conversion for economic purpose” (Vía Campesina 2008b, IV) have inspired Vía Campesina members across the world. Demands have included genuine agrarian reform, security of tenure, irrigation, and “long-term investments of public resources in the development of socially and ecologically appropriate rural infrastructure” (Vía Campesina 1996c). Vía Campesina activists have embraced slogans such as “land to the tiller”, “no to the commoditization of land”. They have affirmed the importance of the “social function of the land”255 and of “collective use”. They have marked their opposition to the “creation of land markets” by the World Bank and to the privatization of land titles as the only way of securing land tenure256. But, overall, Vía Campesina has had a difficult time articulating a common position257 that reflects the multitude of positions – including varying strands of radical 255

Discussion with different staff members of SPI, Vía Campesina, Jakarta, 18 March 2010. “La sécurisation des droits fonciers par le biais de la privatisation c’est dépassé” (interview, 15 October 2010). 257 A good example of such a common position is the following: “The land and agrarian reforms we demand! We are struggling for new agrarian reforms that have human rights as their starting point and pursue an agriculture which gives peasants, women and men, control over the land, the seeds and the water, so that they can live in dignity; produces healthy food for all, free from genetic manipulation; is sustainable and preserves the means of subsistence for future generations; strengthens the rights of women peasants; guarantees food sovereignty; strengthens local rural communities. In order to stop the ongoing destruction of natural resources we demand: a genuine land reform process that redistribute arable land within the agricultural frontier; programs of land redistribution by means of expropriation and forfeiture of quality land, in which the State assumes its responsibilities; a historic approach to land administration policies which effectively redress land 256

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agrarian populists258, various types of Marxists, radical groups with an anarchist tradition, radical environmentalists and feminist activists (Borras 2008b, 109) – that one encounters within the movement on the complex issue of land redistribution, land arrangements and the de-commoditization of land As a result, Vía Campesina has often resorted to a “simplified framing” of its Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform emphasizing, for example, the importance of land as a resource in opposition to land as a commodity (Borras 2008b, 102). The concept of “territory”259 has increased resonance in debates over land and resources. For indigenous peoples260, lands, territories and resources have “spiritual, social, cultural, economic and political significance” (Daes 2001, 7). Despite increased recognition of their rights in international law, indigenous peoples worldwide continue to suffer from the failure of States to recognize the existence of indigenous use, occupancy and ownership of land and territories, and from the failure of States to accord appropriate legal status, juridical capacity and other legal rights in connection with indigenous peoples’ ownership of land (Daes 2001, 12). The defense of the territory is thus at the core of indigenous claims of dispossessed peasants and indigenous communities; fully integrated policies of support for the small farm economy, which include macroeconomic aspects, secure land tenure, marketing, technical assistance, credit, protection of national production, and sustainable production practices; explicit measures of redistribution of resources and compensatory measures to overcome the existing gender discrimination; decisive participation of peasants, women and men, rural workers, indigenous peoples and other popular sectors and their organizations in the planning, management and implementation of economic programs in general, and of rural development and agrarian reform programs in particular; the decision making process of these policies has to be transparent, democratic and monitorable; to stop market based land reform policies and structural adjustment policies proven to cause environmental damage and to rise poverty” (Vía Campesina 2002). 258 Agrarian populist arguments in favor of agrarian reform include: “The combination of trade policies that protect domestic markets for staple crops with the reversal of national policy biases that artificially favor wealthy producers over small farmers and cities over rural areas, plus truly redistributive land reform, offers the possibility of a new development model with the potential to feed the poor, lead to broad-based economic development, and conserve biodiversity and productive resources” (Rosset 2006, 7); “If present trends toward free trade and accompanying land concentration and the accompanying industrialization of agriculture continue unabated, it will be impossible to achieve social or ecological sustainability. On the other hand, research shows the potential that could be achieved by local production and land redistribution. Small farmers are more productive, more efficient, and contribute more to broad-based regional development than the larger corporate farmers who hold the best land and who benefit from free trade. Small farmers with secure tenure can also be much better stewards of natural resources, protecting the long-term productivity of their soils and conserving functional biodiversity on and around their farms” (Rosset 2006, 6). 259 For more on the concept of territory, and its application to peasant movements such as Vía Campesina and in particular the MST in Brazil, see (Mançano Fernandes 2006). For a conceptualization of the concept of territory grounded in the struggles of indigenous peoples in Mexico, see (López Bárcenas 2008; López Barcenas). 260 The influence of indigenous peoples’ struggles and discourse on the food sovereignty movement, which counts a number of indigenous groups, is difficult to assess. It is nevertheless palpable in some Vía Campesina statements (and in the wide use of the term “territory”) such as: “We, the people, natives, peasants, black people, women, artisanal fisherfolk, shepherds and all those living from the land and the sea are the hope for life as we are linked to Mother Earth which means that a component of our identity is embodied in the right to water and seeds” (Vía Campesina 2003a).

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resistance. Marcos261, a Vía Campesina indigenous leader from the organization CONIC in Guatemala, explains: “They settle in indigenous territory with mines, dams, even in protected areas (…) We won’t allow it, it is for the conservation, it is for all”262. For HoltGiménez, the logic of the territory counters the logic of capital263. Interestingly, the idea that the territory could help resist the capitalist transformation of the local into a “nonplace” (Van der Ploeg 2008, 269) translates quite well into the European context, where the concept of territory (as in the French, “terroir”) describes a different kind of relationship, but still a particular and vital one, between the peasant, his/her terroir, identifiable quality products, and the consumer. As described by Italian Slow Food activist Carlo Petrini, the terroir is a “combination of natural factors (soil, water, slope, height above sea level, vegetation, microclimate) and human ones (tradition and practice of cultivation) that gives a unique character to each small agricultural locality and the food grown, raised, made, and cooked there” (Petrini 2001, 8). The terroir emphasizes the link between food and place. “Embeddedness in the territorial context” (Fonte 2006, 3) is of crucial importance to the local agrifood system that food sovereignty activists seek to develop and defend. “The territory (geographical proximity) is the cement, the support of a common history and a common belonging that is solidified in collective values, norms, regulations and in co-ordinated economic activities (socio-economic proximity)” (Fonte 2006, 3)264. Drawing from these two distinct but somewhat related sources of inspiration and beyond declaratory statements such as “Peasants, rural women and small farmers (…) have the right to produce our own food in our own territory” (Vía Campesina 2003b), the food sovereignty movement is in search of a conceptualization of the peasant territory that adequately captures peasant representations and practices.

Agroecology and Peasant Farming If the creation of “degrees of autonomy” (Van der Ploeg 2008, 261) characterizes the search for an alternative model of agriculture in economic terms, the “right to reject the industrial model of Agriculture” (Vía Campesina 2008b, V) translates in ecological terms into the quest for a symbiotic and respectful interaction between the peasant and the environment. Central to this quest is the “reappropriation of the peasant know-how and social role” (Lambert 2003, 8). 261

Name changed. “No lo vamos a permitir, es para la conservación, es para todos” (interview, 5 September 2009). 263 “la lógica del territorio contra la lógica del capital” (Eric Holt-Giménez, Food First, at First National Forum on Alternative Rural Education (Educación Rural Alternativa) organized by CEDRSSA and UNICAM-Sur, Mexico City, 11 September 2008). 264 The importance of territorially-based foods for European culture has received institutional support in provisions such as Geographical Indications at the World Trade Organization (Friedmann and McNair 2008, 409). 262

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The “protection and preservation of biological diversity” is at the core of the exploration of a new model of agriculture, which is grounded in the “right to reject patents” and in the “right to reject intellectual property rights of goods, services, resources and knowledge that are owned, maintained, discovered, developed or produced by the local community” (Vía Campesina 2008b, X). Adding to the traditional agrarian populist arguments – efficiency and equity (H. Bernstein 2009, 69) – formulated in favor of small family farms and redistributive agrarian reform, Vía Campesina, its intellectual champions and NGO supporters have increasingly portrayed peasant agriculture as best able to “manage resources, the environment and land sustainably” and to “conserve natural resources and help renew the soil” (Coordination SUD 2008). Since the global food crisis of 2007-08 and with most food and agriculture experts agreeing that food production will have to increase substantially by 2050 and thus be severely intensified (Koohafkan, Altieri, and Holt-Gimenez 2011, 2), part of the challenge for Vía Campesina has consisted in convincing others that “peasants and small farmers can feed the world!”(Vía Campesina 2008a) and “cool the planet” (Vía Campesina 2009c). Agroecology is the new buzz word. As a set of agricultural practices, agroecology seeks ways to enhance agricultural systems by “mimicking natural processes”, thus creating beneficial biological interactions and synergies among the components of the agroecosystem. It provides the most favorable soil conditions for plant growth, particularly by managing organic matter and by raising soil biotic activity. The core principles of agroecology include recycling nutrients and energy on the farm, rather than introducing external inputs; integrating crops and livestock; diversifying species and genetic resources in agroecosystems over time and space; and focusing on interactions and productivity across the agricultural system, rather than focusing on individual species. Agroecology is highly knowledge-intensive, based on techniques that are not delivered top-down but developed on the basis of farmers’ knowledge and experimentation (De Schutter 2011a, 6). The agroecological “movement” essentially started as localized efforts in several isolated rural areas promoted by NGO personnel and community leaders before it expanded to hundreds of peasant communities throughout many countries (Altieri, Funes-Monzote, and Petersen 2011, 8). As the case of the “Campesino a Campesino” movement in Latin America (Holt-Giménez 2006) demonstrates, a key factor in the expansion of agroecology has been a “horizontal process of exchange of ideas and innovations among farmers” (Altieri, Funes-Monzote, and Petersen 2011, 8). The fact that agroecology developed under the impetus of NGOs and community-based organizations, and not as a political or peasant-led movement, led Holt-Giménez to advocate for a reinforced link between “farmers’ movements for advocacy and for practice” (Holt-Giménez (ed.) 2010). Over recent years, convergence appears to have taken place. A growing number of Vía Campesina organizations have embraced agroecology, politically and in practice, and Vía Campesina’s International Working Group on Sustainable Peasant Agriculture, animated

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by Peter Rosset, has been given a key role (Rosset 2011, 162). This development is the result of a combination of factors. First, participation by national organizations in a global social movement has largely politicized the question of how land is farmed. Second, the grassroots membership of Vía Campesina has increasingly searched for alternatives in response to the dramatic fluctuations of prices of petroleum-based inputs, putting these inputs largely beyond the reach of many peasant farmers (Rosset 2011, 161). From the point of view of Vía Campesina, agroecology presents the advantage of combining increasing productivity, restoring degraded soils, living in harmony with the Mother Earth, and producing healthy food, with increased autonomy from input markets, and putting peasant families in control of their own production systems, improving the economic viability of peasant agriculture (Rosset 2011, 165). In Europe, where the term sustainable or peasant agriculture is preferred, the same set of advantages is described. In Belgium for example, efforts are made by farmers attached to the Vía Campesina member FUGEA265 to “reinforce feed autonomy” by reducing the use of imported soy (often transgenic and the cause of deforestation and displacements) for animal feed. This ensures the “financial autonomy of the farm” and ecological benefits (FUGEA 2011). What underlies the growing interest of the movement in the potential of agroecology is the possibility to “establish new social relations of production” that “confront the capitalist division of labor”, put an end to the damage caused to our resources and somewhat control our current alienation, subjection, and dependency on the – scientific and technical – means of production. Agroecology is an invitation to think, live and act in harmony with the productive process (Núñez 2008), building and asserting our “cognitive sovereignty” (Lanz Ródriguez 2009).

3.4 Towards an Alternative Conception of Human Rights In chapter 2, we emphasized the alternative conception of human rights that is encapsulated in the right of peoples to food sovereignty. We showed how this new right is to be understood as a collective right and not an individual one, and how it profiles the community as a new subject of rights. We also showed how the right of peoples to food sovereignty reactivates and reinterprets “old” group rights such as the right to development, the right to self-determination and the right to permanent sovereignty over natural resources.

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Fédération Unie de Groupements d'Eleveurs et d'Agriculteurs (FUGEA). http://www.fugea.be/

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Building on the analysis presented in chapter 2, this section explores other dimensions of Vía Campesina’s rights talk. It interprets the creation of new rights by peasant activists – such as the “right to land and territory”, the “right to means of agricultural production”, the “freedom to determine price and market for agricultural production”, the “right to the protection of agriculture values”, and the “right to biological diversity”— as an effort by the movement to (re)activate the emancipatory potential of human rights. The analysis below focuses on two central aspects of the alternative conception of rights that emanates from Vía Campesina: the crucial role of autonomy, contra subsistence (3.4.1), and the centrality of the rights of nature, contra the unlimited rights of men (3.4.2).

3.4.1 Autonomy and the Non-Material Dimension of Rights In earlier sections, we described the struggle for autonomy which is at the heart of the repeasantization project: autonomy as distanciation from markets; autonomy as control over resources and co-production with nature; autonomy as peasant know-how; and autonomy as dignity. Vía Campesina’s human rights discourse focuses on social domination and on the power relations that are endured by food producers. The right not to disappear opposes trade, investment, and development policies that radically negate their very existence. The right to produce is the expression of a demand to form a full part of society. The right to be a peasant expresses the belief in an alternative, less urban, less technological, less industrial and less western, modernity and the quest for a “natural”, “pre-capitalist form” of existence (Brass 1997, 218). Gender and ethnic discrimination are denounced. The term peasant, often used pejoratively, is valorized (Desmarais 2008b, 139). The affirmation of shared values constitutes a response to manufactured “invisibility” – the production of food in “nonplaces” by “non-persons” (Van der Ploeg 2008, 269). The peasant economy is grounded in a place and a history. It is animated by a “subsistence ethic”266 (J. Scott 1976) or, as van der Ploeg calls it, by the “peasant principle” – a regrounding of farming in the ecological (the centrality of nature), the social (the development of local and regional modes of selfregulation) and the cultural (the creation of new relationships between consumers and producers) (Van der Ploeg 2008, 278). As we highlighted above, it rejects the figure of the agricultural entrepreneur.

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According to Bernstein, Scott’s formulation of a “subsistence ethic” is an elaboration of Chayanov’s economic model in social and cultural terms (H. Bernstein 2009, 65).

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The movement invites us to redefine what constitutes a good life beyond material criteria: dignity, autonomy, the link to a place and history. This point is a direct challenge to human rights activists and development workers who have long ignored the non-material dimensions of economic, social and cultural rights, instead focusing on “basic needs” (ILO 1976) or on minimum incomes. Indeed, the centrality of (multi-dimensional) autonomy in the praxis of contemporary peasant movements contrasts with that of (material) subsistence in rights-based (and other) development approaches. As we will explore in chapter 4, the various approaches to development which have circulated since the 1970s have all revolved around the necessity to cover basic human needs (Nelson and Dorsey 2008, 96). The “basic needs approach” was introduced by the ILO in the mid1970s (ILO 1976) as an alternative to the objective of economic growth. Under the influence of Sen, the emphasis shifted from meeting basic needs to increasing “the capability of people to undertake valuable and valued “doings and beings”” (Drèze and Sen 1989, 12). In the 1990s, the UNDP defined “human development” as the expansion of “valuable human capabilities”. In the early 2000s, a modified version of this approach was generalized by the UN in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Both human needs and human capabilities were conceptualized as meaning much more than material security or subsistence. The categories of basic needs developed by Galtung included both material needs (“security needs” and “welfare needs”) and non-material human needs (“identity needs” and “freedom needs”) (Galtung 1978, 14). Yet the nonmaterial dimensions of human needs were left out of mainstream basic needs approaches, likely because these dimensions were difficult to quantify or convert in measurable targets. The human capabilities approach insisted on people’s participation, but put the emphasis on participating in markets (UNDP 1993, 24). Contrary to Vía Campesina’s view that integration into markets fuels “market dependency” (Van der Ploeg 2008, 40) and impedes autonomy, development approaches elaborated over the last 40 years, the right to food included, have emphasized access to social programs, safety nets, and minimum income or have supported the conversion of peasants in agricultural entrepreneurs. If we listen to peasant movements, it appears that this focus on subsistence has failed to address the increased commodification of subsistence and peoples’ need for dignity.

3.4.2 The Rights of Nature The claimed rights to land, territory, seeds and resources constitute a direct opposition to capitalist driven commoditization and privatization of nature. They signify a rejection of the liberal order in which the right to private property trumps other human rights. In reaction, Vía Campesina activists put forward forms of collective ownership or communal management of resources which are often inspired by the struggles of indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples internationally have successfully argued that their relationship with the lands or territories is of “special importance for the cultures

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and spiritual values of the peoples concerned” (ILO 1989, 13) and have gradually managed to have the importance of (in particular the collective aspects of) such a relationship recognized in international law267. The International Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, for example, states that “control by indigenous peoples over developments affecting them and their lands, territories and resources will enable them to maintain and strengthen their institutions, cultures and traditions, and to promote their development in accordance with their aspirations and needs” (UN General Assembly 2007). Two dimensions of the alternative conception of rights that is proposed by peasant movements are worth highlighting here. First, interdepency between wo(men) and nature is at odds with the “inherent anthropocentricity of rights”(Taylor 1998, 346). Human rights theory developed without recognition of human vulnerability to environmental change, and without moral concern for non-human entities (Taylor 1998, 314). The model of capitalist development is viewed as a threat to life because it prioritizes consumerism and the generation of profits over common well-being, denying the interconnection that exists between human life and nature. This anthropocentric model based on the private accumulation of wealth and maximization of economic growth generates inequality, poverty, exclusion, and environmental destruction. In contrast to this “model that destroys communities as well as nature”, the movement seeks to forge a new system that recognizes “that human beings are part of nature, that nature does not belong to us, and that we are interdependent with nature” (as was proposed during the Cochabamba summit on climate change in 2010). Respect for human rights and the Rights of Mother Earth must be seen as articulated, complementary, and reciprocal processes (Building the People’s World Movement for Mother Earth 2010). This emerging alternative conception of rights raises the issue of the limits that might need to be imposed on human rights in order to ensure the rights of other beings, living and non-living. Second, the conception of rights that emerges from Vía Campesina puts a strong emphasis on responsibility. As we saw in chapter 2, this emphasis on responsibility is present, to some extent, in all third generation/solidarity rights, which call upon the involvement of each citizen for realizing these rights, indicating a shift away from statecentrism and towards “duty-based social orders” (Steiner, Alston, and Goodman 2008, 496–517). This shift takes a new turn with peasant movements who insist on giving a new political role to territories and communities (as we saw in chapter 2). Their concern is not the protection of their individual rights from infringements by the state. Nor do they demand social rights to be delivered by the social-democratic state. Their rights claims seek to resist the appropriation of land and resources by private actors.

267

See Article 13 of International Labor Organization Convention No. 169 concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries.

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At another level, though, peasant activists, by claiming that they can “feed the world” (Vía Campesina 2008a) and “cool the planet” (Vía Campesina 2009c) in effect demand a social role, a responsibility: “We are men and women of the earth, we are those who produce food for the world. We have the right to continue being peasants and family farmers and to shoulder the responsibility of continuing to feed our peoples” (Vía Campesina 2008g). Moreover, in the way they are articulated by peasants, rights come with responsibilities. A Draft Convention on Food Sovereignty elaborated by an Asian peasant network, for example, “recognizes not only the right of the people to access and utilise resources but also the obligation to protect, conserve and renew productive resources” (People’s Food Sovereignty Network Asia Pacific and Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific 2004b). The Declaration of the Rights of Peasants, in turn, proclaims the “right to preserve the environment”, which entails the “right to reject all forms of exploitation which cause environmental damage”(Vía Campesina 2008b, XI).

3.5 Efforts to Institutionalize the Rights of Peasants This section analyzes one initiative by Vía Campesina to achieve the recognition and institutionalization of a new category of rights: “the Rights of Peasants – Women and Men” (Vía Campesina 2008b). In October 2008, gathered at the occasion of its fifth International Conference in Maputo, Mozambique, Vía Campesina member organizations launched a Global Campaign on the International Convention on the Rights of the Peasants, marking their intention to work “on the institutionalization of the Rights of the Peasants into the international human rights system” (Vía Campesina 2008f). This section presents progress made with institutionalizing the rights of peasants at the UN (3.5.1), while discussing two associated challenges: finding an adequate relationship with allied human rights experts (3.5.2) and overcoming the “essentialist trap” (3.5.3).

3.5.1 From Indonesia to the UN and the Challenge of Externalization We saw in section 3.1.1 how the very first draft of the Declaration – then called the “Peasants’ Rights Charter” (Fakih, Rahardjo, and Pimbert 2003, 153) – was elaborated and discussed in Indonesia by peasants (from 24 provinces), universities, and NGO activists in August 1999. At the time, Indonesia farmers/peasants were confronted with trade liberalization and new approaches to food security through “corporate farming” (Fakih, Rahardjo, and Pimbert 2003, 28). What started as an essentially Indonesian process (led by Vía Campesina member organization SPI) was brought to the attention of

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member organizations from other countries in the region at the occasion of the Southeast Asia and East Asia regional conference, which was held in April 2002 in Jakarta. At the end of the conference, member organizations released a “Declaration of Vía Campesina South East Asia and East Asia About The protection of the peasant right” (Vía Campesina Regional South East Asia and East Asia 2002). The initiative was subsequently externalized onto the international level: it was put on the agenda of the work of the International Working Committee on Human Rights, and submitted to the consideration of the other members of the transnational movement268 (Edelman and James 2011, 92). In June 2008, an International Conference on Peasant Rights was organized in Jakarta, where the 2002 draft text of the Declaration was shared with delegates from 26 different countries and used as a basis for deliberation (Vía Campesina 2008c). At the occasion of the fifth International Conference, which was held in Maputo in October 2008, participants sought to develop “a multi-level strategy” to have the Declaration “processed through UN mechanism”, building on preparatory work by Vía Campesina’s International Working Committee on Human Rights. Participants debated how they could work simultaneously at the national, regional and international level to raise awareness, mobilize support and building alliances with other constituencies as well as seek the support of governments, parliaments and human rights institutions (Vía Campesina 2008f). In March 2009, Via Campesina’s International Coordinating Committee, meeting in Seoul, approved the draft text of “Declaration of Rights of Peasants – Women and Men” (Vía Campesina 2008b). Vía Campesina has worked actively over recent years to “bring” the Declaration “to the UN Human Rights Council”269 (Vía Campesina 2008d), with the active support of selected human rights experts (see below). These efforts have recently brought results. On 24 September 2012, the UN Human Rights Coucil adopted a resolution270 on the “Promotion of the human rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas” (A/HRC/21/L.23) which was sponsored by Bolivia, Cuba, and South Africa and was passed with 23 votes in favor, 15 abstentions and 9 votes against271. The resolution will lead to the creation of an “open-ended intergovernmental working group with the 268

According to Edelman and James, this took place as early as 2002 (Edelman and James 2011, 92). Advocacy work on the International Convention on the Rights of Peasants is conducted separately at the national/regional level and at the international/UN level. Although this research focuses on the UN level, it should be noted that member organizations in Indonesia, Nepal and the Philippines are particularly active in building alliances with NGOs or, in the Indonesian case, with the National Human Rights Commission, to advance the rights of peasants at the national level. 270 Recalling Human Rights Council resolutions 13/4 of 24 March 2010 and 16/27 of 25 March 2011. 271 Votes in favor (23): Angola, Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chile, China, Congo, Costa Rica, Cuba, Djibouti, Ecuador, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Kyrgyztan, Malaysia, Peru, Philippines, Russian Federation, Thailand, Uganda, Uruguay. Abstentions (15): Botswana, Jordania, Kuwait, Libya, Maldives, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Qatar, Republic of Moldova, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Switzerland. Votes against (9): Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Italy, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Spain, United States (Vía Campesina 2012b). 269

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mandate of negotiating, finalizing and submitting to the Human Rights Council a draft United Nations declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas” (Human Rights Council 2012), on the basis of the draft prepared by Vía Campesina. This decision by the Council follows preliminary work by the Advisory Committee, which, at the request of the Council (Human Rights Council 2009), issued a number of studies over the last few years: a preliminary study on “discrimination in the context of the right to food” (A/HRC/13/32), a background paper entitled “Peasant farmers and the right to food: a history of discrimination and exploitation” (A/HRC/AC/3/CRP.5), and a preliminary study on “the advancement of the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas” (A/HRC/AC/6/CRP.2) (Human Rights Council 2010a; Human Rights Council 2010b). Despite these advances and the numerous internal consultations on the draft text of the Declaration that took place in the past ten years272, appropriation of the idea by activists in all regions, in particular in Latin America, is still to be achieved. Many activists within the movement are still relatively unaware of the content of the Declaration or are unconvinced of the advantages of institutionalizing the new rights proposed. The issue of the compatibility/complementarity of peasants’ rights with (the right to) food sovereignty, very popular in Latin America and many other regions is also a challenge (to which we will return in chapter 5). This tends to indicate that, if the idea was successfully externalized to the international level273, it still needs to “trickle down”. We will come back to this issue in chapter 5, which explores several challenges social movements are confronted with when engaging in legal struggles. Two other issues associated with the institutionalization of the rights of peasants are explored below: the interaction of the movement with “human rights translators” and the challenge of building a collective “politicized identity”(Desmarais 2008b, 140) for the movement, while avoiding the “essentialist” trap.

272

The elaboration of the Declaration took place, broadly, over the 1999-2009 period, as we will see below. For most of the decade, debates were limited to the Asian region, and Indonesia in particular, where the initiative originated. 273 Externalization (Tarrow 2005) designates the process by which local/national campaigns are externalized onto the international level. In contrast to the global framing of an issue “from above” which is then diffused nationally/locally. Tarrow argues that externalization is key to building coherent and durable transnational networks. Cited in (Borras 2008b, 114).

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3.5.2 The Role of Human Rights Experts If the decision to seek the recognition of new rights by the United Nations belongs entirely to Vía Campesina, the support of allies has likely played a key role in the identification of the UN Human Rights Council as the key entry point for the institutionalization of the rights contained in the Declaration. Most of the human rights allies and experts involved in advancing the peasants’ rights initiative – essentially two international NGOs (FIAN and the CETIM), an Indonesian Human rights NGO (the Indonesian Human Rights Committee for Social Justice) and the team of the previous Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler– are familiar with the ways of working of the Human Rights Council274. For FIAN, support for Vía Campesina’s Declaration on the Rights of Peasants follows from joint work conducted in the framework of the Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform (a FIAN-Vía Campesina initiative (Borras 2008b)). As early as 2004, FIAN helped the movement document cases of human rights abuses, mostly related to access to land. In 2004, 2005 and 2006, Via Campesina produced reports with FIAN International on the violations of peasants’ human rights (Vía Campesina and FIAN International 2004; FIAN International 2005; Vía Campesina 2006a), showing that peasants suffer from violations of all human rights, in many countries in a systematic manner, and that in most cases they don’t have access to legal remedies (Ziegler 2009, 66). FIAN brought these reports to the attention of the UN Commission on Human Rights (now the Council). In these reports, key violations of civil and political, as well as economic, social and cultural rights were identified: hunger, lack of access to health and education, repression, torture, violations of women’s rights, and repression of agrarian reform struggles (Saragih 2005, 357–358), but also the lack of agrarian reform and rural development policies, evictions and forced displacements, appropriation of seeds by transnational corporations, criminalization, arbitrary detention, torture and extra-judicial killings (Golay 2009, 4–7). For Henri Saragih, Secretary General of the Vía Campesina, this list demonstrates that “the abuses suffered by peasants belong to the category of crimes against humanity, although they are presented as inevitable (…). The violations of the rights of peasants constitute a complex set which, starting from unfair trading practices which propagate hunger in the world, leads to the killings of peasants who struggle to change this state of affairs”275. 274

Previously known as the Commission on Human Rights of the United Nations, which was dissolved in 2006, the Council includes 47 member states, elected for three years, and is accountable to the UN General Assembly (while previously the Commission was accountable to the ECOSOC). 275 “Tout ceci démontre que les exactions perpétrées contre les paysans dans le monde entier relèvent sans ambiguité de la catégorie de crimes contre l’humanité, bien qu’on les présente comme une “fatalité”; car il s’agit de faits massifs et sans comparaison et dont le déroulement s’est étendu sur plus d’un siècle. Les

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As we will see in chapter 6, FIAN’s decision to support Vía Campesina in its efforts to get new rights recognized for peasants at the UN is in sharp contrast with the “adverse” reaction the international human rights organization demonstrated, in the 1990s, towards the right of peoples to food sovereignty. Asked what he thinks of the peasants’ rights initiative, FIAN founder Rolf Künnemann does not hesitate: “Yes it is valid. Otherwise there won’t be any peasants left”276. The Geneva-based CETIM277 has a history of logistically supporting Vía Campesina’s International Working Committee on Human Rights. CETIM helped organizing the meetings of the Working Committee in parallel with the relevant sessions of the UN Human Rights Commission. The initial reaction of the CETIM was hesitant, as Patrick278, who is in charge of CETIM’s Human Rights Program, describes: “Knowing the UN, I felt that if we could manage to have existing rights respected, it would be something already”279. But then, despite the “procedural, technical and political difficulties”, despite “the heavy UN machine”, the “states, the economic interests”280, the CETIM decided to support the idea. Patrick recalls: “I was telling them ICESCR and they were saying yes but (…) we are committed to human rights and we see that it is not enough”281 …“the arguments we warmed up to were … there are protection gaps, it comes from the ground, peasants have suffered abuses during centuries and they deserve an instrument”282... “It is worth it, if only to raise the awareness of the world public opinion”283. The idea that peasants need new human rights also received the backing of the former Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, now a member of the Advisory Committee of the Human Rights Council (HRC). In a 2009 report to the HRC, the Advisory Committee recommended that the HRC request the Advisory Committee to violations des droits des paysans constituent un ensemble complexe qui, partant des politiques commerciales inéquitables propageant la faim dans le monde, conduit finalement à l’assassinat des paysans qui luttent pour changer cet état de chose” (Saragih 2005, 355). 276 Interview, 23 June 2009. 277 La Vía Campesina together with FIAN International and CETIM held two meeting with experts, in 2004 and 2006 to discuss the Rights of Peasants. The UN Special Rapporteur on Right to Food finally put this initiative in his annual report of 2006 (Vía Campesina 2008f). 278 Name changed. 279 “Ma première réaction était sincèrement bof. A force de fréquenter les Nations Unies, je me disais si on arrive déjà à faire respecter les droits existants ce serait pas mal” (interview, 3 July 2009). 280 “On connaît les difficultés, procédurales, techniques et politiques. La lourde machine ONU, les états, les intérêts économiques” (interview, 3 July 2009). 281 “Je leur disais PIDESC etc. et eux me disaient mais ça n’empêche pas, nous on s’engage pour les droits de l’homme et on voit que ce n’est pas suffisant [les instruments existants] ” (interview, 3 July 2009). 282 “Les arguments des paysans, auxquels on a été sensible, sont: il y a des trous de protection, ça vient de la base, les paysans ont subi des siècles de mauvais traitements et ils méritent un instrument” (interview, 3 July 2009). 283 “Mais ça vaut la peine ne fut-ce que pour sensibiliser l’opinion publique mondiale” (interview, 3 July 2009).

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undertake a study on the global food crisis, the right to food and the rights of peasants, a strategy which sought to provide Vía Campesina with a “fast-track” opportunity to have peasants’ rights discussed at the UN Human Rights Council. Initially faced with a negative response, the Advisory Committee successfully used the non-discrimination argument to defend the importance of new rights for peasants (Golay 2009, 20). Sally Engle Merry has called “human rights translators” those who take local grievances and translate them up into the more powerful language of transnational human rights. This usually means “framing the stories differently than the victims do”, in the hope that the target actors, such as states, will be more responsive to demands framed this way (Merry 2006, 42). In the case of the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants, the influence of “human rights intermediaries” has extended beyond the choice of the most appropriate UN arena (the UN Human Rights Council) and the framing of the issue (as one concerning a vulnerable and oppressed group). Human rights translators have discussed the content of the text and transformed it in “UN language” (Vía Campesina 2008h). They have insisted that a final version be approved by the movement as soon as possible, so that it could be discussed by the Advisory Committee284, as Patrick recognizes. And they have expressed their opinions on matters of strategy and alliance building, as we will see below. Their role is worth studying closely because the translation process285 (Eberhard 2009, 39) largely determines the extent to which the emancipatory potential of new rights claims will be undermined by and during institutionalization (Stammers 2009, 106). In chapter 2, we explored the first aspect of the “paradox of institutionalization” (Stammers 2009, 102), which pertains to the relations of the movement with the institutional world. Here we are looking at the second aspect of the paradox i.e. whether the “emancipatory thrust” of human rights can be sustained through processes of institutionalization (Stammers 2009, 106). Considering that human rights translators work “within established discursive fields that constrain the repertoire of ideas and practices available to them” (Merry 2006, 40), the nature of the interactions between the transnational peasant movement and its support NGOs and experts will be worth analyzing closely, which we will do in chapters 5 and 6.

284

“Il faut dire aussi qu’ils sont lents. Cela fait longtemps qu’il y a un texte. On a poussé pour que la CCI approuve le texte car les experts du comité consultatif ont besoin d’un texte” (interview, 3 July 2009). 285 The challenges of translation processes have been studied extensively in the context of “hybrid forums”, in which experts, non-experts, ordinary citizens and politicians come together to find shared solutions to complex problems. Such forums, Callon, Lascoumes and Barthe argue, have the potential to help democratize democracy and build a new common good (Callon, Lascoumes, and Barthe 2001; Loute 2005).

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3.5.3 The Essentialist Trap Probably the biggest challenge facing the institutionalization of new rights for peasants relates to the central issue of “who are the peasants”286 and “how to define peasants” (Harriss 1982, 24). As adequately noted by Edelman and James, this issue could complicate the advance of the Peasants’ Rights campaign, since advocates will not only have to explain why existing universal instruments do not adequately guarantee the claimed rights, but also argue for the “specificity of the rights bearers” (Edelman and James 2011, 95). The extent to which the peasantry constitutes a specific single and singular social entity (H. Bernstein and Byres 2001, 5) has been much debated in agrarian and development studies. The existence of such a category defined in economic terms is difficult to defend. The majority of “peasants”/“small farmers” in a globalizing South is “neither dispossessed of all means of reproducing itself nor in possession of sufficient means to reproduce itself” and thus includes growing numbers “who depend on the sale of their labor power for their own daily reproduction”. In effect, the laboring poor combine rural and urban, agricultural and non-agricultural wage employment and self-employment in ways that defy inherited assumptions of fixed, let alone uniform, notions of “worker”, “peasant”, “trader”, “urban”, “rural”, “employed” and “self-employed” (H. Bernstein 2009, 73). This reality, combined with an economically heterogeneous membership, may explain why Vía Campesina has chosen to assert the existence of peasants as “a specific social group which is vulnerable” (Vía Campesina 2008b). The comparison with “other oppressed groups such as indigenous peoples, and women” (Vía Campesina 2008d), which have been awarded specific rights, is often used to support the need for a new instrument287. The Declaration defines peasants288 as men and women “of the land”, with a 286

This issue is particularly problematic when it comes to deciding where to locate rural laborers in the peasantry. Landless laborers often see their interests ignored in rural development policies (Harriss 1982, 291–299) and it could be argued that they are underrepresented both in Vía Campesina’s membership and in the movement’s claims. The case has been made by several authors who studied peasant rebellions historically that “middle peasants” constitute the “backbone of peasant society” (Williams 1982, 393) and play a central role, as demonstrated by Hamza Alavi and Eric Wolf in particular, in agrarian politics (Harriss 1982, 120–129). More research would be required to validate this hypothesis in the case of Vía Campesina member organizations. 287 This representative from the CETIM explains : “Un autre argument qu’ils [les gens de la Vía Campesina] utilisaient était : pourquoi les femmes, les enfants, les handicapés ont leur convention et pas nous?” (interview, 3 July 2009). 288 “A peasant is a man or woman of the land, who has a direct and special relationship with the land and nature through the production of food and/or other agricultural products. Peasants work the land themselves, rely above all on family labor and other small-scale forms of organizing labor. Peasants are traditionally embedded in their local communities and they take care of local landscapes and of agro-ecological systems. The term peasant can apply to any person engaged in agriculture, cattle-raising, pastoralism, handicrafts-

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“direct and special relationship with the land and nature”, who are “traditionally embedded in their local communities and “take care of local landscapes and of agroecological systems” (Vía Campesina 2008b). The affirmation by movement activists of “our determination to defend peasant and family farm agriculture, our cultures and our right to continue to exist as peoples with our own identity” (Vía Campesina 2008g) tends to indicate that a process of “culturalization” is taking place. Vía Campesina represents peasants “as the same kind of culturepossessing population that indigenous people are recognized to be within the indigenous rights regime” (Edelman and James 2011, 95). The attribution of social and cultural characteristics to the peasantry – the centrality of simple reproduction/subsistence and of village community reciprocities and solidarity; the existence of values and of a way of life that are based on household and community, kin and locale; the harmony with nature; the specificity of peasant behavior; relations of subordination and exploitation with other social groups; the emphasis on peasant resistance – that make “peasants special” (different from proletarians and from entrepreneurial market oriented farmers) is typical of “peasant essentialism”289 (H. Bernstein and Byres 2001, 6). Although the small farmers and peasants I have interviewed rarely fall into the trap of describing their own situation and integration in the market economy in oversimplified terms, several Vía Campesina statements, leaders and allied intellectuals emphasize “what all farmers and their struggles have in common” at the expense of adequately accounting for the class and other social differentiation that may exist among the “people of the land”(H. Bernstein 2009, 74–77). Peasant essentialism is reinforced by the activists’ shared desire to portray “small-scale farmers in the South” as representative of “pre-capitalist or non-capitalist social relations, hence a promising alternative” (H. Bernstein 2010, 59). The necessity to find a common ground among activists from distinct socio-political and economic environments also plays a determining role.

related to agriculture or a related occupation in a rural area. This includes Indigenous people working on the land. The term peasant also applies to landless. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO 1984) definition, the following categories of people are considered to be landless and are likely to face difficulties in ensuring their livelihood: 1. Agricultural labor households with little or no land; 2. Nonagricultural households in rural areas, with little or no land, whose members are engaged in various activities such as fishing, making crafts for the local market, or providing services; 3. Other rural households of pastoralists, nomads, peasants practising shifting cultivation, hunters and gatherers, and people with similar livelihoods” (Vía Campesina 2008b). 289 Peasant essentialism is often associated with a populist ideological stance which consists in “taking the part of peasants” (Williams 1982) and which focuses on showing how agrarian populism emerged in reaction to negative constructions of peasant essentialism (such as the conception that peasants are backward, etc.). Various forms of agrarian populism and peasant essentialism have been criticized by Marxists who argue that peasantries are constituted through their relations with other classes or entities, that peasant production and wage labor are intimately linked and that class differentiation is an effect of contradictory class relations intrinsic to peasant production in certain historical contexts (H. Bernstein and Byres 2001, 8).

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If most Vía Campesina statements have an agrarian populist “feel”, claims that emerge in national or sub-national contexts tend to be more nuanced and less tainted by what Brass has called the “agrarian myth” (Brass 1997). I have observed on several occasions the considerable distance that separates the “official” food sovereignty position or “international” Vía Campesina discourse from the complexity and variety of demands made by Vía Campesina member organizations at the national or sub-national level. We will return to this discrepancy in chapter 5. As we will see, whether Vía Campesina puts the emphasis on its transformative political project – and societal alternative project – or on the distinctiveness of the peasantry will largely determine its future chances of success as a movement. On one hand, Vía Campesina needs to find ways to demand new rights for peasants in a way that reflects the complex and contradictory nature of national or sub-national struggles. If Vía Campesina’s international discourse drifts further away from local realities, it runs the risk of losing resonance for grassroots member activists, the world over. On the other hand, Vía Campesina needs to frame its rights discourse in a way that manages to depict the complex and evolving identity of contemporary rural families who often combine rural and urban, agricultural and non-agricultural, wage employment and selfemployment (H. Bernstein 2009, 73). If such a frame fails to emerge, Vía Campesina runs the risk of alienating potential allies, notably other agricultural constituencies, such as agricultural laborers.

4 The Human Right to Food In the two previous chapters, we explored two categories of new rights claimed by the transnational agrarian movement Vía Campesina: the right of peoples to food sovereignty, which emerged in the early 1990s, and the rights of peasants, which saw the light in the early 2000s. We analyzed the context of emergence of these rights, their content, the conception of human rights that underlies them and their institutional trajectory. In chapter 5, we will further analyze the challenges that Vía Campesina activists are confronted with when using rights talk to frame their demands, and when trying to institutionalize new rights. New rights claims do not emerge in virgin territory. They are formulated in an already crowded international conceptual environment in which reference to existing, already codified human rights prevails. Those who demand the recognition of new rights have to demonstrate their added value and “raison d’être”. They need to identify “gaps” in international human rights law, list the “violations” endured by “victims” and, in the case of group rights, demonstrate the specificity of the rights-bearers. To understand the challenges involved in the institutionalization of new rights, it is crucial to explore the relation between non-institutional forms of human rights and institutionalized forms of human rights (Stammers 2009, 109). This chapter is therefore dedicated to the right to food, the human right most commonly invoked in policy debates over hunger, food insecurity, and the fate of the rural world. This chapter analyzes the history, content, and implications of the human right to food. The human right to adequate food achieved international recognition in 1948, but was initially ill-defined, criticized and not operational. Over the last decades, its champions have fought for its progressive codification, for the clarification of its normative content and for its implementation by states. It should be recalled here that those who have, over the last 30 or 40 years, promoted the right to food were not peoples’ movements but human rights experts, academics and specialized NGOs. As we will see throughout this

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chapter, the radically distinct nature of the actors involved in rights work has a considerable impact on the way rights are claimed and institutionalized. The right to food is a right in movement290. This chapter presents a general introduction to the right to food (4.1) before it analyzes the main elements of what I call the “right to food project” (4.2). The chapter ends with an overview of the various influences that make up the right to food today (4.3).

4.1 A Short History of the Human Right to Food The right to food is a human right. It protects the right of all human beings to live in dignity, free from hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition. The right to food is protected under international human rights and humanitarian law. It is also recognized in numerous national constitutions. The right to food has been defined as : “the right to have regular, permanent and unrestricted access, either directly or by means of financial purchases, to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and which ensures a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear” (Ziegler 2008, 17). If the right to food achieved international recognition in 1948, it would be a mistake, as several human rights thinkers have pointed out, to believe that human rights were only meaningfully “born” in 1948291 (Rajagopal 2003; Stammers 2009). In its pre-institutional existence, the right to food has often been referred to as the “right to subsistence”292, the “right not to be hungry”293 or the right to “freedom from hunger”294. It has been eloquently defined as “everyone’s minimum reasonable demand upon the rest of humanity” (Shue 1996, 19).

290

In chapter 6, we will discuss how contemporary peasant movements are not only challenging the “institutionalized” right to food but also contributing to its evolution. 291 Nevertheless, the Universal Declaration is an important text because it is considered “the foundation for the entire range of legal frameworks, institutional interventions, and discourse that is captured by the phrase human rights” (Goodale 2006, 1). 292 In her analysis of peasants’ struggles during the French revolution, Gauthier shows that the claim to a right to subsistence – “le droit à la subsistance” – figured prominently (Gauthier 1977). Shue has described the right to subsistence as essential to the enjoyment of all other human rights. The right to subsistence specifies “the line beneath which no one is to be allowed to sink” (Shue 1996, 18). To acknowledge the right to subsistence is to side “with those who would otherwise be helpless against natural and social forces too strong for them” (Shue 1996, 33). 293 The title of an article by Amartya Sen written in 1982 (Sen 1982). 294 The term has been used extensively by the FAO, as we will see below.

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4.1.1 The International Recognition of the Right to Food The origins of economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) are diffuse. If it is generally acknowledged that ideas and practices around human rights have developed over centuries and in large part through social movementsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; struggles, the contribution of social movements to the making of human rights is rarely acknowledged in the human rights literature (Rajagopal 2003; Stammers 2009). International human rights lawyers Steiner, Alston and Goodman, for example, link the origins of economic, social and cultural rights to philosophical analyses and political theory from authors as diverse as Thomas Paine, Karl Marx, Immanuel Kant, and John Rawls (Steiner, Alston, and Goodman 2008, 269). Other authors associate the emergence of social rights to the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Feudalism somewhat represented a system of social rights because it offered various forms of economic protection, whether through the paternalistic duties of feudal lords or the fraternal arrangements of guilds. Capitalism, in turn, advanced through the development of markets, which interacted with the concurrent strengthening of private property rights and the related growth in individual freedom. Gradually, the strengthening of property rights and the rising dominance of unregulated market forces as a determinant of incomes led to a weakening of social rights in the form of income guarantees that had been part of the feudal arrangement. Adding to this development, industrialization shifted production from the self-employed household to wage employment in the factory or shop. This added a new layer of insecurity as the nuclear family (wage-dependent, geographically mobile, and urbanized) replaced the extended household (a production unit with its own internal distribution and mutual protection arrangement) (Rimlinger 1983, 53)295. Social rights, and in particular the right to social security, enjoyed increased protection from the 1880s onwards. They were at the core of the political programs of the 19th century Fabian socialists in Britain, Chancellor Bismarck in Germany (who introduced social insurance schemes in the 1880s), and the New Dealers in the United States. They were recognized in the Mexican Constitution of 1917, the first and subsequent Soviet Constitutions, and the 1919 Constitution of the Weimar Republic. A good starting point to analyze the evolution of social rights in international human rights law is the creation of the International Labor Organization (ILO) in 1919, which was conceived as one of the responses of Western countries to the ideologies of Bolshevism and Socialism arising out of the Russian Revolution. In the interwar years, the ILO adopted international minimum standards in relations to a wide range of matters which now fall under the rubric of economic, social and cultural rights (freedom of association, forced labor, minimum 295

In fact, the author interprets the emergence of social rights as strategic response by a number of governments in the West to the rise of insecurity related to industrialization (and not so much as a response to workersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; movementsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; claims). This insecurity was perceived as a threat to the good development of capitalism because capitalism required a healthy and well-fed workforce (Rimlinger 1983, 53).

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working age, hours of work, sickness protection, accident insurance, old-age insurance, freedom from discrimination) (Steiner, Alston, and Goodman 2008, 269). Most accounts of the right to food point to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s famous 1941 “Four Freedoms” speech296 as a starting point. The speech – which looked forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms: freedom of expression; freedom of worship; freedom from want297; and freedom from fear – is notorious because it set out the idea of civil and political rights and economic and social rights as part of an indivisible and global value system. The holistic notion of human rights was subsequently expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, which included the right to social security, to work, to rest and leisure, to an adequate standard of living, including food, clothing, housing and medical care, and to education. The human right to food is recognized in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Article 25, para (1) “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control” (UN General Assembly 1948). The United States were strong supporters of the inclusion of economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) in the drafting of articles 22-28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, together with Egypt, several Latin American countries and the (Communist) countries of Eastern Europe (Steiner, Alston, and Goodman 2008, 271). But soon after the adoption of the Universal Declaration, the Cold War divide made itself felt in human rights, as everywhere else in international politics. Each bloc appropriated its own version of human rights. Western states, where faith in full economic liberalism was strong, insisted on a severely constrained role for the State in matters of welfare. This gave rise to cultural and ideological resistance to economic and social rights (Eide, Krause, and Rosas 1995, 23). In addition, the United States developed opposition to the principle of international human rights treaties (Steiner, Alston, and Goodman 2008, 271). The Soviet bloc countered that civil and political rights were a reflection of the interests of the ruling class in capitalist societies. They were meaningless to citizens without the

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Franklin Roosevelt delivered his Annual Message to Congress (State of the Union Address) on January 6, 1941. The recorded speech can be heard at http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/fourfreedoms. 297 Freedom from want was to be “translated into world terms” and would mean “economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants everywhere in the world” (Roosevelt 1941).

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realization of economic and social rights. But while Western states emerged as opponents to ESCR, in reality the Soviet bloc was not an unconditional supporter of economic and social rights; it rather used them rhetorically in its opposition to civil and political rights. The concept of rights, which places entitlement and empowerment at the individual level, went against the Marxist–Leninist model (Glasius 2006, 65). After more than 20 years of wrangling, two separate human rights treaties were adopted by the United Nations: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). They finally came into force in 1976. The right to food was recognized in Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (UN General Assembly 1966). Article 11 refers both to the “positive” right to food and to the “negative” right to freedom from hunger (Fairbairn 2011, 20–21). The FAO298 actively participated in the drafting of Article 11 and FAO’s Director-General proposed the substance of what became paragraph 2 of that Article: Article 11 “1. The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions. The States Parties will take appropriate steps to ensure the realization of this right, recognizing to this effect the essential importance of international co-operation based on free consent. 2. The States Parties to the present Covenant, recognizing the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger, shall take, individually and through international cooperation, the measures, including specific programs, which are needed: (a) To improve methods of production, conservation and distribution of food by making full use of technical and scientific knowledge, by disseminating knowledge of the principles of nutrition and by developing or reforming agrarian systems in such a way as to achieve the most efficient development and utilization of natural resources; (b) Taking into account the problems of both food-importing and food-exporting countries, to ensure an equitable distribution of world food supplies in relation to need” (UN General Assembly 1966). The division of human rights into two main categories resulted from a controversial and contested decision made by the UN General Assembly in 1951, during the drafting of the International Bill of Human Rights. Underlying the decision were several assumptions,

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In parallel, in 1965, the Preamble of the FAO Constitution was amended, to incorporate as one of its main purposes “ensuring humanity’s freedom from hunger”, echoing the wording of Article 11, paragraph 2 of the ICESCR. The Declaration issued at the end of the World Food Conference of 1974 recognizes “the inalienable right to be free from hunger and malnutrition” (Universal Declaration on the Eradication of Hunger and Malnutrition 1974).

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many of which have since then been revised. It was argued that the two sets of rights299 were of a different nature and therefore needed different instruments; that civil and political rights where “absolute” and “immediate” whereas economic, social and cultural rights were “programmatic”, to be realized gradually; that civil and political rights were “justiciable” in the sense that they could easily be applied by courts and other judicial bodies, while economic, social and cultural rights were of a more political nature; that civil and political rights were “free” in the sense that they did not cost much, while the implementation of ESCR was costly (Eide, Krause, and Rosas 1995, 22). While cultural resistance to parts of the universal rights system can be found, to this day, in both Western and non-Western societies, the evolution has over time gone in the direction of greater integration between the different sets of rights300. Yet, several arguments continue to be advanced for not treating economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) as rights. One typical objection is that a fairer distribution of the world’s resources should be achieved through the political process, not through the assertion of rights, because broad assertions of economic, social and cultural rights are unmanageable through the judicial process and would constitute an intrusion into an area where the democratic process ought to prevail301. Another strand of critique argues that economic, social and cultural rights (or welfare rights) reflect a communitarian or collectivist perspective that is willing to sacrifice freedom302, while civil and political rights (liberty rights) reflect a political philosophy that prizes freedom. As a result, despite considerable institutional advances both at the international and national levels, opposition to the right to food from a number of influential states, such as the United States, remains strong to this day. Following its international recognition, the right to food underwent a period of intense conceptual elaboration in the period ranging from the coming into force of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in 1976, to the adoption by the FAO Council of “Voluntary Guidelines to support the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security” in 2004. It now faces challenges of enforcement and implementation.

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The issue of the relationship between the two sets of rights is beyond the scope of this study. For a detailed discussion see (Steiner, Alston, and Goodman 2008, 370–374). 300 In human rights instruments adopted in later years, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and the International Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the different sets of rights are included side by side (Eide, Krause, and Rosas 1995, 24). 301 Aryeh Neier. 2006. “Social and Economic Rights: A Critique”. 13/2 Human Rights Brief. Cited in (Steiner, Alston, and Goodman 2008, 283). 302 David Kelley. 1998. “A Life of One’s Own: Individual Rights and the Welfare State”. Cited in (Steiner, Alston, and Goodman 2008, 285).

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4.2 The Right to Food Project This section explores conceptual developments of the right to food from the mid-1970s to the mid-2000s. It shows how normative elaboration of the right to food was achieved mostly through interactions between academics and human rights experts at the UN level, in a relatively closed environment. Three stages in the development of the right to food are identified: its international recognition in the post world war II period, its conceptualization in the period ranging from 1976-2004, and, more recently, its implementation. It should be noted here that the conceptualization of the right to food took place in an international context marked by various theories of development that considerably influenced policy debates during those decades. While a critical overview of development theories and practice in the 1950s-2000s is well beyond the scope of this study, the next section reviews some of the contributions to development thinking which have had an impact on the evolution of the idea of food as a human right.

4.2.1 The Influence of Development Theories on the Right to Food Three approaches to development can be said to have had a considerable influence on the conceptualization of the right to food: the basic needs approach, the entitlement approach, and the rights-based approach to development.

The Basic Needs Approach The basic needs approach dominated development agencies in the 1970s (Nelson and Dorsey 2008, 96). Introduced by the ILO in 1976303, the approach focused on the need to ensure that everyone had access to enough basic goods and services to maintain a level of living above a basic minimum, as a prime objective of economic development (Stewart 1989, 348). The basic needs approach attempted to define the absolute minimum resources necessary for long-term physical well-being, usually in terms of consumption goods. The poverty line was then defined as the amount of income required to satisfy 303

The cornerstone of the ILO basic need strategy was the idea that a greater increase in employment and a more equitable distribution of income should entail a greater increase in the demand for essential consumer goods as compared with non essential consumer goods and services while the former was much more labor intensive and so a mean to create both employment and income for the poorest. One essential aspect of the ILO approach was that it was a labor intensive or employment oriented approach to economic development (Lapeyre, 6). The objectives of the basic needs approach were similar to the conclusion of John Rawlsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; philosophical system that everyone should have access to â&#x20AC;&#x153;basic social goodsâ&#x20AC;? (Stewart 1989, 347).

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those needs. A traditional list of immediate basic needs included food (including water), shelter, and clothing. The approach enabled targets to be stated as physical rations of specific goods and services, having universal validity, instead of the abstract monetary aggregates making up gross national product (GNP) estimates (Rimmer 1981, 216). Some advocates of the basic needs approach stressed self-reliance and participation by target groups in making the decisions which affect them (ODI 1978, 2). Among developed countries and donor agencies, the World Bank, UNEP, UNICEF, and USAID showed the most enthusiasm for a basic needs approach, although each had its own particular interpretation of what it should mean. In contrast, the attitude of developing countries’ governments was rather circumspect. Developing countries perceived it as an attempt by developed countries to interfere in their domestic politics, and to divert attention away from other issues, such as reform of commodity markets, international debt, and volumes and conditions of aid (ODI 1978, 2). As we will explore below, the idea of basic needs has had a lasting impact on development thinking. It initiated a – liberal – methodological turn towards a focus on concrete life conditions and manifestations of underdevelopment in concrete populations, and away from distribution, employment, growth (i.e. away from a holistic, collective, social perspective of development); towards the symptoms and away from the causes, the mechanisms; towards the situation of people304 and away from global aspects (Ramírez Cendredo 2008, 68).

The Entitlement Approach In “Poverty and Famines”, published in 1981, economist Amartya Sen analyzed a number of famines with a view to abolishing the then-existing paradigm among developmental economists, which held that famines were caused by a general decline in the availability of food (Sen 1981, 154). Instead, he asked: “what determines distribution of food between different sections of the community?” (Sen 1981, 7) Sen argued that a person’s ability to command food depends on the “entitlement relations” that govern possession and use in that society (Sen 1981, 1), such as “the use of production possibilities, trade opportunities, entitlements vis-à-vis the state, and the other methods of acquiring food” (Sen 1981, 45). Sen also showed the limits of market mechanisms to relieve famines since markets respond to entitlements, not to people’s needs. Markets are unsuccessful in meeting a need that has not been translated into effective demand because of shortage of purchasing power (Sen 1981, 161). Thus, “from 304

As we will see, it returned on the world scene in the 1990s in the form of the Human Development reports and approach, by then incorporating the main aspects of Sen’s capabilities approach. In a way, the idea of basic needs lived on, but without the redistribution strategy and the macro-economic framework. In the early 2000s, this approach was generalized by the UN in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

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the entitlement angle, there is nothing extraordinary in the market mechanism taking food away from famine-stricken areas to elsewhere” (Sen 1981, 161), which explains why history is full of examples of food being exported from famine-stricken areas. Although Sen did not defend the idea of a human right to food as such, his approach made the case for public policies that alter legal and socio-political structures. Sen is considered by many as one of the determining influences behind the later adoption of rights-based approaches to development, for “he profoundly affected the hitherto rather technical thinking about development in international institutions” (Glasius 2006, 68). In his 1982 article “The right not to be hungry”, Sen developed the idea that “a nutritionally adequate diet may well be taken to be a part of a person’s moral entitlements, even when it is not a part of his legal entitlements” (Sen 1982, 351). While talking about a “moral right to food” (Sen 1982, 352), Sen envisaged that, eventually, if there was sufficient societal agreement on this moral entitlement, it would have to be translated into legal entitlements. Sen regarded the right to food as a meta-right305 i.e. “the right to policies that would rapidly lead to freedom from hunger” (Sen 1982, 346), a right which could reasonably be said to exist even if the actual realization of freedom from hunger was not feasible in the near future. Sen, thus, did not regard the right to food as a claim against the state but stated that “the moral responsibility for preventing hunger falls on everyone who can prevent some hunger” (Sen 1982, 353), an idea he would develop later306 in his book written jointly with Jean Drèze entitled “Hunger and Public Action” (Drèze and Sen 1989). In this book, both authors defended the idea that it was relatively easy to exterminate famines if public support was well planned on a regular basis to protect the entitlements of vulnerable groups (Drèze and Sen 1989, 258). They advocated for “strategies of entitlement protection” based on employment creation, particularly in the form of public works programs (Drèze and Sen 1989, 264). The authors recognized that, if famine prevention was essentially concerned with the protection of entitlements (Drèze and Sen 1989, 65), this objective in the short term should be contrasted with the general promotion of entitlements in the long term. This tension, as we will explore below, has haunted developments of the right to food to this day. As Sen and Drèze rightly identified, the task of entitlement protection is “largely conservative” – it consists in making sure that vulnerable groups do not face a collapse of their ability to command food and related necessities – whereas the task of entitlement promotion is “in many respects, more radical” – in this case the focus has to be on expanding the general

305

What Sen called “the right not to be hungry and the corresponding meta-rights” (Sen 1982, 346). In Hunger and Public Action, A. Sen and Jean Drèze look at public action understood as “the activities of the state but also social actions taken by members of the public – both collaborative (through civic cooperation) and adversarial (through social criticism and political opposition)” (Drèze and Sen 1989, preface). 306

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command that people, and particularly the more deprived sections of the population, have over basic necessities (Drèze and Sen 1989, 260).

The Rights-Based Approach to Development The “new” development agenda of the 1990s put the emphasis on sustainable growth, good governance – which figured prominently in two World Bank reports in 1992 and 1994307 –, adjustment with a human face – which first appeared in a UNICEF report in 1987 (Ramírez Cendredo 2008, 87) – participation and human development, which were put forward by the UNDP308. Dr. Mahbub ul Haq309, who conceived and launched UNDP’s annual Human Development Reports in 1990, introduced and promoted a people-centered development paradigm310. The concept of human development, adopted by the UNDP, is based on Sen’s approach and characterizes human development in terms of the expansion of valuable human capabilities311. In the early 2000s, the UNDP attempted to conceptually bridge the gap between human development and human rights, claiming that they “are both about securing basic freedoms”312. In fact, the UNDP played a key role as interpreter of important theoretical 307 In the World Bank’s 1992 report “Governance and Development”, governance was defined as “the manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social resources.” The 1994 report “Governance: The World Bank’s Experience” stated “Good governance is epitomized by predictable, open, and enlightened policymaking (that is, transparent processes); a bureaucracy imbued with a professional ethos; an executive arm of government accountable for its actions; and a strong civil society participating in public affairs; and all behaving under the rule of law” (The World Bank Public Sector Group 2000, xx). 308 The so-called Washington consensus was somewhat resisted by UNICEF (with its “adjustment with a human face”) and by UNDP (with its “human development”) (Nelson and Dorsey 2008, 98). 309 Dr. Haq worked for the World Bank (1970-82) as a close adviser to its President, Robert S. McNamara, as Finance and Planning Minister of Pakistan (1982-88), and as Special Adviser to the UNDP Administrator (1989-95). 310 This new approach to development reconceptualized the role of public participation. While the vision developed in the 1993 Human Development Report “People’s Participation” certainly envisaged the role of peoples’ organizations as sources of a “countervailing power” (UNDP 1993, 27–28), the proposed definition of participation insisted on the importance of participating in markets. The report, which presented “steps towards people-friendly markets” (UNDP 1993, 31), described the transition to market economies, liberalization and privatizations as “new opportunities for participation in economic activity” (UNDP 1993, 24). 311 The concept of “basic human capabilities” had already been developed in Hunger and Public Action. It designates the capability of people to undertake valuable and valued “doings and beings” (Drèze and Sen 1989, 12). While the focus on entitlements is only instrumentally important (it is concerned with command over commodities), the concentration on basic human capabilities should be seen as the ultimate goal and purpose of public action. 312 The UNDP’s “Human Development Report 2000” argued: “When human development and human rights advance together, they reinforce one another (…). Until the last decade human development and human rights followed parallel paths in both concept and action—the one largely dominated by economists, social

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work on the human rights-development nexus, drawing essentially on the works of Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum and Thomas Pogge (Nelson and Dorsey 2008, 98). The UNDP’s “Human Development Report 2000” focused on the inter-relationships between human development and human rights. It conveyed the central message that poverty is a limit on freedom, and that the elimination of poverty should be addressed as a basic entitlement and a human right – not merely as an act of charity. The report, however, did not question the focus on economic growth as the dominant policy objective: “A growing economy is thus important for human rights, especially for poor countries. But that growth must be pro-poor, pro-rights and sustainable” (UNDP 2000, 7). The report emphasized the importance of building “an enabling environment that empowers people” (UNDP 2000, 118–119). At the national level, this entailed an efficient division of labor between the public sector (which was to focus on the direct provision of economic and social rights) and the private sector (UNDP 2000, 118–119). At the international level, relatively weak measures were envisaged such as the strengthening of the international system for promoting human rights and commitments from global corporations313 (UNDP 2000, 118–119). This approach, which was later promoted as a rights-based approach to development, was criticized for its lack of emphasis on structural issues: “All of them [human rights objectives] are to be implemented out there, in this separate place called the Third World, but do not require any critique of the global system and our place in it” (Uvin 2002, 9). While the development community was, under the influence of Sen, fundamentally redefining development as “the removal of various types of unfreedoms”314 (Sen 1999, xi), the human rights community was slowly attempting “to apply human rights standards and obligations to activities in specific sectoral areas such as development, environment, trade, debt, migration, labor and conflict prevention” (Steiner, Alston, and Goodman 2008, 1433). Both disciplines converged315 in the promotion of a rights-based

scientists and policy-makers, the other by political activists, lawyers and philosophers. They promoted divergent strategies of analysis and action— economic and social progress on the one hand, political pressure, legal reform and ethical questioning on the other. But (…), as the two converge in both concept and action, the divide (…) is narrowing. There is growing political support for each of them—and there are new opportunities for partnerships and alliances (UNDP 2000, 2). 313 Trade is mentioned but on another page, under the title “Accelerating access to markets for the exports of developing countries”: “For many developing countries, better access to trade opportunities will spur growth in incomes and employment, as occurred for much of East Asia. But some of the most marginalized countries still produce agricultural products with declining terms of trade. They continue to need policy reform, technical assistance and aid inflows to diversify their economies” (UNDP 2000, 121). 314 In other words, “the expansion of freedom is viewed (…) both as the primary end and as the principal means of development” (Sen 1999, xi). 315 The growing convergence between human rights and development was not only conceptual. It was made possible by locally based battles over large-scale development projects in the 1980s and 1990s and by the series of global conferences and negotiations in the 1990s, which brought together practitioners and activists in the local and international arenas, from the development, human rights, labor and environment sectors, and from the global women’s movement and indigenous peoples’ movement (Nelson and Dorsey 2008, 29).

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approach to development 316, an approach which seeks to transform development beneficiaries and aid recipients into actors claiming their rights, and which is based on the premise that “human rights norms and methodologies should be of central importance at all stages of the development process” (Steiner, Alston, and Goodman 2008, 1434). The United Nations took gradual steps to incorporate human rights in development317. In 1997, the then Secretary-General requested all UN agencies and bodies to mainstream human rights into their activities and programs. Many UN agencies moved to adopt a human rights-based approach to their development cooperation work and, by 2004, the “UN Statement of Common Understanding on Human Rights-Based Approach to Development Cooperation and Programming” had drawn them together in a relatively consistent approach318. While UN agencies and development organizations have 316

Much has been written on the projected advantages of a rights-based approach to development; the factors explaining the attractiveness of such an approach for the development sector; the distinction between rightsbased and previous approaches to development such as needs-based and sustainable livelihood approaches; its adoption – to various degrees – by a diversity of development actors leading to multiple interpretations of the implications of such an approach; its embracing but later relatively unsuccessful mainstreaming within the UN; and the lack of novelty and other limits of such an approach. For more on this issue, see for example: (Overseas Development Institute 1999; UNDP 2000; Uvin 2002; United Nations 2003; Nyamu-Masembi and Cornwall 2004; OHCHR 2004; Veneklasen et al. 2004; Piron and O’Neil 2005; Uvin 2007; Anderson 2008; Arts 2009; Chilton 2009; Miller 2010; Diokno 2011). 317 If it appeared in 2001 that the UN system was moving toward a systematic embrace of human rights as the framework for social and economic work, by 2007 the profile of human rights in the public materials and websites of leading agencies such as UNICEF and UNDP had receded in favor of a united push for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (Nelson and Dorsey 2008, 119). The MDGs, first agreed upon by heads of state and government at the U.N. Millennium Summit in 2000, marked a departure from the growing emphasis placed on human rights by UN agencies. The summit articulated the MDGs in a declaration that clearly embedded them in a human rights context. Nevertheless, many development policymakers — particularly those from the United States — insisted on treating the goals as “needs-based,” to be achieved primarily as a by-product of economic growth. In addition, the director of the U.N. Millennium Project, Jeffrey Sachs, envisioned selectively assisted market and trade solutions to human development, not a rightsbased approach (Cohen and Messer 2009, 15–16). The MDGs include no accountability mechanisms for the rich countries and essentially ignore access to land, employment, and credit. They focus on the worst symptoms of poverty, rather than on the causes of deprivations. They replace obligations with generosity. They follow a practice well entrenched in development: global goal setting and pledging by donors (Nelson and Dorsey 2008, 116). Efforts by the OHCHR and human rights experts such as Philip Alston to push for synergies between human rights and MDGs have largely failed (Alston 2002). In September 2011, the United Nations Secretary-General established the UN System Task Team to support UN system-wide preparations for the post-2015 UN development agenda (Nayyar 2012). Whether the new goals set by the international community post-2015 better integrate human rights remains to be seen. 318 Under the Common Understanding, it was agreed that all UN programs of development co-operation and assistance should aim to “contribute directly to the realization of one or several human rights”. It was also agreed that international human rights standards should guide all development cooperation and programming in all sectors and at all phases, including all development cooperation directed towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. The guiding human rights standards identified in the Common Understanding included “universality and inalienability; indivisibility; inter-dependence and interrelatedness; non-discrimination and equality; participation and inclusion; accountability and the rule of law” (United Nations 2003).

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struggled, over the last two decades, to identify the practical implications319 of human rights principles for decision-making and project implementation, some authors, such as Uvin, have criticized these principles for not bringing anything new to development thinking. “The need for the engagement and participation of the poor in the processes that affect their lives”, Uvin contends, is “presented as a major breakthrough that we all ought to feel truly pleased about, as if development practitioners had not been proposing exactly the same thing for decades now, with very little to show for it” (Uvin 2002, 4). Other authors have criticized the approach’s emphasis on reinforcing national or regional human rights institutions or, in general, on working with the state and formal organizations (Nyamu-Masembi and Cornwall 2004, 47). This focus on courts and legal enforceability has been criticized, for example, by some civil society actors who argue that people use a wide diversity of strategies, tactics and institutions to claim their rights, strategies that often take place outside institutions and legal formal instruments (NyamuMasembi and Cornwall 2004, 4). Probably the strongest argument against a rights-based approach to development has been made by those who stress that such approaches intend to realize human rights in the existing macro-structural framework (Uvin 2002, 9), without questioning unfair trade rules, an unjust world economic order, or the responsibilities of corporate actors and international organizations. Indeed, such an approach puts emphasis on the “marginalized, disadvantaged, and excluded groups” (United Nations 2003) but fails “to acknowledge that human rights systems have historically benefited the well-off even more than the downtrodden, and that the consequences of highlighting rights will depend very significantly on the power relations that exist within the society or the group” (Steiner, Alston, and Goodman 2008, 1441). The weak integration of issues of “power and structural change” (Veltmeyer and Parpart 2003) in the rights-based approach to development has been pointed out as one of the “limits of Sen’s major contribution to development”320: “if we believe Amartya Sen is right, what do we do differently when we redefine development along his path?” (Uvin 2002, 8). Advocates of a rights-based approach, to the contrary, argue that the identification of human rights violations as a systematic tool for analysis presents the advantage of focusing on power relations between actors and on the structural causes of poverty (Nyamu-Masembi and Cornwall 2004, 32).

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For Nelson and Dorsey, fully implementing a rights-based approach means embracing the authoritative internationally agreed standards of the major Human Rights instruments and applying these standards and principles in the agency’s core activities: designing and implementing projects, strengthening donors’ and governments’ accountability to them, advocating policies that protect and advance their achievement, educating about Human Rights standards and promoting the capacity of rights holders to demand their rights and of duty bearers to meet them (Nelson and Dorsey 2008, 93). 320 A similar point has been made by Baxi who argues that Sen, with his “Development as Freedom”, contributed to reinforcing the idea that economic growth is central to human and social development, and to the removal of un-freedoms (Baxi 2007c, 116–117).

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Finally, the approach has been criticized for not bringing real institutional change. Skeptics have argued, for example, that the rush to adopt rights-based approaches is an expression of donors’ continuing effort to win greater legitimacy for the development enterprise (Nelson and Dorsey 2008, 119). In fact, it appears that most donors have done little more than attempting to occupy the moral “high ground” by incorporating human rights terminology into development discourse (Uvin 2002, 10). What is occurring is, to most observers, not a transformation of development NGOs by a human rights based methodology, but the shaping and adaptation of aspects of the rights based approach to fit individual organizations’ own images321 (Nelson and Dorsey 2008, 106). While some contend that the rights-based approach has pushed development NGOs to take on an advocacy role they had been reluctant to take, the persistent tendency, in the development industry at large, remains to avoid politics and power in favor of a discourse of technical expertise, correct institutions, and proper policies (Nelson and Dorsey 2008, 94).

4.2.2 Conceptualization of the Right to Food in the 1970s-80s The right to food underwent rapid and extensive conceptual and operational developments in the late 1970s322 and early 1980s323. A large number of such developments took place within the United Nations. In 1979, the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) began monitoring the right to food. In 1983, the U.N. Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights named Asbjørn Eide Special Rapporteur on Right to Food. The same year, the ECOSOC commissioned a report on food as a human right, which began the process of adding clarifications and new implementing instruments. In 1985, the ECOSOC established the Committee on

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Oxfam’ rights framework, for example, is to a large extent self-defined. It consists of five categories of rights to which Oxfam commits itself: the right to a sustainable livelihood, to basic social services, to life and security, to be heard, to equity (see Oxfam International 2002 Action Plan) cited in (Nelson and Dorsey 2008, 107). 322 Literature on the right to food published in the 1970s includes: Dobbert. 1979. “The right to food” In: Dupuy, René-Jean (ed.). Le droit à la santé en tant que droit de l'homme. The right to health as a human right. Colloque, La Haye, 27-29 juillet 1978. Académie de droit international de La Haye and Université des Nations Unies, p. 184-213. Alphen aan den Rijn, Sijthoff and Noordhoff; Christensen 1978. “The right to food: how to guarantee”. New York, Institute for World Order. 40 p. (Working paper. World Order Models Project. No. 6); Collins. 1978. “The right to food and the New International Economic Order”. Paris, UNESCO. 33 p. (SS-78/CONF.630/6.); Fruchtbaum and Solimano. 1978. “Food, Health and Freedom: The Right to Survive”. In: Human Rights: A Symposium. Proceedings of the General Education Seminar, Columbia University, 6:2. p.5-24; Boerma. 1976. “A right to food”. Rome, Food and Agriculture Organization. 177 p. 323 The international context was very favorable. The 1980s brought a strong renewal of international interest and action, propelled by the women’s movement, the children’s movement and a surge of activity by civil society. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) was agreed to in 1979, the Convention on the Rights of the Child 10 years later (UNDP 2000, 3).

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Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (CESCR)324 to receive country reports and monitor progress on implementing the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)325. To a large extent, the conceptual framework of the right to food was developed by a handful of human rights experts, NGOs and academics outside of the U.N, to be later adopted within the U.N. system326. This section presents an introduction to the thinkers who have had a lasting influence on the conceptualization of the right to food.

Interpreting States’ Obligations In “Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence, and US Foreign Policy”, published in 1980, political philosopher Henry Shue attacked the distinctions made between civil and political rights and economic and social ones and the correlated typology of respectively negative and positive duties327 that the implementation of such rights imposes on states. Instead, he argued that three basic rights underlie all others: the right to physical security, the right to subsistence, and the right to liberty. Shue proposed “a very simple tripartite typology of duties”: “(I) duties to avoid depriving, (II) duties to protect from deprivation, and (III) duties to aid the deprived” (Shue 1996, 52)328.

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A number of “like-minded” Western states such as Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, which somewhat dissented from Western thought as formulated by the United States, became interested in improving the appallingly inadequate procedures to monitor the Covenant. Also, in this new stage of the Cold War, the Soviet Union and its satellites warmed to the idea of an enhanced status for economic and social rights, just as Reaganite America became increasingly ideologically opposed to them. For more on the debates which led to the creation of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, see “Out of the Abyss: The Challenges Confronting the New U. N. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights” (Alston 1987). 325 The Committee is composed of independent experts, serving in their personal capacity, elected by the states parties. Although its views are not binding per se, they are accorded “particular weight” (Cohen and Messer 2009, 6). 326 Alston comments on the reluctance of most human rights NGOs to become involved, for a variety of historical, ideological and pragmatic reasons (Alston 1987, 372). 327 The basic idea behind the general suggestion that there are positive rights and negative rights seems to have been that one kind of rights (positive ones) require other people to act positively (do something) whereas another kind of rights (negative) require other people merely to refrain from acting in certain ways (to do nothing that violates the rights) (Shue 1996, 36). Showing that many of the supposed differences between subsistence rights and rights to physical security are ill-founded, Shue refuted the assumption that “subsistence rights are positive and therefore secondary” (Shue 1996, 35). 328 Shue applied this typology to the right to subsistence in the following way: “(I) duties not to eliminate a person’s only available means of subsistence, (II) duties to protect people against deprivation of the only available means of subsistence by other people, (III) duties to provide for the subsistence of those unable to provide for their own (Shue 1996, 53).

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A small group of international lawyers such as Asbjørn Eide, Philip Alston and Katarina Tomasevski also began to explore the meaning and implications of economic and social rights. Two conferences on the right to food were organized in the early 1980s. The first one was held in Norway in 1981 at the initiative of the UN University329. At the 1981 conference, Eide presented his threefold typology of state duties – respect, protect, fulfill – that, he later realized, was somewhat comparable to that of Shue330 (Eide 2007, 146). The “respect, protect, fulfill” typology (Eide et al. 1984, 154) has had a considerable impact on the conceptualization of the right to food. It was adopted through the Maastricht Guidelines on violations of economic, social and cultural rights (International Commission of Jurists, The Faculty of Law of the University of Limburg, and The Urban Morgan Institute for Human Rights University of Cincinnati 1997). It was later made regular use of by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and a broad range of academics and NGOs, and notably by the specialized international human rights NGO FIAN (Eide 2007, 155–156). It can be said to have successfully replaced/complemented the controversial “positive/negative” duties dichotomy (Eide 2007, 146). The second conference took place in the Netherlands in 1984. It was organized by the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM) and the Norwegian Human Rights Project and received financial support from the Netherlands Ministry of Development Cooperation, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Oxfam331. Participants belonged to academia and NGOs mostly, coming from both North and South. At the time, economic rights such as the right to food were treated as mere “aspirational” rights. The main objective of the workshop was to explore the “implementability” of the right to food and the obstacles to its “assertion as an operational legal right”, considering the absence of specific obligations for states to observe and of effective mechanisms to supervise the implementation of the right to food (Alston and Tomaševski 1984a, 9, 5) . The view of participating lawyers was that many factors contribute to the vicious circle of underdevelopment, poverty and starvation, most of which “are sanctified by legal norms” (Tomaševski 1987, preface). Indeed, “whether or not specific right to food legislation 329

The UN University, which began its operations in 1975, identified world hunger, human and social development, and the use and management of natural resources as its three priority areas (Hester 1978). The Human and Social Development Program was envisioned as a forum for the evaluation of new development concepts. The World Hunger Program was tasked to develop and disseminate knowledge on the nutritional component of development planning. The 1981 conference brought the two programs together and led to a publication called “Food as a Human Right” (Eide et al. 1984). 330 According to Shue, Eide introduced a more constructive third category – “to fulfill” – where to fulfill rights clearly involves more than aiding those whose rights one has already violated and includes the creation of more effective institutions to see that rights are honored in the first instance (Shue 1996). 331 There were working groups on food needs and food policies; on the right to food and existing law; on human needs, human rights and the role of law in development; and on Intergovernmental organizations and NGO responses to food needs. The publication “The Right to Food, from soft to hard Law” gives a good synthesis of the discussions (Alston and Tomaševski 1984a).

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exists, the legal framework of every society regulates, either directly or indirectly, the terms of access of individuals and groups to the resources and other means and entitlements which they may need in order to satisfy their right to food”(Alston and Tomaševski 1984a, 11)332. Participants shared the view that the time had come for a new development approach grounded in human rights. They identified the following advantages attached to a right to food approach: it underlines the ethical/moral dimensions of issues which are too often seen as technical; it shifts the burden of proof from those claiming assistance to those in a position to provide it; it lowers the barriers of state sovereignty and domestic jurisdiction; it emphasizes accountability of governments and intergovernmental organizations in terms of the impact of their policies and programs on the enjoyment of the right to food (Alston and Tomaševski 1984a, 14).

A Structural Approach to Human Rights Participants to the 1984 meeting adopted a structural approach to the right to food. They believed that the right to food could be guaranteed only through the adoption of measures at the national and international levels, including the establishment of a New International Economic Order (Alston and Tomaševski 1984b). At the World Food Conference of 1974, a similar pledge had already been made: “For a lasting solution of the food problem all efforts should be made to eliminate the widening gaps which today separate developed and developing countries and to bring about a new international economic order” (Universal Declaration on the Eradication of Hunger and Malnutrition 1974). This emphasis on a new world order is not surprising, considering that the first attempts at conceptualizing the right to food, in the 1970s, took place in an international environment marked by developing countries’ insistence on the establishment of a New International Economic Order (NIEO). The New International Economic Order (UN General Assembly 1974b), as we saw in chapter 2, was meant to be a revision of the international economic system in favor of Third World countries and replace the Bretton Woods system, which had benefited the leading states that had created it. However, while recognizing that the establishment of a NIEO was necessary for the realization of the right to food, right to food advocates believed that a human rights-based approach to development presented a number of advantages over the NIEO idea. First, it could ground itself in an already existing international human rights protection mechanism. Second, its moral weight could constitute an efficient tool to pressure governments to tackle the issue of hunger in their country333 (Bastid et al. 1984). To some extent, then, it can be argued that a rights-based approach was promoted and developed as an alternative to the NIEO334. 332

As we will see below, this view is shared by, if not taken from, Amartya Sen. In 1984, Bastid published the following review of two books published that same year on the right to food: “Food as a Human Right” (Eide et al. 1984) and “The Right to Food from soft to hard Law” (Alston and 333

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Interpreting the International Covenant on ESCR A third meeting which went beyond the right to food was organized in Maastricht in 1986 which gathered 29 experts, including four members of the newly created UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The “Limburg Principles on the Implementation of the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights” were drafted and adopted by participants, which became a point of reference for interpreting the Covenant. The Principles define most of the key terms used in the Covenant, such as “to the maximum of its available resources”, “individually and through international assistance and co-operation, non-discrimination”, etc. They also expand on the role of the Committee (Limburg Principles 1987). The Limburg Principles generated a fair level of academic enthusiasm and debate. Interestingly, there is no mention of a new international economic order in the Principles 335, which emphasize that “irrespective of differences in their political, economic and social systems, States shall co-operate with one another to promote international social, economic and cultural progress, in particular the economic growth of developing countries, free from discrimination based on such differences” (Limburg Principles 1987, 31). In 1986, the Declaration on the Right to Development was adopted. Further strong commitments were made at the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993. This was followed by the creation of the position of United Nations High Commissioner

Tomaševski 1984a). She comments: “La faim dans le monde et la sécurité alimentaire préoccupent à juste titre les spécialistes du développement. (…) Les juristes vont y prendre leur part en utilisant deux approches. La première est celle du nouvel ordre économique international, qui ne peut ignorer le problème alimentaire et en fait une de ses composantes; le Directeur général de la F.A.O. a même proposé un “nouvel ordre alimentaire mondial” (26 août 1980 — voir L’ordre alimentaire mondial, sous la direction de J. Bourrinet et M. Flory, Economica 1982, p. 161. La seconde est celle des Droits de l'Homme; plus récente, elle fait actuellement l'objet de plusieurs programmes de recherche. (…) La ligne directrice à ce niveau est bien la même dans les deux ouvrages. Elle présente par rapport à la problématique du nouvel ordre économique international l'avantage pour le droit à l'alimentation de bénéficier, en se rattachant aux Droits de l'Homme, de l'acquis d'un système déjà élaboré avec ses techniques de protection internationale. Les Droits de l'Homme possèdent en outre une force morale mieux assise que celle du nouvel ordre économique et peuvent constituer un instrument de pression efficace sur les gouvernements en les amenant à se sentir moralement responsables devant la communauté internationale de la condition alimentaire de leur people” (Bastid et al. 1984). 334 More research is needed on how right to food defenders positioned themselves with regard to the right to development, the right to self-determination, and the right to permanent sovereignty over natural resources. This is only alluded to in (Alston and Tomaševski 1984b, 23, 191) . 335 The formulation used instead is actually taken from art. 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “International co-operation and assistance must be directed towards the establishment of a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in the Covenant can be fully realized (cf. art. 28)” (Limburg Principles 1987, 30).

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for Human Rights and growing advocacy for rights internationally and nationally336. At the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, the formula first adopted in 1968, that human rights and fundamental freedoms are indivisible, was expanded to “all human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated” (UN General Assembly 1993, 5). This acknowledgment gave great satisfaction to economic and social rights advocates although it did not raise any major controversy in Vienna. At the time, the human rights debate had moved on to challenge the universality of human rights by so called Asian values propagated by Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Economic and social rights were not a major bone of contention (Glasius 2006, 69–70).

4.2.3 The Right to Food as the Right to Feed Oneself: the Contribution of Specialized NGOs In the early 1980s, a number of committed groups started working on specific economic, social and cultural rights. Their initially small organizations have now grown into medium-sized international NGOs337. One of them focused on the right to food: the Foodfirst Information and Action Network (FIAN), which developed as an international network with its secretariat in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1982. FIAN’s approach from the very beginning was to “dialog with lawyers and researchers” and learn from the “experiences of grassroots groups and NGOs working on hunger and food issues for many years”. This positioning of the organization as a bridge across the conceptual world of academia and the value-oriented world of activism was envisaged, very early on, as potentially “valuable in the process of operationalizing the right to food in terms of international and national law” (Künnemann 1984, 90). It has had a deep impact on the structure and ways of working of FIAN globally. We will come back to this in chapter 6. If FIAN members contributed to the conceptual debates on the right to food that took place at the conferences mentioned above338, the organization rapidly developed its own 336

The late 1990s brought other developments, such as the 1998 Rome statute to establish the International Criminal Court, the establishment of international tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, and the optional protocol to CEDAW, opening the way for individuals to appeal to an international body. In 1990, 10% of the world’s countries had ratified all six major human rights instruments, but by February 2000 this increased spectacularly to nearly half of all countries (UNDP 2000, 3). 337 In the NGO field, the foundation of FIAN was followed in 1987 by Habitat International Coalition, which transformed itself in that year from a rather lifeless federation of housing corporations and local authorities into an organization committed to the right to adequate housing, based in the South and focused on lobbying at the UN. It was followed in 1992 by the establishment of the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) and in 1993 by the establishment of the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), founded by recent Harvard graduates in New York (Glasius 2006, 69). 338 Künnemann, for example, argued that “the implementation of the right to food is an obligation for the entire international community. That obligation implies the necessity of a new international economic order; the right to freedom from hunger must be one of its basic principles” (Künnemann 1984, 95).

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interpretation of the right to food. From the outset, FIAN insisted that the right to food be understood and implemented as the right to feed oneself 339 (Künnemann 1984, 95). For FIAN, “the right to feed oneself, which ensures a sustainable livelihood for farmers without any loss of dignity or destruction of livelihood” was increasingly put at risk by states that collude with transnational corporations (TNCs) and international financial institutions and their local allies340. FIAN activists put a lot of emphasis on the situation of the rural poor who constitute the bulk of the hungry and malnourished, and on the importance of securing access to the means of producing food, such as land, water and other natural resources. In 1997, when an internal consultation was organized between FIAN and Vía Campesina, FIAN insisted that “the exclusion from access to productive resources is a violation of basic human rights” and that “special emphasis should be put on the right to feed oneself as the core content of the right to work”341. As it was about to engage in joint work with Vía Campesina on land issues, FIAN defined its role as: “to plan a campaign based on the struggle for collective rights and the right to self autonomy” and to “continue develop the ideas about the relation between agrarian reform and the right to feed oneself.”342 The attention paid by right to food activists to the threats facing Southern peasant communities was not only dictated by the reality of post World War II “global depeasantization” (Araghi 1995) and its devastating consequences. Their solidarity with endangered communities in the South (communities faced with evictions and/or repression mostly) had an “agrarian populist”343 flavor. FIAN founder Rolf Künnemann denounced “the modern technological-capitalist revolution, along with the rationalist and materialist mode of thinking” which has “aligned, subjugated, or even destroyed nearly all traditional forms of economy and ways of life” (Künnemann 1984, 90). FIAN activists felt that the right to feed oneself could help “link different actors through the human rights approach” and thereby reinforce “food security, food sovereignty, cultural security and tenurial security”. They hoped to see economic, social and cultural rights “more substantially taken into account in the framework of mass movements”344. Yet, for a number of reasons we will seek to explain below, the right to feed oneself was “not 339

“Both UN human rights covenants postulate that “in no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence”, thus implying that the right to food is first of all “peoples’ right to feed themselves”(Künnemann 1984, 95). 340 Summary of plenary discussions by Ranjit Nayak, internal consultation between by FIAN and Vía Campesina, Paris, May 8-11, 1997. 341 Summary of plenary discussions by Ranjit Nayak, internal consultation between by FIAN and Vía Campesina, Paris, May 8-11, 1997. 342 Minutes from working group 2, internal consultation between by FIAN and Vía Campesina, Paris, May 811, 1997. 343 Agrarian populism is considered a form of ruralism with roots in romantic and conservative notions of an organic society, and a reaction to industrialization, urbanization and capitalism. For a discussion on agrarian populism, see (Brass 1997, 204). 344 Summary of plenary discussions by Ranjit Nayak, internal consultation between by FIAN and Vía Campesina, Paris, May 8-11, 1997.

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picked up by the UN nor by civil society”345, as acknowledged by the former Secretary General of FIAN International himself. Alongside with FIAN, a number of Christian groups started defending the right to feed oneself in the 1980s. These organizations, protestant ones in particular, have played a major (but understudied) role in the mainstreaming of the right to food approach346, as we saw in chapter 1. Church organizations associated the right to feed oneself with “selfhelp”, a motto that finds its inspiration in Christian beliefs. The German protestant organization Brot für die Welt347, for example, insisted that development be seen not only as a process of economic progress but as an “act of liberation from dependency and immaturity”. From the 1960s onwards, the organization developed programs designed to strengthen the will of the poor to “help themselves” and to support them in changing unjust structures which obstruct the development of human potential (Brot für die Welt 2008, 5).

4.2.4 Rapid Institutional Advances in the 1996-2004 Period In 1996, the World Food Summit convened in Rome reaffirmed “the right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious food, consistent with the right to adequate food and the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger” (World Food Summit 1996). Responding to pressure from civil society groups such as FIAN, governments requested that the right to food be given a more concrete and operational content (World Food Summit 1996, objective 7.4). Two documents were released in the following years to provide a better understanding of the right to food: General Comment n°12 of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; and the FAO Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security.

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Interview, 23 June 2009. An overview of most of these organizations can be found at http://www.e-alliance.ch/en/s/aboutus/members/. These organizations have a joint platform for their political work called the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA), which includes large international organizations such as the Caritas Internationalis, World YWCA and Lutheran World Federation, as well as large and small national organizations such as Canadian Foodgrains Bank (Canada), CIDSE (Coopération Internationale pour le Développement et la Solidarité, Europe), ICCO and Kerk in Actie (Netherlands), and Franciscans International. Although the EAA appears to be using Millennium Development Goals as a reference nowadays, it has historically promoted the right to food. 347 Brot für die Welt (Bread for the World) is a program of help initiated by the protestant churches in Germany. It was set up in Berlin in 1959 and since then has been the responsibility of the “Diakonische Werk”, the Social Service Agency of the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD). Brot für die Welt works jointly with local churches and partner organizations in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe on over 1,000 projects, all of which are aimed at helping people to help themselves. The motto behind their work is “justice for the poor”. For more information, see http://www.brot-fuer-die-welt.de/ 346

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General Comment n°12 on the right to food was adopted in 1999 by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR). The CESCR348 is the body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by its States parties. General comments aim to elucidate the Committee’s own understandings of the rights and obligations anchored in the Covenant349 (Riedel 2009, 143). When drafting General Comment n°12, the experts of the Committee took into consideration the draft international code of conduct on the human right to adequate food that had been prepared by international non-governmental organizations following the World Food Summit (Committee on ESCR 1999).

The Voluntary Guidelines The “Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security” were adopted in 2004 by the 187 Member States of the General Council of the United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture (FAO). The Guidelines were celebrated for bringing an economic and social right “from formal recognition at the international level to full engagement by governments and international organizations” and from principle into “proposals for concrete action”. Contrary to the elaboration of General Comment 12, the content of the Guidelines was discussed in an intergovernmental process rather than by experts alone (Rae, Thomas, and Vidar 2007, 457). The history of the FAO Voluntary Guidelines is considered a success story by many observers for the importance of civil society’s contribution to the process and content, and for managing to gather the necessary impetus to make it happen. After the 1996 World Food Summit, three non-governmental organizations –- FIAN, the World Alliance on Nutrition and Human Rights and the Jacques Maritain Institute – started drafting a “Code of Conduct” on the human right to adequate food which went through a thorough process of NGO hearings and amendments until a final draft was issued in September 1997. The draft code was endorsed by more than 800 NGOs. Its objective was to “clarify the content” of the right to adequate food, and to give particular attention to “implementation and full and progressive realization” of this right as a means of achieving food security for all” (Eide 1999, 39). The negotiation process, which was inclusive of civil society organizations, paved the way for increased involvement of CSOs 348

The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) adopts from time to time so-called general comments as a means to help and encourage State Parties to strive for comprehensive realization of ESC rights at the national and international levels. 349 As of December 2008, the Committee has issued 19 general comments, on food, education, health, water, equal treatment of women and men, intellectual property rights and human rights, the right to work and to social security. Legally speaking, general comments are not binding, but merely represent persuasive authority, yet in the Committee practice the lack of legal bindingness has not detracted from the usefulness of these general comments (Riedel 2009, 143).

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in the policy elaboration work of the FAO and is said to have had a lasting influence on the way FAO interacts with civil society350 (Rae, Thomas, and Vidar 2007, 457). It should be noted, however, participation from social movements in the negotiations was very limited. Following the adoption of the guidelines, a Right to Food Unit (now Right to Food Team) was set up within FAO with the aim to support the implementation of the right to food. The Unit develops methods and instruments to assist stakeholders in the implementation of the right to food and information and training materials on the right to food. It is also supposed to work towards integrating the right to food into FAO’s work351. The negotiation of the Voluntary Guidelines also saw the participation of a new actor. In 2000, a new institution had been established: the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food. Appointed by the Commission on Human Rights, the Special Rapporteur belongs to the UN Special Procedures system, which was created between the years 1979 and 1991352 (but the did not appoint a Special Rapporteur on the right to food until 17 April 2000). The mandate of the Special Rapporteur is to establish cooperation with governments, intergovernmental organizations, in particular the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, and non-governmental organizations, and to make appropriate recommendations on the realization of the right to food as well as to identify emerging issues related to the right to food worldwide 353. As we will see below, the Special Rapporteur on the right to food354 has substantially contributed to the conceptual and operational aspects of the right to food.

Towards National Implementation of the Right to Food Following the adoption of the Voluntary Guidelines, significant progress has been made in the implementation of the human right to adequate food at the country level. Advances are patent in five areas: the integration of the right to food in constitutions355; the adoption 350

For more on this interesting history, see the research conducted by Nora McKeon: “The United Nations and Civil Society. Legitimating Global Governance-Whose Voice?” (McKeon 2009); “Strengthening Dialogue. UN Experience with Small Farmer Organizations and Indigenous Peoples” (McKeon and Kalafatic 2009); and “Global Governance for World Food Security: A Scorecard Four Years After the Eruption of the “Food Crisis”” (McKeon 2011). 351 For more information on the work of and materials produced by the FAO Right to Food Team, see: http://www.fao.org/righttofood/about_en.htm. 352 For an overview of the process of building up the system of Special Procedures and an analysis of its impacts, see “The UN Special Procedures in the field of Human Rights” (Nifosi 2005). 353 http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/food/overview.htm 354 The first mandate holder (2000-2008) was the Swiss sociologist Jean Ziegler to whom the Belgian International Law Professor Olivier De Schutter succeeded in 2008 (for the 2008-2014 period). The mandate of the Special Rapporteur is supported by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). 355 A growing number of States, 24 worldwide at the time of writing, now explicitly protect the right to food in their constitutions. Nine countries recognize the right to food as a self-standing right recognized to all. Ten

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of legal and constitutional frameworks; the development of national strategies based on the right to food356; the use of the right to food in courts357; and the design of institutions charged with ensuring progress towards the realization of the right to food358 (De Schutter 2010b; De Schutter 2012a; De Schutter 2012b). Most of these advances are institutional in nature. They are somewhat symptomatic of the human rights community’s attachment to legal formalization and to the establishment of legal machinery as an end in itself (Kennedy 2002, 110). In parallel, developments have taken place in the area of monitoring efforts undertaken by states to meet their human rights obligations. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) developed indicators to address the problems of how to measure effectively the degree of rights realization. Three kinds of indicators were elaborated with the support of academics and specialized NGOs: “structural indicators” other countries stipulate the right to food for a specific category of the population only, such as children or prisoners. Five countries have constitutional provisions that stipulate the right to food explicitly as being part of another human right (Knuth and Vidar 2011, 13). 356 On this front, progress in Latin America has been particularly significant. Several national strategies and action plans have been developed in the region in recent years, including the Plan Nacional de Seguridad Alimentaria 2009-2015 of Paraguay, the Política Nacional de Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutricional of Nicaragua, the Política de Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutricional 2005-2015 of Honduras, the Política Nacional de Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutricional 2008 in Colombia, the Programa para la Erradicación de la Desnutrición Crónica 2007-2012 in Guatemala, and the Política Nacional de Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutricional in El Salvador. In the fall of 2011, Brazil adopted a rights-based Food and nutritional Security Plan, involving seventeen ministries within the Interministerial Food and Nutritional Security chamber for the 2012-2015 period. But advances have been noted also in Africa. As part of such a national strategy, States have been encouraged – or supported in their efforts by the FAO Right to Food Unit – to adopt a framework legislation ensuring that the right to food is justiciable before national courts or that other forms of redress are available (De Schutter 2011c, 3). 357 The recognition of the right to food as a justiciable right at the national and the international level is gaining ground year after year (De Schutter 2010b, 5). Justiciability can be defined as “the ability of courts to provide a remedy for aggrieved individuals claiming a violation of those rights”. Over recent years, the recognition of the justiciability of the right to food and other ESCR has made great progress, as demonstrated by the large body of jurisprudence regarding these rights created by national courts in developing countries (Golay 2011). It has also been reinforced by the elaboration of an Optional Protocol to the ICESCR. For many observers, the justiciability benchmark constitutes the true test of a “real” human right. The point has been made by others that the need for remedies and accountability need not be automatically equated with judicial remedies, and that the greater flexibility and responsiveness of other techniques such as administrative remedies and legislative responsiveness can be better suited than litigation to achieve the goals of economic, social and cultural rights (Steiner, Alston, and Goodman 2008, 313). For a discussion of the arguments for and against justiciability, see (Steiner, Alston, and Goodman 2008, 313–321). The recognition of the right to food in domestic legal orders has allowed, in a number of cases, constitutional courts to strike down laws that lead to violations of the right to food, as in Colombia and Guatemala, or to sanction such violations that may result from administrative practice, as we have seen in India in the famous People’s Union for Civil Liberties v. Union of India and Others case launched in 2001357 (Writ petition (Civil) No. 196 of 2001 (Supreme Court of India)). 358 Many countries have established independent national human rights institutions, which monitor the compliance of the State with its obligations in the area of human rights, and which in some cases can receive complaints from aggrieved individuals.

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(measure whether or not appropriate legal, regulatory and institutional structures are in place), “process indicators” (assess whether laws, policies and programs are in place to implement specific rights), and “outcome indicators” (evaluate the results achieved) 359. In addition, country assessments conducted either by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food (called official missions) or by organizations such as Rights & Democracy and FIAN, have done a lot to demonstrate that the right to food requires attention to be paid to multiple policy areas in order to be fulfilled360. Finally, in December 2008, the network of international civil society organizations361 that had been campaigning for an Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (OP-ICESCR) could finally celebrate a hard-won victory. The Optional Protocol was adopted, and was opened for signature on September 24, 2009. The OP-ICESCR allows victims of violations of ESCR to present complaints before a United Nations body, against a state that violates the obligations established in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, if the state has ratified the OP-ICESCR. In spite of this progress, however, the ICESCR remains, for many observers, a “blunt instrument” that is unlikely, alone, to bring about a rapid drop in deaths caused by hunger and malnutrition (MacMillan and Vivero 2009, 8).

4.2.5 Building the Relevance of the Right to Food in International Policy Debates: the Food Prices Crisis of 2007-08 The profile of the right to food was raised considerably during the global food prices crisis of 2007-08, a crisis we discussed in chapter 2. A number of actors – such as the 359

In order to overcome the tendency of experts to propose huge lists of indicators that would render the assessment exercise too unwieldy and cumbersome has, the CESCR has worked to develop a procedure of scoping, called IBSA (indicators, benchmarks, scoping and assessment), whereby the State party is asked to set benchmarks which are understood as self-set, voluntary targets that enable monitoring for a number of key rights, in a country-by-country manner. The relevance of the benchmarks selected by the State party is discussed with the Committee, before the agreed benchmarks form the basis for the next periodic report (Riedel 2009, 145). 360 I am grateful to Carole Samdup for pointing this out. 361 Members of the steering Committee of the Coalition for an Optional Protocol included: Amnesty International; Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), Switzerland; Community Law Centre, South Africa; FoodFirst Information and Action Network (FIAN), Germany; Inter-American Platform of Human Rights, Democracy and Development (PIDHDD), Paraguay; International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), Switzerland; International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), France; International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net),United States; International Women’s Rights Action Watch - Asia Pacific (IWRAW Asia Pacific), Malaysia; Social Rights Advocacy Center (SRAC), Canada. For more information on this long and successful process, see the ESCR-net resource page: http://www.escr-net.org/resources/resources_show.htm?doc_id=431553.

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FAO right to food Unit, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) and the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, as well as certain international human rights NGOs like FIAN or development NGOs like Action Aid – demanded that the human right to food be placed at the core of the international response to the crisis362. The case was made by the Special Rapporteur that: “the right to food can serve as a guide for rebuilding global governance”363. Throughout the crisis, the right to food was presented as an effective and comprehensive alternative to the dominant discourse of food security. The food security approach364 was adopted jointly by the Executive Heads of the UN specialized agencies, funds and programs and Bretton Woods institutions365, which agreed on a common strategy and decided that “first, we must feed the hungry” and “second, we must ensure food for tomorrow”. The first constituted an appeal to providing the World Food Program (WFP) with the necessary resources to respond to urgent needs. The second focused on facilitating the next harvest, through the provision of seeds and inputs to boost 362

For a human rights perspective on the global food prices crisis, see: Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR). 2008. Statement by CESCR on the World food crisis, adopted by the CESCR on 16 May 2008 at its 25th meeting of its 40th session. United Nations, May 16; FIAN International. 2008. Time for a Human Right to Food Framework of Action. FIAN Position on the Comprehensive Framework of Action of the High Level Task Force on the Global Food Crisis. FIAN Position Papers. September 23; FIAN International, CETIM, ActionAid, HIC, and FIDH. 2008. The world does not need more of the same medicine. Joint written statement submitted to the Human Rights Council Seventh Special Session (Geneva, Heidelberg). May 22; General Assembly. 2010. Resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council in its Thirteenth session. The right to food (A/HRC/RES/13/4). United Nations, April 14; Human Rights Council. 2008. 7th Special Session Resolution S-7/1. The negative impact of the worsening of the world food crisis on the realization of the right to food for all. United Nations, May 22. 363 Olivier De Schutter, talking at the “Policies against Hunger” conference, Berlin, 9 December 2008. 364 During the 1970s, as we saw in chapter 2, emphasis was on achieving national food goals and food selfsufficiency. Food security planning was centrally run with fixed goals and many multi-sectoral initiatives with intense government involvement through production and marketing parastatals. The food crisis in Africa in the early 1970s stimulated major concern on the part of the international donor community regarding supply shortfalls created by production failures. The limitations of the food supply focus came to light (again) during the food crisis that plagued Africa in the mid-1980s. It became clear that adequate food availability at the national level did not automatically translate into food security at the individual and household levels (Frankenberger and McCastgon 1998). As a result, the concept of food security was to be drastically redefined. In the decades following, it underwent several shifts, notably under the influence of Amartya Sen. Following World Development Report 1981, which put the emphasis on “growth through trade”, “human development”, and “world trade in food” (World Bank 1981, 20, 97, 101), the food security concept became increasingly associated with imported food and reliance on global markets. For an overview of the evolution of the food security concept, see: Maxwell, S. 1996. “Food Security: A Post-Modern Perspective”. In Food Policy. Vol 21 No.2, pp. 155-70. Also, Maxwell, S. and Frankenberger, T.R. (eds.). 1992. Household Food Security: Concepts, Indicators, Measurements. A Technical Review. New York: UNICEF. 365 The Comprehensive Framework for Action (CFA) of the High-Level Task Force (HLTF) set up by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon was built on similar lines: it advocated for a combination of short term and long term measures to “bridge the traditional humanitarian and development divide”. It proposed national plans with a focus on access to food for the hungry and access to inputs for boosting the next harvest (HighLevel Task Force on the Global Food Crisis 2008).

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production, and on the rapid conclusion of the Doha round. The emphasis was also put on realizing a new green revolution in Africa (Chief Executives Board 2008). In contrast, the Special Rapporteur called on the international community to address the real issues: the role of the agribusiness sector; the role of trade liberalization; the role of intellectual property rights; the political powerlessness of the smallholders in many developing States; and the failure to build an institutional framework which ensures that the right to food is effectively complied with (De Schutter 2008a; De Schutter 2008b; De Schutter 2009a; De Schutter 2009c). A special session on the food crisis was held by the Human Rights Council, at the request of the Special Rapporteur on 22-23 May 2008. This session was the first ever to be dedicated to a thematic issue, making it clear that human rights abuses required international cooperation. It was also the first time an economic, social and cultural right was debated. Although the final Declaration of the “Madrid High-Level Meeting on food security for all” made reference to the right to food, it was rather weak in its implications (High-Level Meeting on Food Security for All 2009). In his final statement, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon (unexpectedly) declared that “We should be ready to add a third track – the right to food – as a basis for analysis, action and accountability” (Ki-Moon 2009). In his view, this third track should be added to the twin track approach of providing food and nutrition aid along with boosting food production. Attempts by the Special Rapporteur to get the UN to embrace such a “third track” (De Schutter 2009a), however, have brought little results.

4.3 The Right to Food at the Confluence of Multiple Influences We saw in the previous section how the normative content of the right to food was elaborated, mainly by experts and within the United Nations, but in dialog with specialized civil society groups, over the last four decades. At the end of this conceptualization process, what does the right to food look like? What can be said of its subversive potential?

4.3.1 The Right to Food as Individual Entitlement As a development project, the right to food has been fundamentally influenced by the entitlement approach, of which we gave an overview above. In practical/operational terms, the right to food “requires what Amartya Sen calls entitlements, that is, enforceable claims on the delivery of goods, services, or protection by specific others. Rights exist when one party can effectively insist that another delivers goods, services, or protections, and third parties will act to reinforce (or at least not hinder) their delivery”

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(Eide, Krause, and Rosas 1995, 94). Very early on, Asbjorn Eide, one of the conceptual fathers of the right to food, came to the conclusion that the entitlement approach could be made to fit with human rights thinking366, and could also provide a bridge between legal and “development” thinking, making it possible to avoid simplistic assumptions such as that the fulfillment of the right to food can be achieved by simply distributing available food resources (Eide et al. 1984, 95). The four major types of entitlement relations described by Sen – trade-based entitlements, production-based entitlements, own-labor entitlement, and inheritance and transfer entitlement (Sen 1981, 2) – to which Eide suggested adding social security entitlements (Eide, Krause, and Rosas 1995, 94) –, have helped right to food activists explore the multiple implications of looking at food as a human right. The right to food, thus, became tied to entitlements: the right to property367 (ownership of land and ownership of productive assets make it possible to cultivate food or exchange food products for goods required to satisfy basic needs), the right to work with an adequate income (work can be based on the use of own property or consist of work for others), and/or the right to social security (the fall-back component when neither the available property and its use, nor the income derive from work are sufficient to ensure an adequate standard of living) all “serve as basis for entitlements” (Eide, Krause, and Rosas 1995, 95). The perspective proposed by Sen fitted easily with, and reinforced, the right to food approach. His demonstration that “famines do not occur in democracies” (Sen 1999, 51) helped make the link between political liberty and the realization of economic, social and cultural rights; his “agent-oriented view” and insistence that people be not treated as the “passive recipients of the benefits of development programs (Sen 1999, 111) was totally in line with the empowerment principle at the heart of a rights-based approach; his conviction that “narrowly defined identities, including those firmly based on communities and groups” are a “terrible burden (Sen 1999, 8) fitted well with a liberal approach to human rights which gives primacy to self-realization over the preservation of community values or relations. The need to focus on vulnerable groups, which is at the core of a right to food approach, was confirmed by Sen’s analysis of famines. Sen, in his analysis of the Great Bengal Famine, showed that agricultural laborers, fishermen, non-agricultural labor and craftsmen were hit in a considerably higher proportion than peasants and share-croppers. Despite the fact that Bengal produced the largest rice crop in history in 1943, the food entitlements of agricultural laborers deteriorated because wage rates did not match the

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Although it remains unclear if Sen’s approach is or not a human-rights centered one, since Sen does not specifically embrace the discourse of international human rights law (Steiner, Alston, and Goodman 2008, 1442). 367 Property, however, is often unevenly distributed and can serve to exclude many from assets necessary for their basic needs (Eide, Krause, and Rosas 1995, 95).

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wild upsurges in rice prices368 that were observed during that year; as distress developed in the rural economy of Bengal, the food entitlements of occupation groups involving crafts, services and “superior” foods (e.g. fish and milk) in turn dropped because the demand for these “luxury” goods declined sharply (Sen 1981, 78). Sen concluded that: “the entitlement approach requires the use of categories based on certain types of discrimination”: “a small peasant and a landless laborer may both be poor, but their fortunes are not tied together” (…). We have to view them not as members of the huge army of “the poor” but as member of particular classes, belonging to different occupational groups, having different ownership endowments and being governed by different entitlement relations” (Sen 1981, 156). The insistence on the importance of targeting support to selected groups369 can be seen as another legacy from Sen and Drèze (Drèze and Sen 1989, 104). On the other hand, as we will argue below, Sen’s insistence that “the freedom to participate in economic interchange has a basic role in social living”; that the “freedom to transact” belongs to freedom broadly speaking; that the “labor market can be a liberator”; and that the role of the government should be balanced with that of markets, ideally “combining extensive use of markets with the development of social opportunities” (his name for social services e.g. health, education) (Sen 1999, 7, 115, 116, 127), left right to food advocates ill-equipped to fight the transition of agriculture to capitalism and its resulting pressure on smallholders to integrate global food supply chains. In Sen’s vision, the “freedom of people to act as they like in deciding on where to work, what to produce, what to consume and so on” is necessary to have well functioning markets, while markets and the freedom to transact are necessary to realize freedoms. This line of reasoning has had such a powerful impact on development thinking that exclusion has come to be defined as being “excluded from the benefits of the market-oriented society” (Sen 1999, 27, 7). As we have seen in chapter 3, this conception is quite remote from that proposed by peasant organizations which envisage autonomy as the basis of their integration in society.

4.3.2 The Right to Food as Structural Change The conceptualization of the right to food as an individual entitlement requiring a combination of state/public action and well-functioning markets, contrasts with the 368

What Sen has called “shifting exchange entitlements” (Sen 1981, 80). Especially vulnerable or disadvantaged groups include, according to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: “landless peasants, marginalized peasants, rural workers, rural unemployed, urban unemployed, urban poor, migrant workers, indigenous peoples, children, elderly people, and other especially affected groups” (these are groups referred to in the guidelines for States when reporting to the UN CESCR (UN doc. E/1991/23). To this list, Eide adds: “people who are temporarily in very difficult positions, such as internally displaced persons, refugees, and persons in detention or in psychiatric institutions” (Eide, Krause, and Rosas 1995, 93). 369

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structural and collective approaches to human rights which prevailed in the 1970s where the content of the right to food was first discussed. As we saw above, the 1970s were marked by intense and progressive conceptual developments in the area of human rights. Collective or people’s rights, as we saw in chapter 2, enjoyed a great deal of recognition in the 1970s and 1980s (Universal Declaration of the Rights of Peoples 1976; Crawford 1988c). Third generation rights, popularized by Karel Vasak (Vasak 1977), constituted a response to increasing global interdependence. Also called solidarity rights, they marked the beginning of a growing acceptance of a structural approach370 to human rights (Rich 1988). Such an approach sought to identify and remove structural obstacles to the enjoyment of human rights. It appears from discussions that took place in the 1970s371 and early 1980s that the right to food was originally envisaged as a collective right forming part of the category of third generation/solidarity rights. This emphasis was to gradually disappear with codification. The collective rights dimension gave way to a focus on individual entitlement, largely under the influence of Sen. The structural approach to human rights was replaced by a more narrow approach, centered on national accountability and social assistance to the poor, as efforts were made to translate what was perceived as a collective international responsibility into tangible and operational human rights obligations. This shift was reinforced by the promotion of a rights-based approach to development as an alternative to the New International Economic Order demanded by Southern countries. Some advocates of the right to food, such as FIAN and the current and former Special Rapporteurs on the right to food, have continued to emphasize and denounce the structural factors that impede the realization of the right to food globally. Efforts by right to food actors to address structural issues have been manifest in at least three areas: the application of the right to food approach to policy debates on food and agriculture, the development of “human rights impact assessments”, the elaboration of principles with regard to the “extraterritorial obligations” of states. In recent years, the structural implications of the right to food have been emphasized in a number of key (and much debated) issues in the area of food and agriculture: the development of agrofuels (De Schutter 2008b; De Schutter 2009c), the push for a new green revolution and for the production of transgenic crops (De Schutter and Vanloqueren 2011), alternative modes of production such as agroecology (De Schutter 2011a), largescale acquisitions and leases of land (De Schutter 2009e), climate change (Caesens and 370

Such a structural approach to human rights has been defended and conceptualized by thinkers such as Alston, Galtung, Kothari, M’baye, Rich, Shepherd, and Van boven. 371 Christensen, for example, in her 1978 essay on the right to food, adopted a structural approach to the right to food, while anchoring the right to food in a “wider basic-needs development strategy”. The structural roots of hunger go so deep, she argued, that fundamental changes in both national and international patterns will be required if a sustainable end to hunger is to be achieved in any reasonable period of time (Christensen 1978, 3).

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Padilla Rodríguez 2009), the regulation of agribusiness transnational corporations (De Schutter 2009d), the regulation of international trade in agriculture (De Schutter 2009b), and so forth. The structural dimensions of the right to food approach have also been highlighted in debates over access to natural resources, such as land, and in particular with regard to the need for agrarian reforms. In such discussions, the right to food is often interpreted as the right to feed oneself – meaning that its realization requires access to and control over land, seeds and natural resources –, largely under the impetus of FIAN. As we will explore in chapter 6, such an interpretation of the right to food coexists with a growing emphasis on the “urban” and nutritional dimensions of the right to food and its conceptualization as a right to social protection372. The idea of conducting Human Rights Impact Assessments (HRIA) was originally proposed by FIAN, which imagined, as early as 1984, a system of “a priori evidence” of compliance with the right to food for any major activity of international organizations, governments and transnational corporations affecting the right to food. Such an impact statement evidence of compliance was envisaged for states’ economic or development projects, IMF’s conditional loans, and transnational corporations’ planned economic activity in a hunger region (Künnemann 1984, 93–94). Fifteen years later, the idea has developed into a fully-fledged proposal373, pushed by a network of development and human rights NGOs374, and for which the Special Rapporteur has put forward a number of Guiding Principles (De Schutter 2011d). While demanding that states undertake ex-ante and ex-post HRIAs of the trade agreements 375 they are negotiating, development and human rights actors have also insisted that policy coherence be guaranteed i.e. that coherence not be limited between countries’ trade, finance and economic policies, but extend to their social, environmental and human rights policies (3DThree and IATP 2005). The term Extra-Territorial Obligations (ETOs) defines the human rights obligations of states outside of their jurisdiction, but the term may include the human rights responsibilities of intergovernmental organizations and transnational corporations. In

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As discussed at the 39th session of the Committee on World Food Security in 2012. For more information on human rights impact assessments, see “The Future of Human Rights Impact Assessments of Trade Agreements” (Walker 2009). 374 Notably: 3D-Three, Bern Declaration, Brot fur die Welt, CCIC, FIAN, Misereor, South Centre, Heinrich Boll Stiftung, and the paragovernmental organization Rights & Democracy. 375 It is interesting to note that right to food activists did not actively participate in the WTO and trade liberalization debate which was raging in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and have, since then, struggled to lay out the normative implications of the right to food for the international economic order, making it difficult to efficiently invoke the right to food in trade debates. Faced with the challenges of establishing causality between specific international norms and human rights violations, activists and experts have mostly favored a procedural approach. In contrast, the Special Rapporteur’s report on his mission to the WTO takes a more structural approach (De Schutter 2009b). 373

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2007, at the initiative of FIAN, an ETO Consortium376 was formed, which gathers about 40 individuals from academia and from development, human rights and environmental NGOs working on the issue. With a view to building “rights-based policy regimes that respond to the challenges of globalization” (Künnemann 2010, 12), the Consortium developed and adopted, on 28 September 2011, the “Maastricht Principles on Extraterritorial Obligations of States in the area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights” (ETO Consortium 2011). The long-term objective of the principles is to build a new “world order based on human rights”, that would be based on the primacy of human rights have primacy over trade377, the regulation of transnational corporations and the accountability of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) (Künnemann 2010, 1–16).

4.3.3 The Right to Food as Compatibility Test Under the growing influence of rights-based approaches to development, the right to food has come to be defined as a framework or “set of standards and principles against which all development policies are to be tested and assessed” (Nelson and Dorsey 2008, 176). What are the criteria against which development, trade, financial and agricultural policies are to be tested? Essentially, these criteria focus on process378: adopting a rights

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The ETO Consortium was formed in 2007. The Consortium is led by a steering group of persons from Abo Akademi University, Amnesty International, FIAN International, Human Rights Watch, the International Commission of Jurists and the Universities of Lancaster, Maastricht and North Carolina. The purpose of the ETO-Consortium is to contribute to the clarification of ETOs and to campaign for their application and implementation in the different policy fields mentioned above. The ETO-Consortium is open to new individual and institutional members. The creation of such a network is the result of a number of activities which took place in the years 2000s. In 2001, FIAN submitted the first parallel report to the UN CESCR which dealt exclusively with extraterritorial obligations (ETOs). In 2003, the Maastricht University held the first international expert conference on the extraterritorial scope of human rights treaties. In 2005, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food analyzed ETOs in his report to the General Assembly. At that same time, Brot für die Welt, FIAN and the Protestant Development Service came up with reports exploring the context (Künnemann 2010, 12). 377 This view is in sharp contrast with that adopted by the Director General of the WTO Pascal Lamy who stated that: “trade is human rights in practice” and that “One too often forgets that human rights and trade rules, including WTO rules, are based on the same values: individual freedom and responsibility, nondiscrimination, rule of law, and welfare through peaceful cooperation among individuals. Not only are they based on the same fundamental values; they are also the result of common concerns. Both human rights and global trade rules were considered a key element of the post-World War II order, a rampart against totalitarianism. It is no coincidence that the seeds of the multilateral trading system were planted at the same time as the Universal Declaration on Human Rights was being drafted in the mid-1940s. Both were seen as indispensable to world peace. In spite of these common underpinnings, for decades the interaction between the trade and human rights communities seemed to be governed by distrust. And yet, human rights and trade are mutually supportive. Human rights are essential to the good functioning of the multilateral trading system, and trade and WTO rules contribute to the realization of human rights” (Lamy 2010). 378 Some criteria also refer to content: food should be available and accessible. This implies: the availability of food in a quantity and quality sufficient to satisfy the dietary needs of individuals, free from adverse

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perspective means that decision-making processes should be guided by the principles of Participation, Accountability, Non-discrimination, Transparency, Human dignity, Empowerment and Rule of law, following the “PANTHER” framework developed by the FAO (FAO Right to Food Unit 2006). Participation requires that everyone have the right to subscribe to decisions that affect them. Accountability requires that politicians and government officials be held accountable for their actions through elections, judicial procedures or other mechanisms. Non-discrimination prohibits arbitrary differences of treatment in decision-making. Transparency requires that people be able to know processes, decisions and outcomes. Human dignity requires that people be treated in a dignified way, while empowerment requires that they are in a position to exert control over decisions affecting their lives (Diokno 2011). Finally, rule of law requires that every member of society, including decision-makers, must comply with the law (Cotula, Djiré, and Tenga 2008, 17). The emphasis placed on meeting human rights principles or criteria is increasingly felt in the position adopted by right to food actors in trade, investment, and agricultural policy debates, as work on human rights impact assessments demonstrates. This procedural approach is consistent with the view that states have a “margin of discretion”379 (Limburg Principles 1987, 71) when it comes to identifying and implementing the public policies aimed at realizing economic, social and cultural rights. It presents a rights-based approach to development as a neutral approach that transcends economic paradigms: the focus is on standards of attainment, irrespective of the characteristics of the economic system (Nelson and Dorsey 2008, 83).

4.3.4 The Right to Food as a State-Centric Approach State accountability is a central pillar of the right to food approach. This generally implies a strong emphasis on the role of the state as a regulator. As we explored above, the right to food approach departs from the liberal approach’s idea that duties are only negative duties (of non-interference) (Stammers 1995, 494). It emphasizes either that duties are both positive and negative, or that such a distinction is irrelevant, focusing rather on

substances, and acceptable within a given culture; the accessibility of such food in ways that are sustainable and that do not interfere with the enjoyment of other human rights (Committee on ESCR 1999). 379 “In determining what amounts to a failure to comply, it must be borne in mind that the Covenant affords to a State party a margin of discretion in selecting the means for carrying out its objects, and that factors beyond its reasonable control may adversely affect its capacity to implement particular rights” (Limburg Principles 1987, 71). Also, “The achievement of economic, social and cultural rights may be realized in a variety of political settings. There is no single road to their full realization. Successes and failures have been registered in both market and non-market economies, in both centralized and decentralized political structures” (Limburg Principles 1987, 6).

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states’ obligations to “respect”, “protect” and “fulfill”380. In recent years, practical tools have been developed in order to facilitate the implementation of the right to food by states and its monitoring by state institutions, civil society and communities381. While most of these instruments are directed at states, human rights impact assessments are increasingly undertaken by the private sector382 or conducted by affected communities383. Such tools are perceived as potentially interesting ways to help limit the negative impacts of foreign investment projects on Southern communities, or to monitor the impacts of trade and investment agreements. Faced with the new challenges the “age of the market” imposes on the implementation of economic, social and cultural rights (De Feyter 2005), human rights experts and NGOs have also devoted growing attention to the international dimension of the right to food. As we saw in the previous section, the extra-territorial obligations (ETOs) of states are increasingly highlighted. So are the human rights responsibilities of transnational corporations384. These developments tend to indicate that the right to food project is gradually freeing itself from a predominantly statist approach to allocating duties (Stammers 1995, 494) 380

Under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), states must “take steps (...) to the maximum of [their] available resources, with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of the [right to food] by all appropriate means” (Art. 2(1)). The nature of the steps that states must take is defined by a well-established analytical framework followed by General Comment 12 (and subsequently developed further by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), e.g. in its General Comment 15 on the right to water). According to this framework, states must take three sets of steps: respect, protect and fulfill. In turn, fulfill includes two sets of steps – facilitate and provide. The obligation to respect requires states to refrain from taking measures that affect access to food negatively. This obligation reflects the fact that the right to adequate food is primarily to be realized by right holders themselves through their economic and other activities. States have a duty not to unduly hinder the exercise of those activities, and not to arbitrarily undermine existing access to food. The obligation to protect requires states to take measures to ensure that third parties (e.g. individuals, enterprises) do not deprive right-holders of their access to food. The obligation to fulfill/facilitate requires states to support the efforts of individuals and groups to gain access to adequate food. The obligation to fulfill/provide requires states to provide food “whenever an individual or group is unable, for reasons beyond their control, to enjoy the right to adequate food by the means at their disposal” (General Comment 12, para.15). This may entail establishing effective social safety nets, for instance for natural disasters. 381 A “guide to conducting a right to food assessment” has been developed by the FAO which proposes methods to assess the causes underlying food and nutritional insecurity; frameworks to evaluate the legal, policy, and institutional environments for the right to food (including ways to assess institutional motivation, capacity and performance); and techniques for vulnerable group profiling (FAO Right to Food Unit 2009). A monitoring framework has also been developed by the FAO which includes indicators to measure the progressive realization of the right to food; rights focused assessments to monitor implementation processes; and techniques to monitor the impacts on the realization of the right to food, including at community level (FAO Right to Food Unit 2008). 382 See for example the Guide to Human Rights Impact Assessment and Management (HRIA) which was developed in 2007 by the International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), in collaboration with the United Nations Global Compact (http://www.guidetohria.org/guide). 383 See for example “Getting it Right: A step by step guide to assess the impact of foreign investments on human Rights” developed by Rights & Democracy in November 2008. 384 On this issue, see (Ruggie 2011; De Schutter 2009d; De Schutter 2009e).

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and from placing the state “at the centre of the emancipatory promise” (Kennedy 2002, 113). Indeed, with the massive entry of development and human rights actors in the relatively new field of economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) advocacy (very different from civil and political rights advocacy), the nature of the relationships with the state is rapidly changing. Activists “enter into more complex relationships with poorcountry governments, sometimes adversarial and sometimes supportive, and they assign responsibility for the failure to fulfill rights to multiple actors, often including powerful governments or international agencies”. ESCR advocates at times oppose and condemn the violating state, at other time attempt to shift responsibility for violations to the international level and onto economic actors. This tension, between invoking the legitimacy of recognized state obligations and the need (implicitly dictated by the ESCR agenda) to “broaden accountability”, shifting from a sole focus on the “violating state” and assigning responsibility to the actors that may create obstacles to the fulfillment of human rights in a global economy, is at the core of right to food (and ESCR) work (Nelson and Dorsey 2008, 172–174). Despite this shift towards a less statist approach, the right to food remains grounded in a social-democratic approach to human rights385. As we saw above, this approach is most clearly associated with the reformist socialist current which led to the formation of European social-democratic parties386. Linked to political traditions of the 19th and 20th centuries, this current accepts the gross inequalities generated by a capitalist market economy and recommends that these inequalities be curbed through the intervention of a liberal democratic state387 (Stammers 1995, 488). The focus on vulnerable groups that is at the heart of the right to food approach is in line with this view. The social-democratic 385

For Stammers, such an approach has been conceptualized by thinkers such as Henry Shue (Shue 1996), Jack Donnelly (Donnelly 2003) and R.J. Vincent (Vincent 1986) in the 1980s. 386 See for example this short history of the right to food proposed by Eide, Krause and Rosas: “It is generally recognized that the cradle of discourse on rights properly speaking can be found in British, French and American thinking in the 17th century. A set of ideals became articulated as a general philosophy about human dignity, equality and freedom in relation to political authorities, reflecting the necessity to constrain the power of authoritarian sovereigns. Gradually, the notion emerged that the people should not be subordinated to anyone except themselves; the sovereignty of the people became a framework for the elaboration of human rights. From then on, ideas developed about the protective function of the State, and its role in promoting the common welfare of people” (Eide, Krause, and Rosas 1995, 25). Also: “By the 1930s, support for a stronger role for the State in regard to social justice was increasing. The advancement of the welfare functions of the State received support from both the US administration under F. Roosevelt, and Western Europe. Lord Beveridge, British Minister of Social Affaires during WWII is credited as being the first politician to conceptualize social security as a way to guarantee basic egalitarian protection to the whole population. The Atlantic Charter, adopted by Roosevelt and Churchill in 1941, seeks to foster collaboration between all nations in the economic field with the object of “securing, for all, improved labor standards, economic advancement, and social security” (Eide, Krause, and Rosas 1995, 27). 387 Shue, for example, advocates for “a back-up arrangement for the failure of so-called national governments” rather than a replacement for the current state system (which he finds unrealistic). His basic idea is that states should have to behave with minimal decency if they want any respect, and that sovereignty should be conditional on the respect of minimal international standards, including the provision of protection for basic rights – “minimal global standards for national institutions” (Shue 1996, 174–175).

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approach seeks to validate economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) while fully recognizing the importance of civil and political rights. It appears to make a break with the “epistemological and methodological individualism” associated with traditional liberal justifications of natural and human rights by premising the idea of human rights on the “vulnerability of individuals in the social world” (Stammers 1995, 491): human rights are required to protect people against potential violations arising from social contexts in which they find themselves (or resulting from the systemic or structural features of social processes). The “highly state centric” nature of the social-democratic approach to human rights has led Stammers to question the extent to which it actually challenges or rather sustains particular forms of power relations (is it or not “subversive”?). Indeed, the approach poses a potential challenge not only to state but also to economic power but fails to adequately contextualize power. As a result, the approach may turn out to be disabling as it fails to target the actual perpetrator of human rights abuses. It may also propel a passive acceptance of state power since human rights problems are only met with statist solutions (Stammers 1995, 507). Marks notes that the preoccupation with state-oriented remedies tends to domesticate potentially radical demands on the social structure and bring with it the demobilization of oppositional activity (Marks 2011, 77). Adding to the emphasis on state actions, is the focus on technical problems and the concentration on causes that can be translated into remedial proposals, or recommendations at the end of reports (Marks 2011, 71–72). In chapter 6, we will analyze how the entry of transnational peasant movements in the global food movement, in the 1990s, influenced conceptual debates on the right to food, which had until then taken place in the relatively closed world of the right to food community. We will discuss how the arrival of peasant movements on the world scene led to a double crisis of legitimacy and representation among right to food activists, since they could no longer defend the rights of peasant communities without factoring in the claims of the social movement organizations which were claiming to represent them.

Part 2 Rights as Contested Frames

5 The Challenges of Using Rights Talk For almost fifty years, sociologists were reluctant to engage in the analysis of rights talk by social movements (Hynes et al. 2010, 811) because of classical sociology’s skepticism toward normative analysis of legal institutions (Short 2009, 93). This changed with Malcolm Waters’ embracing of a “social constructionist view” of rights and his consideration of human rights as an “institution that is specific to cultural and historical context just like any other” (Waters 1996, 593). Following this epistemological turn, the discipline developed theoretical and conceptual tools to study how rights “operate in social practice” (Morris 2006, 11). The analysis of the “mechanisms that translate social phenomena into rights disputes” (Short 2009, 96) became a valid objective of social science research. In chapters 2 and 3, we explored the emergence of “new” categories of human rights from the praxis of peasant movements: the right of peoples to food sovereignty and the rights of peasants. We asked the question of “why, when, how and under what circumstances” (Glucksmann 2006, 61) rights emerged as a social movement demand. We analyzed the creation of these new – yet unrecognized – human rights as a way to challenge global capitalism and neoliberalism. While a number of authors have documented how universal norms are used, appropriated and possibly transformed in local struggles (Cowan, Dembour, and Wilson 2001; Cowan 2006; Merry 2006), we took a reverse approach. Rather than taking recognized human rights as a departure point, we looked at human rights in their pre-codified form. We explored some of the efforts made by Vía Campesina to institutionalize new rights and become involved in the very definition of rights, following in the footsteps of indigenous peoples (Short 2009, 104). In analyzing these new rights, we gave particular attention to normative dimensions and focused quite extensively on the alternative conception of human rights that these new rights appear to rely on. This chapter proposes a more strategic approach and draws on concepts from social movements studies, such as frame analysis, in an effort to identify the dynamic and contested processes at play in rights talk.

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To frame social movement claims as rights presents a number of advantages and can be extremely powerful. Yet, it does not come without constraints. First, contemporary conceptions of human rights are rooted in the “enlightenment era” (Kolben 2008, 453) and liberal streams of thought. The liberal origins of human rights represent a considerable challenge for movements that decide to use rights talk in their struggle against capitalism and neoliberalism. Second, rights-based social change has been conceptualized as a top-down process which insists on stronger laws, responsive legal institutions and accountability mechanisms (Kolben 2008, 477). This insistence on change from the top may be at odds with grassroots mobilization and repertoires of collective action (Tilly 1986), such as protest, that are traditionally deployed by social movements. This chapter examines how Vía Campesina has dealt with these two sets of constraints, in an attempt to keep intact the subversive potential of human rights. The overarching question that runs through this chapter can thus be summarized as “is rights-talk useful? Does it open space for emancipatory activism?” (Elias 2010, 45) This chapter first (5.1) discusses the advantages and limitations of the “rights master frame” (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 619). It then examines the various “framing disputes” and “framing contests” that have formed and transformed the right to food sovereignty, Vía Campesina’s main organizational frame (5.2). Finally, it discusses some of the challenges involved in the institutionalization of new rights (5.3).

5.1 Framing, Political Opportunities and Mobilizing Structures The case has long been made in social movements’ studies that a variety of factors account for the emergence and success of social movements. In their seminal book “Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements”, McAdam, McCarthy and Zald developed the idea that the emergence of a movement essentially depends on three sets of interrelated factors: political opportunities, mobilizing structures and framing processes (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996, 8). If their model has considerably evolved since its elaboration (Contamin 2010), it has exerted a tremendous influence on social movements literature and remains central to apprehending key aspects of social movements research. Political opportunities and movement organizations do not produce sustained social movements. A movement’s ability to develop and mobilize depends on “meaning work”: the production of meaning for constituents, antagonists and bystanders (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 612). The term “frames” has been used to designate such mobilizing ideas and meanings (D. Snow et al. 1986). “Framing” refers to the collective effort of

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groups of people to fashion shared understandings of the world and of themselves (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996, 6). Framing – understood as tapping into/constructing unifying mobilizing structures (Gotham 1999, 341) – has been described as an active, dynamic, and contentious process which involves agency. Framing theory is particularly useful to explore the implications, for social movements’ activists, of formulating claims as rights. In this chapter, we will discuss movement ideologies and strategic decisions, the formation of a collective identity, and changes in the national and international economic, political and social contexts in which the food sovereignty movement has evolved. All these elements influence and are determined by framing (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 614). Collective action frames are constructed in part as movement adherents negotiate a shared understanding of some problematic situation they define as in need of change, make attributions regarding who or what is to blame, articulate an alternative set of arrangements, and urge others to act in concert to affect change. Three “core framing tasks” have been identified: the “diagnostic” dimension, the “prognostic” dimension and the “motivational” dimension (“call to arms”) of frames (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 616–617). Part of the framing exercise is to “undermine the legitimacy of the system” (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996, 8). In chapters 2 and 3, we described the context of emergence of the new right of peoples to food sovereignty and of peasants’ rights as well as efforts by Vía Campesina to identify injustices (appropriation of natural resources, forced rural migration, broken families and traditions, hunger, poverty and despair), victims (people of the land) and culprits (large financial institutions, neoliberal states, agribusiness and other transnational corporations). As we saw, attacks on the legitimacy of the neoliberal food and agricultural system have been a central component of the movement’s food sovereignty (and anti-WTO) frame. Diagnostic work is crucial because it enables “system attributions” (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996, 9): it allows (potential) movement constituents to attribute everyday problems to global and structural mechanisms. System critical framing processes are thus necessary to overcome the “fundamental attribution error” (Ross 1977), the tendency of people to explain their situation as a function of individual deficiencies rather than features of the system. Diagnostic work – or the identification of problems – has considerable implications. It later “constrains the range of reasonable solutions and strategies” (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 616). Prognostic work includes elaborating visions for a different world388 and specific tactics (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 617). It involves the refutation of arguments and solutions advanced by others, as was done very explicitly by Vía Campesina and the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) during the global food crisis of 2007-2008 (no to food aid, no to becoming agricultural entrepreneurs). The prognostic dimension is the primary way in 388

In chapters 2 and 3, we explored the solutions (“what is to be done”) promoted by Vía Campesina (relocalization, repeasantization, autonomy).

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which social movements differ from each other389, including when they share the same diagnosis (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 617). Since the early 1990s, an abundant scientific production has explored how frames are “generated and diffused” (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 612). While initially emphasizing the role of movement entrepreneurs or leaders in framing processes, this literature has come to acknowledge that all social movement participants are actively engaged in framing. This is certainly the approach taken in this chapter.

The Rights Master Frame While most collective action frames are movement-specific or “organizational” – in the sense that they are limited to the interests of a particular group or to a set of related problems —, some frames function as a kind of algorithm that colors and constrains the orientations and activities of other movements. These more generic frames are referred to as “master frames” (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 619). The “rights master frame” is a good example of a collective action frame which has been identified as sufficiently broad in interpretive scope, inclusivity, flexibility and cultural resonance to function as master frame (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 619). The rights master frame was mobilized by the civil rights movement (McAdam 1996; Valocchi 1996) and later adopted by gay and lesbian rights groups (Hull 2001; Plummer 2006). It is prominent in pro-life VS prochoice debates and in struggles over workers’ rights, mothers’ rights and welfare rights (Reese and Newcombe 2003) as well as women’s and migrants’ rights (Elias 2010). As the first part of this dissertation demonstrates, Vía Campesina has amply deployed the rights master frame. The advantages of mobilizing a rights master frame have been well documented. Reference to “universals” (human rights) facilitates the international exportation of claims which can be received by movements with divergent ideological references and who belong to different geographical contexts (Agrikoliansky 2010, 232). It allows social movements to frame claims in a way that does not emphasize particular or sectoral interests. The human rights discourse has achieved “hegemonic status” (Kolben 2008, 451) and is imbued with legitimacy. Human rights offer “possibilities” in the sense that “universals” can be transformed and re-thought, as demonstrated by the successful framing of violence against women as a human rights issue (Elias 2010, 46). Human rights can be used by activists to transform ordinary perceptions of what is just and unjust and to redefine the boundaries between what is normal and unacceptable (Agrikoliansky 2010, 229). Human rights appear to be compatible with moral systems – including dutybased systems – that are centered on concepts other than rights (Renteln 1988, 360). 389

We will explore this further in chapter 6 when going over the conflict that surfaced between the food sovereignty movement and the right to food network.

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Rights allow for a flexible and open master frame (Mooney and Hunt 1996, 179), that facilitates the integration of multiple ideologies. A variety of ideologies can be framed with the concept of rights (Valocchi 1996, 118). A rights master frame also combines easily with other master frames, and therefore allows for the constitution of a very potent multivocal frame. From this perspective, Vía Campesina’s central and primary frame, the right to food sovereignty, can be seen as a very successful organizational frame. It mobilizes the rights master frame but also a number of other master frames, such as the “self-determination” master frame (Stanbridge 2002), the “cultural pluralist”390 and “environmental”391 master frames which have great contemporary resonance (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 619) and the “producer”392 and “agrarian”393 master frames that run through agrarian mobilizations (Mooney and Hunt 1996, 182–183). As a master frame, it hosts a number of ideologies – Marxist, agrarian populist, anarchist, environmentalist – as we saw in chapter 2. It has also managed to articulate claims made by activists across North and South, which is a recognized challenge for movements involved in transnational framing efforts (R. Benford 2011, 83).

Overcoming the Limitations of the Rights Master Frame The human rights framework is associated with a number of constraints. Merry argues that the rights framework has “individualizing” and “Western” implications and may alienate activists from their “own local cultural understandings” (Engle Merry 1997, 32). In her study on gender and migrant rights in Malaysia, Elias identifies a number of limitations imposed by employing a rights master frame. Rights talk tends to be genderblind; it focuses on the public sphere at the risk of ignoring the dynamics and potential violations of women’s rights inside the home; and it overemphasizes the obligations of states towards their own citizens, obliterating transnational issues even though it deploys a universal rhetoric (Elias 2010, 44). As we explored in the chapters 2 and 3, three main conceptual obstacles commonly associated with human rights had to be overcome by Vía Campesina’s rights talk: the 390

This master frame builds on the idea of tolerance and acceptance of different others, combined with the idea that one can maintain a pride in and love for one’s particular ethnic or racial heritage (while maintaining citizenship) (Berbier 1998, 434). 391 This master frame has been used by the environmental justice movement (R. Benford 2005). 392 According to this master frame, conceptualized by Theodore Mitchell in 1987, all rewards of agricultural production should accrue to the direct producers (Mooney and Hunt 1996, 182). 393 According to the authors, the ideology of agrarianism claims that, when organized around independent ownership, the sphere of agricultural production is the source and preserve of equality, freedom, democracy, and strong family (Mooney and Hunt 1996, 183). A number of various agrarian master frames derive from this ideology.

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dominance of a Western, liberal and individualist conception of rights (Donnelly 1982, 311); state-centrism and the inability of international human rights law to adequately address the responsibilities of (increasingly threatening) private and transnational actors; and the fundamentally liberal394 character of human rights regimes and the resulting emphasis on economic liberty – understood as individual appropriation of, access to and control over economic resources – at the expense of equality of outcome/welfare (Charvet and Kaczynska-Nay 2008, 11–12). In order to deploy a rights master frame that serves the movement’s goals, resonates with activists’ worldviews and encourages them to take action, Vía Campesina activists had to develop an alternative conception of rights that emphasizes the collective dimension – generally termed as community or peoples – of claims over the individual one; that targets the various levels where food and agricultural governance issues ought to be deliberated, from the local, national, regional to the international; and that provides the tools to fight neoliberalism and capitalism in agriculture. In doing so, the challenge has been to tweak the movement’s rights master frame (and all other associated organizational frames) just enough to overcome the limitations asssociated with rights talk without jeopardizing the legitimacy and other advantages of the rights master frame. In addition, rights have presented Vía Campesina with three strategic challenges. First, the human rights framework is heavily associated with strong and responsible (national) institutional and legal frameworks (Kolben 2008, 477) as well as with encouraging the ability of citizens to claim their rights395 through effective accountability mechanisms. It relies on top-down social change. Second, the level of expertise required in order to deploy human rights arguments is such that human rights have more often than not been defended by human rights lawyers (Riles 2006), not by average citizens. The prominent role of human rights experts and the associated tendency to solve conflicts in specialized arenas run the risk of undermining social movements’ efforts to organize and mobilize. Third, human rights claims tend to be constructed in ways that demand their institutional instantiation. In other words, “non-institutional activism has historically demanded the institutionalization of human rights” (Stammers 2009, 106). The institutionalization of human rights claims may considerably hinder the subversive potential of human rights, as we will discuss below. In this chapter, we explore the various processes involved in the making of Vía Campesina’s organizational frames. As will become apparent, both conceptual and strategic factors appear to have played a role in the elaboration of the movement’s various frames.

394

Liberalism can be defined as a project that “promote social outcomes that are, as far as possible, the result of free individual choices, provided that such choices respect equal freedom and the rights of others” (Charvet and Kaczynska-Nay 2008, 2). 395 As we saw in chapter 4 when we discussed rights-based approaches to development.

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5.1.1 Vía Campesina’s Organizational Frames Frames are built using available cultural toolkits (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 629). They are not disconnected from the social, cultural and political environments in which they emerge. Looking at the right to food sovereignty as Vía Campesina’s central organizational frame, we can identify a first period of “frame formulation” from the mid1980s to the early 1990s. This initial framing was largely “intuitive”. As has been noted for other movements, it is only later that frames become shaped by strategic decisions and contests with interlocutors (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996, 16). As we saw in chapter 2, the right to food sovereignty frame initially tapped into dormant Marxist, anti-imperialist, and anti-colonialist frames. It also reactivated – or amplified396 – the “self-determination” frame397. Some time in the mid-1990s, following its international “diffusion” – a process which appears to have taken place quite organically and rapidly within Vía Campesina members —, the right to food sovereignty became the reference frame of Vía Campesina. From then on, it underwent a process of further “elaboration/articulation”; it was continuously reconstituted during movement interactions (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 623), essentially through exchanges and interactions between movement activists. Fifteen years later, discussions among activists about what is (the right to) food sovereignty, its definition, and how it should be implemented are still commonplace. Such discussions reflect that engaging in framing work is an active part of belonging to a social movement. As the right to food sovereignty frame evolved in the face of new international events, new strategies, new members, new adversaries and new or receding political opportunities, it needed to be re-elaborated and appropriated by movement activists. Meaning work also played an important role in the construction of a collective identity, as we will develop below.

Expansion of the Right to Food Sovereignty Frame Looking at the features of the right to food sovereignty frame in 2010, it is striking that it has considerably “expanded”. The original focus of food sovereignty as a right was on bringing an end to dumping, revamping international trade rules, and ensuring tariff 396

“Frame amplification” designates attempts by activists to invigorate existing values or beliefs (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 624). 397 Mooney and Hunt use the term “repertoires of interpretations” to highlight that movements interpret and reconstruct existing systems of meanings. They contend that such repertoires can draw on several frames and that ideological themes persist between movements over time. Ideologies might lead an underground existence, survive and re-emerge in what they call “abeyance processes” (Mooney and Hunt 1996, 179).

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protection for agricultural products. The WTO, and later the US and the EU in the framework of bilateral trade agreements, constituted the main targets of peasant movement mobilizations, certainly at the international level. Food sovereignty statements mostly described the negative impacts of trade liberalization in agriculture on the ability of peasants to earn a living but also on the environment, on food quality and security and on nutrition, etc. In this initial stage, the right to food sovereignty mostly developed in response and opposition to the dominant “food security” frame, but also to the preexisting “right to food” frame, as we will explore below. Over the years, the right to food sovereignty frame has expanded in scope, to include dimensions such as access to natural productive resources, local knowledge, local markets, cultural identity, remunerative prices, territory, etc. Although most of these dimensions have been present from the beginning, their integration into the right to food sovereignty frame has been made more explicit over the years. In the same years, the food sovereignty frame has diffused to new geographic regions, including Africa. As it is being exported to new regions, the food sovereignty frame takes on new meanings. The selection and adaptation of frames to other contexts, a direct result of frame diffusion processes, have been well documented (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 627). Today, the (right to) food sovereignty frame covers a large range of problems (including modes of production, access to resources, trade, gender, youth, repression, cultural dimensions). As the six pillars398 of the 2007 Nyeleni Declaration illustrate, it is extremely elastic and open, and it is broad in scope. If it remains extremely potent and popular, it nevertheless appears to be at crossroads.

Emerging Competing Frames: the Peasants’ Rights and Reclaiming Control Frames The process of “frame extension” designates efforts by movement activists to depict social movement interests and frames as extending beyond its primary interests (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 625). The extension of the right to food sovereignty frame has been largely successful. Food sovereignty has been promoted by Vía Campesina as a societal project that does not defend the interests of specific groups only (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 618), largely as a result of strategic efforts by the movement to gain the support of other constituencies. The right to food sovereignty frame has been endorsed by a large number of development and environmental NGOs, but also state actors, as we discussed in chapters 1 and 2.

398

Food sovereignty focuses on Food for people (1), Values Food Providers (2), Localizes Food Systems (3), Puts Control Locally (4), Builds Knowledge and Skills (5), Works with Nature (6) (Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum 2007a).

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However, this successful extension has also brought challenges, such as the risk of cooptation by dominant actors and the risk of dilution induced by its massive endorsement by – less radical – actors within the global food movement. This double risk has forced Vía Campesina activists to better articulate their right to food sovereignty frame, which has proven difficult to some extent. Indeed, if the movement has made good use of the openness of the food sovereignty concept to integrate new dimensions that are relevant to society as a whole, it has left certain fundamental issues unaddressed or at least relatively unexplored. Is food sovereignty enough to tackle world problems such as hunger, malnutrition, and access to food aid for populations in need? How should global governance of food and agriculture be organized? Issues such as market regulation mechanisms (supply management, commodities agreements), the regulation of transnational companies, and the regulation and nature of agricultural investments have been little discussed. In particular, the fact that many developing countries are heavily dependent both on agroexport as a source of much needed government revenue to finance external debt, social services or infrastructures, and on food imports to feed their population and will remain so during a inescapably long transition period is often unaccounted for. Probably the most contentious point in the development of food sovereignty alternatives is the issue of small farmers’ access to or incorporation into (depending on how you look at it) globally supply chains, and on what terms. Connected to this debate is the assessment of the positive and negative impacts of contract farming and outgrower schemes, on the rural population. Some argue that such arrangements provide women with interesting employment opportunities and more autonomy, and bring necessary investment, while others, such as Vía Campesina, generally denounce the unfair sharing of risks and costs and, precisely, the loss of autonomy (despite the fact that many Vía Campesina farmers are contract farmers). Without entering in the complexities of such issues, I raise them here to highlight the apparent lack of sufficient discussion and research within Vía Campesina on these issues, leading to an almost complete absence of concrete proposals. Because of this, some food sovereignty activists feel concerned that their proposal (food sovereignty) may appear to the outside world as inconsistent, utopian or driven by the peasant agenda. Over recent years, the successful extension and attached societal relevance of the right to food sovereignty frame have been threatened by the emergence of two competing frames. On one hand, the peasants’ rights frame has come to occupy an important segment of the rights master frame. Although the peasants’ rights frame is still relatively weak and appears to face “diffusion” and “resonance” challenges, as we will explore below, its insistence on the “recognition” dimension of peasant claims makes it a potentially powerful vector for building a collective identity. Yet the peasants’ rights frame relies on an essentialist rhetoric that may be at odds with movement’s efforts to build alliances with other rural constituencies and gather the support of urban populations.

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On the other hand, the right to food sovereignty appears to have come in conflict with an increasingly potent competing frame, which we will term the reclaiming control frame. If considerable attention was given, in the first part of this dissertation, to the various rightsbased frames that circulate within Vía Campesina, we also alluded to, in particular in chapter 3, to the emergence of an increasingly strong and appealing “control” or “localist” frame. This frame, grounded in the resistance to the capitalist appropriation of resources and the incorporation of peasants into markets, emphasizes the anchoring of food production and consumption in the local, social, cultural and historical; the autonomy of production patterns (and consumption choices); and the control over land and territories and natural productive resources. The reclaiming control frame is developing within a from below master frame, that we will describe in greater detail below. In the period of relevance to this research, mostly 1996-2012, a number of contentious processes took place that help explain the making of and the evolution of the right to food sovereignty frame. In the next section, we will explore such processes as they unfolded both within the movement and in interaction with the outside world. The analysis of these various contentious processes will enable us to assess the subversive potential of Vía Campesina’s organizational frames, and the extent to which they draw, or not, on the advantages of the rights master frame and manage to overcome its limitations. All in all, we will look at the interactions between five frames. Three of these frames have been generated and are deployed by Vía Campesina but not exclusively: the right to food sovereignty frame, the peasants’ rights frame and the reclaiming control frame. Two additional frames will be discussed, for they are used by actors outside the transnational agrarian movement and enter in tension with Vía Campesina’s main frames: the right to food frame and the food security frame. Table 4 below presents the main characteristics of these five frames and in particular some of the ideologies399 that are attached to each.

399

For a theoretical perspective on frames and ideologies, see (Contamin 2010, 75). On why it is important to “pair” frames and ideologies, see (Valocchi 1996, 117). While an in-depth discussion on frames and ideologies is beyond the scope of this paper, it is important to note that frames must resonate with the movement ideology(ies); that ideologies are the basis for chosing frames (Valocchi 1996, 117); and that frames are derived from ideologies (Valocchi 1996, 120). Master frames (as developed in Snow and Benford 1992) seek to capture both ideology and frame.

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Frame

Master Frame

Actor

Ideology

(1) Diagnosis; (2) Prognosis; (3) Motivational

Right to Food Sovereignty

Rights Master Frame

Vía Campesina (and Food Sovereignty movement)

Marxism, anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, anti-neoliberalism

(1) Critique of neoliberalism; (2) Relocalization, NorthSouth solidarity, policies that value food producers; (3) Anti-WTO

Peasants’ Rights

Rights Master Frame

Vía Campesina

Anti-capitalism, agrarian populism

(1) Critique of capitalism; (2) Repeasantization, autonomy, dignity; (3) Recognition and collective identity building

Reclaiming Control

From Below Master Frame

Vía Campesina (and Food Sovereignty movement)

Feminism, environmentalism, cultural pluralism (post-modernism), anarchism

(1) Appropriation of resources; (2) Control over land and territories, defensive strategies; (3) Alternative local food sovereignty practices

Right to Food

Rights Master Frame

Transnational Right to Food Network

Liberalism, social liberalism, social democracy

(1) Injustice, suffering, hunger; (2) Public action; (3) Indignation, solidarity with victims of violations

Development NGOs, UN and international organizations

Capitalism, reformism

(1) Lack of production and global trade; (2) Need to increase productivity and liberalize exchanges in food products

Food Security

Table 4 - Characteristics of the Main Global Food Movement’s Frames

5.2 Frames as Contested Processes Frames are made through discursive processes, strategic processes and contested processes (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 624–625). Discursive processes refer to the talk and conversations and written communications of movement members that occur primarily in the context of movement activities. Such processes were given considerable emphasis in chapters 2 and 3. Strategic processes refer to the development and deployment of frames to achieve a specific purpose: to recruit new members, to mobilize

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adherents, to acquire resources, and so forth. In this section, we will mostly look at frames as contested processes400. All actors within the collective action arena who engage in this reality construction work are embroiled in the “politics of signification”. This means that activists are not able to construct and impose on their intended targets any version of reality they would like. Rather, there are a variety of challenges confronting all those who engage in movement framing activities. Thus far the literature elaborates on three forms these challenges tend to take: counter-framing by movement opponents, bystanders, and the media; frame disputes within movements; and the dialectics between frames and events. Frame “contests” take place between a movement and any kind of actor that is external to the movement: other social movements, NGOs, international organizations, states or the private sector. Frame “disputes” take place within a social movement. They can occur between various competing master frames or within the same master frame. Perceived or seized political opportunity structures (such as international or local events) also have a direct influence on framing (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 625).. In the case of Vía Campesina, two major frame contests can be identified. The first contest opposed the right to food sovereignty frame to the food security frame401. The latter has been deployed, with some internal variations, by a wide range of mainstream NGOs, international organizations, states and to some extent, the corporate sector. The second contest opposed the right to food sovereignty frame to the right to food frame, this time taking place within the rights master frame and within the so-called global food movement. This contest opposed social movements to human rights and emerging rightsbased development NGOs. In addition, Vía Campesina has faced two internal frame disputes: one opposing the right to food sovereignty frame to the peasants’ rights frame within the rights master frame; and one opposing the right to food sovereignty frame to the reclaiming control frame, or in other terms, the rights master frame to the from below master frame. Table 5 below identifies the main challenges that Vía Campesina has been confronted with in its framing activities. In the next section, we will develop each of these in detail and highlight the influence that strategic decisions and various global events have had on the outcome of these contests and disputes. 400

Whilst all Vía Campesina activists play an active role in discourse processes, the influence of leaders appears to be considerable in the elaboration of strategies and the resolution of frame disputes. 401 Following Eric Holt-Giménez, we could argue that this contest took place between food sovereignty and both food security (understood as a reformist concept in its politics, and as applying to development/aid in its orientation) and food enterprise (understood as a neoliberal concept in its politics, and as applying to corporate/global market in its orientation) (Holt-Giménez 2011, 117). For the sake of simplicity, I limit my analysis of the frame contest to food security.

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Within the Rights Master Frame

Between the Rights Master Frame and other Master Frames

Between Vía Campesina and other actors (frame contests)

Right to Food Sovereignty vs. Right to Food (5.2.2)

Right to Food Sovereignty vs. Food Security (5.2.1)

Within Vía Campesina (frame disputes)

Right to Food Sovereignty vs. Peasants’ Rights (5.2.4)

Right to Food Sovereignty vs. Reclaiming Control (5.2.3)

Table 5 - Vía Campesina’s Frame Contests and Frame Disputes

5.2.1 Right to Food Sovereignty vs. Food Security Most of the academic literature on Vía Campesina acknowledges the existence of a frame contest between food sovereignty and food security (Fairbairn 2011) although not necessarily grounding such a contest in frame analysis. Some observers describe a struggle between two models of economic, social, and cultural development for the rural world (Rosset and Martinez 2010, 168). Others “contrast” food sovereignty with its more widely known counterpart – food security (Patel 2007, 89). Since the mid-1990s, Vía Campesina has been actively engaged in what Benford has termed “counter-framing” (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 626): it has actively deployed the right to food sovereignty frame in response and opposition to the dominant food security frame.

The Cooptation Risk In this battle against the food security frame, Vía Campesina had to counteract the distorted use of the food sovereignty frame by dominant actors. France’s president Jacques Chirac, for example, toured a number of African countries in February 2005 and called for a reorientation of agricultural development along the lines of food sovereignty. The use of the term food sovereignty implied special treatment for agriculture in trade debates, respect for local traditions and the need to take into account the development levels of each country. However, the French President came out in defense of the EU’s farm policies (despite their impacts on smallholder agriculture in the EU and elsewhere), which prompted an immediate reaction from the food sovereignty movement (GRAIN

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2005a). This “protectionist” recuperation of the food sovereignty frame402, of which there have been quite a number of examples, led Vía Campesina to insist that they were not against trade. This is certainly the point made by Fabienne403, a peasant woman who grows vegetables in the Saône-et-Loire department and is responsible for the international commission of the Confédération paysanne: “Food sovereignty can open the door to conservative forces, to autarchy. But we are not against exchanges. We are for exchanges, exchanges that respect us”404. Many activists in the food sovereignty movement felt that, to keep the concept from being coopted, it was essential to better define it. African peasant leader Ibrahim Coulibaly from ROPPA argues: “Instead of talking about food sovereignty, we should concretely say what it means, which instruments it requires. A minister can say that he is for food sovereignty and be for agribusiness”405. The counterexample of sustainable development was mentioned in several interviews: “food sovereignty, in order to keep its mobilizing potential, should not get diluted like it happened for sustainable development”406.

The Dilution Risk Meanwhile, the considerable appeal or resonance of the food sovereignty frame, as an alternative to the food security frame, brought an additional challenge for Vía Campesina. As we highlighted in our mapping of the major actors involved in the global food movement in chapter 1, a large number of actors in the global food movement gradually abandoned reference to the food security frame to embrace a food sovereignty frame instead. This adoption of food sovereignty by a wide range of development NGOs, environmental groups, and academics – adding to its adoption by governments – resulted in a myriad of interpretations, some more reformist than transformational407, or emphasizing good local food but no structural changes, some totally protectionist. In the North in particular, a growing number of groups, Vía Campesina leader Paul Nicholson complains, came to understand food sovereignty as meaning nothing more than “eating well and local”408. The successful extension of the food sovereignty frame brought a mix 402

And its uncomfortable promiscuity with the positions adopted on international trade and globalization by right-wing political parties, such as the Front National in France. 403 Name changed. 404 “La souveraineté alimentaire ça peut ouvrir la porte à des forces conservatrices, à l’autarcie. Mais on n’est pas contre les échanges. On est pour d’autres échanges, des échanges qui nous respectent” (interview, 7 January 2009). 405 “Au lieu de parler de souveraineté alimentaire, on devrait dire concrètement ce que ça veut dire, quels instruments ça nécessite. Un ministre peut dire “je suis pour la souveraineté alimentaire” et être pour l’agribusiness” (Ibrahim Coulibaly, ROPPA, at seminar organized by the Collectif Stratégies Alimentaires (CSA) on “The Need to Regulate Agricultural Markets”, Brussels, 4-5 May 2009). 406 “la souveraineté alimentaire, pour rester mobilisatrice, ne doit pas être diluée comme l’a été le développement durable” (Choplin 2008). 407 For more on this distinction, see (Holt-Giménez (ed.) 2010). 408 Interview, 6 January 2009.

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of opportunities and threats or at least frustrations, when it comes to content. Jean from ECVC explains: “From 2002 onwards, food sovereignty became fashionable and hence a source of funding for development NGOs. We were more and more involved as partners, as some kind of guarantee for development. This was positive for us because it brought us funding. And negative because they were always coming to us quite late in the process”409. The diversity of interpretations of the food sovereignty frame led Vía Campesina members to attempt to come up with a steady definition of the right to food sovereignty. But in their endeavor, activists were constantly struggling with the fact that the concept had developed a life of its own. To some extent, the success of the food sovereignty frame had a disappropriating effect, as expressed by this Austrian farmer member of the ECVC: “Food sovereignty, it works better with NGOs and environmentalists than with our own farmers”410. Activists felt the need to elaborate some kind of repatriation strategy. A French peasant from the Confédération paysanne raised the issue at the 2010 general assembly in Montreuil: “How can we connect the small peasants who don’t hear us to the non-peasants who hear us?”411

Towards a Fixed Definition of the Right to Food Sovereignty? Interestingly, the food security vs. food sovereignty frame contest did not lead to a fixed or limited definition of the right to food sovereignty frame. To the contrary, Vía Campesina constantly integrated new dimensions into the food sovereignty frame in what appears to have been, so far, a successful way to avoid both its assimilation by dominant actors and its dilution by less radical fractions of the global food movement. Another factor helps understand the “expansion” of the right to food sovereignty frame: the arrival of new issues on the international agenda. It is well known that international institutions and their discourse shape the critique that is produced by social movements (Agrikoliansky 2010, 123). It is therefore not surprising that the contours of the food security vs. food sovereignty frame contest evolved over time, as the food security frame itself adjusted to new international events. The most striking example of this, and the most recent, is probably the global food crisis of 2007-08. The crisis was seized by the institutions gathered in the High Level Task Force as an opportunity to transform the food security frame and make it more integrative of the concerns of “smallholder farmers”. In response to this new emphasis on the figure 409

“A partir de 2002, la souveraineté alimentaire est devenue à la mode et donc une source de financement pour les ONGs de développement. On a été de plus en plus impliqués comme partenaires, comme caution du développement. Cela a été positif car cela nous a amené des fonds. Et négatif car on vient nous chercher tard dans le processus” (interview, 2 June 2009). 410 Farmer from Austria, at workshop on the Right to Food Sovereignty and Trade organized by the Confédération paysanne for European organizations of Vía Campesina, Paris, 7 and 8 January 2009. 411 “Comment rattacher les petits paysans qui ne nous entendent pas aux non-paysans qui nous entendent?” (peasant, Confédération paysanne, General Assembly, Montreuil, 4 may 2010).

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of the agricultural entrepreneur, Vía Campesina has reinforced a specific aspect of the prognosis associated with the food sovereignty frame i.e. the reference to agroecology as a mode of production able to feed the planet. In addition, and in response to international debates on how to deal with climate change, Vía Campesina has defended the ability of small producers to cool the planet. In section 5.3, we will link the implications of the expansion of the right to food sovereignty as a frame to the challenges related to the institutionalization of the (still to be defined) right to food sovereignty as a new human right.

5.2.2 Right to Food Sovereignty vs. Right to Food Less documented but, I would argue, of considerable importance, is the frame contest that raged, mostly in the 1996-2004 period, between the right to food sovereignty frame and the right to food frame. This contest was particularly intense and difficult because it took place between actors who were engaged together in the global food movement and grossly sharing the same goals412. The fact that contestants were sharing the rights master frame and were, in fact, fighting over the very definition, use and interpretation of this master frame made this contest quite painful for all parties. To some extent, the right to food sovereignty vs. right to food frame contest can be interpreted as a struggle between peoples’ organizations and NGOs over legitimacy and representation, as we will see in the next chapter413. This interpretation is certainly valid for the initial period of the contest, during which the right to food (and for the most part the food security) frames were deployed by NGOs whilst the right to food sovereignty frame was deployed exclusively by rising peasant movements. Later on, as a good number of environmental and development NGOs shifted to the food sovereignty frame, it became impossible to associate one frame with NGOs and the other with peoples’ movements414. 412 It should be highlighted here that this contest took place in the same years as the food sovereignty vs. food security frame contest and that both right to food defenders and food sovereignty activists were simultaneously engaged in counter-framing vis-à-vis food security. 413 The divide between people’s organizations and NGOs will be further addressed in chapter 6, in which I will discuss issues of representation, legitimacy. This divide is also linked to different approaches to defining positions and building consensus (McKeon 2009, 54). 414 It is interesting to note that one of the effects of the food sovereignty vs. food security and food sovereignty vs. right to food contests was that global food movement actors had little choice but to adopt one of the three available frames – right to food sovereignty, right to food, or food security – as their reference or organizational frame. In many cases, this strategic choice led to intense internal debates, although most organizations and movements in practice combined or used a mix of the different frames. Only a limited number of actors refrained from adopting either of these three frames as their organizational frame. An excellent counter-example is provided by Oxfam International which, despite deploying a rights master frame, nevertheless elaborated a brand new “food justice” frame because internal disagreement did not

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Past that initial stage, the right to food vs. right to food sovereignty contest really was about which conditions best enable a subversive use of rights talk and of rights-based strategies. We will develop this argument in the next chapter, where we will show that the right to food vs. right to food sovereignty contest is intimately linked to the creation of new rights by Vía Campesina415. As Gustavo416, a Mexican indigenous leader member of the Union of Indigenous Communities in the Northern Zone of the Isthmus (UCIZONI, which is not a Vía Campesina member organization) eloquently put it: “We converted the right to food into food sovereignty”417. Both the right to food and the right to food sovereignty frames came out reinforced, profoundly transformed and somewhat broadened from this contest. As we will see, the confrontation between these two frames was, for the most part, about radically distinct approaches to the state, to institutions and to change from above, and about different conceptions of human rights. The right to food vs. food sovereignty is worth exploring because it sheds light on the reasons why the right to food frame failed to be picked up by peasant movements. It also provides useful hints to understand why the right to food community has, since the early 2000s, supported the recognition of new rights for peasants whilst it had denied its support to the right to food sovereignty.

5.2.3 Right to Food Sovereignty vs. Reclaiming Control Vía Campesina’s decision not to pursue the institutionalization of the right to food sovereignty at the international level is the outcome of intense internal debates over the pros and cons of institutionalization, and over where, how, and when institutionalization should be pursued. A movement’s range of possible strategic choices is highly constrained by framing in the sense that strategic orientations need to align with the movement’s most resonant and motivational frames418. In this section, we describe the provide the conditions for the organization to adopt either the right to food or the right to food sovereignty frames. The creation of a new organizational frame is a direct result of frame contests that were, for the most part, raging outside of the Oxfam International network. 415 In a later stage of its diffusion and appropriation by movement activists, somewhere in the mid-90s, the right to food sovereignty came in contact (and soon entered in conflict) with the – codified and recognized – human right to food, a concept that was mostly pushed by human rights experts and NGOs at the time. Hence the right to food sovereignty did not only develop in reaction to “its more widely known counterpart – food security” (Patel 2007, 89). It also developed, to some extent, as an alternative and in opposition to the human right to food, which the food sovereignty movement has always regarded with some ambivalence: both as fundamental and insufficient. 416 Name changed. 417 “El derecho a la alimentación lo hemos convertido en soberanía alimentaria” (interview, 19 September 2008). 418 At the same time, the making of frames is strongly influenced by a movement’s strategic orientations. This is developed further below.

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tension that is palpable within Vía Campesina between the right to food sovereignty frame and what I have called the reclaiming control frame. In broad terms, this tension can be analyzed as a dispute between the rights master frame (from above) and the increasingly resonant from below master frame. The objective of this section is to assess the impacts of this dispute on the evolution of the right to food sovereignty frame, and to lay the ground for understanding the debate that took place, within Vía Campesina, on the institutionalization of the right to food sovereignty.

The From Below Master Frame The contours of what I have called the from below master frame are hard to trace419. This master frame manifests itself in conjunction with a number of different ideological currents, such as subaltern cosmopolitanism, postmodernism, and third-world feminism. It emphasizes the “collective agency of subaltern social groups” (Nilsen and Cox 2011, 2) struggling against exploitation and oppression. It focuses on resistance and on grassroots processes, a good example of this being the term “globalization from below”, first coined by Falk (Falk 1997) but also used by Appadurai420 (Appadurai 2000, 3). This master frame emphasizes “the way of subjectivity” and the importance of “experience” (Pleyers 2010, 35). The from below master frame has been powerfully deployed by indigenous groups such as the Zapatistas in Mexico, in order to insist that their struggle was not about seizing power. It has been outlined by Marxist thinker Holloway as the belief that capitalism should be fought in the cracks, not by alternatives that mimic the system: “The cracks begin with a No, from which there grows a dignity, a negation-and-creation”(Holloway 2010, 17); “The cracks are always questions, not answers” (Holloway 2010, 20). The from below master frame seeks to give voice to the “subaltern” (Santos and RodríguezGaravito 2005, 14, 39), a term which is derived from the work of the Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci, and later entered postcolonial studies421. Applied to international law422, this master frame emphasizes the “lived experience of ordinary people” rather than the role of the elites (Rajagopal 2003, xiii), notably in “building and defining the norms for coexistence, including individual and collective rights and obligations” (GRAIN 2007).

419

Various frames can be attached to the “from below” master frame. For example, the “community” frame (Gotham 1999, 333) – has been efficiently deployed in urban settings (in particular in the case of defended neighborhoods) in order to tap into “peoples’ identification with place as a response to outside threats” (Gotham 1999, 332). 420 Appadurai also uses the term “grassroots globalization” or “on behalf of the poor” (Appadurai 2000, 3). 421 In postcolonialism and related fields, subaltern refers to persons socially, politically, and geographically outside of the hegemonic power structure. 422 For an initiation to third world approaches to international law (TWAIL), which are a good illustration of this, see (Rajagopal 2003).

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The Reclaiming Control Frame “We will fight against the corporate control of the food chain by reclaiming control over our territories, production, markets and the ways we use food. ( …) We will promote ecological production (agroecology, pastoralism, artisanal fisheries etc.) as a direct strategy against transnational corporations” (Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum 2007a). At the heart of the reclaiming control frame is reliance on grassroots organizing and mistrust in the capacity of the state and of institutional frameworks to bring social change. The “control” frame highlights alternative “practices” at the local level and building another world from the bottom up: “As a general principle, Food Sovereignty is built on the basis of our concrete local experiences, in other words, from the local to the national”423 (Vía Campesina 2008g). A growing number of initiatives that take place within the Vía Campesina network resonate with this reclaiming control frame, be it agroecological practices, direct marketing or indigenous control over land and territories. Agroecology, which has a strong appeal for many peasant groups (Rosset 2011; HoltGiménez (ed.) 2010; Altieri, Funes-Monzote, and Petersen 2011), is increasingly described as food sovereignty in practice. Rather than wasting time debating institutionally focused strategies for structural changes, many activists, such as Steven, a Vía Campesina support staff based in Latin America, insist that “there is a ruthless war going on”424 and that this battle is being fought on the ground. Steven, participating to the consultation on agroecology convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food in 2010, describes agroecology as a “tool for the collective transformation of reality”425. For this other participant from SPI in Indonesia, agroecology is “a way to escape the economic system in which everything is captured by private actors”426. Contrary to the organic movement, agroecology is “not cooptable”, and “it can’t be taken over by private

423

The full statement reads: “Food Sovereignty requires the protection and re-nationalization of national food markets, the promotion of local circuits of production and consumption, the struggle for land, the defense of the territories of indigenous peoples, and comprehensive agrarian reform. It is also based on the transformation the production model toward agro-ecological and sustainable farming, without pesticides and without GMOs, based on the knowledge of peasants, family farmers and indigenous peoples. As a general principle, Food Sovereignty is built on the basis of our concrete local experiences, in other words, from the local to the national” (Vía Campesina 2008g). 424 Member of Vía Campesina, reacting to the question of whether agroecology and industrial agriculture can coexist, at consultation convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Agroecology, Brussels, 21-22 June 2010. 425 Member of Vía Campesina, at consultation convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Agroecology, Brussels, 21-22 June 2010. 426 Member of Vía Campesina, at consultation convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Agroecology, Brussels, 21-22 June 2010.

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actors”427. Yet, according to Steven, efforts need to be made to “embed agroecology in the food sovereignty concept”428. In the North, the reclaiming control frame finds expressions in the growing number of initiatives seeking to develop producer-consumer connections and encourage “critical consumption” (Pleyers 2011). As well put by this peasant of the Confédération paysanne in France: “How to regain possession of our territories? Occupy space? This is what this is about”429. The reclaiming control frame also has strong resonance for a number of new alternative farmers who tend to be ex-urbanites wishing to return to the land, both in Europe and North America. In Mexico, claims formulated within the reclaiming control frame crystallize around the “right to resist” and the right to land and territory, in a context marked by an increase in land occupations, in environmental struggles (mining, dams, transgenic crops) and in the number of “autonomous municipalities” (municipios autonomos)430. For Gustavo, a Mexican indigenous leader, food sovereignty understood as local autonomy and selfsufficiency is what enables resistance431. In a world that appears increasingly apocalyptic, what Gustavo describes as the “Noah’s Ark” strategy has a strong appeal: “when all the seeds, the waters, the soils will be contaminated, we will turn to little islands of local solutions” 432. Groups engaged in agroecological practices in the South and alternative farming networks in the North share a level of mistrust in government support and institutions, and a preference for “subpolitical” action433. The same goes for “neo-rural farmers” in France, whose political culture is at odds with that of activists from the Confédération paysanne. Different views on how to organize and mobilize make it difficult for French Vía Campesina members to relate to those they refer to as “atypical”, or nonconforming, as many of them expressed during their 2010 general assembly: “They are in their little world and don’t really need to militate” 434; “But are they not meant to organize?”435; “Is small, organic, localized agriculture going to manage on its own just because it is 427

Academic, University of Berkley, at consultation convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Agroecology, Brussels, 21-22 June 2010. This academic also argued that: “Agroecology is the scientific basis for food sovereignty, but also energy sovereignty and technological sovereignty. In the South, we have everything to make it happen: germplasm, land, social movements”. 428 Member of Vía Campesina, at consultation convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Agroecology, Brussels, 21-22 June 2010. 429 “Comment se réapproprier nos territoires? Occuper l’espace? C’est de cela qu’il s’agit” (peasant, Confédération paysanne, General Assembly, Montreuil, 4 may 2010). 430 I am grateful to Luis Hernández Navarro for pointing this out. 431 Interview, 19 September 2008. 432 Interview, 19 September 2008. 433 In the sense suggested by Beck. See: Beck. 1997. The Reinvention of Politics. Rethinking Modernity in the Global Social Order. Polity Press. Cambridge, UK. Cited in (De Munck 2011, 304–305). 434 “Les atypiques sont dans leur petit monde et n’ont pas vraiment besoin de militer” (peasant, Confédération paysanne, General Assembly, Montreuil, 4 may 2010). 435 “Mais est-ce que l’atypique n’a pas vocation à s’organiser?” (peasant, Confédération paysanne, General Assembly, Montreuil, 4 may 2010).

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localized?”436 Mistrust of government is also very strong among numerous indigenous groups in the South. Francisco437, an indigenous Vía Campesina leader from CUC in Guatemala, explains that disagreements over strategy issues and, in particular, on how to engage with the government in the post-Peace Accords era, led to a profound split within civil society: “We have chosen another strategy, the defense of the territory (….) We need to pressure the state so that it respects the peace agreements. But the state has become a seller of natural resources”438. “We don’t want more roundtables”439, he adds. Echoing these perceptions but on the other side of the planet, Vía Campesina activists from SPI in Indonesia explain that there are a few places in the world where food sovereignty is being implemented: “Yes, in Bogor, and also in Chiang Mai, Thailand. In Bogor440, we use local knowledge, we do farming with what you want, not what the government is telling you, we use our own seeds, we sell directly to consumers”441. Describing the agroecological movement, Paul442, a FIAN activist based at the international secretariat in Germany, argues: “this movement has a mentality of pioneers, they don’t work on political change, they only want change from below. They are anarchists a little…”443. If it is clearly anti-institutional, the “from below” master frame is also, in some places, about rejecting the human rights rhetoric. Questions over the very value of deploying a rights master frame to support local struggles have been raised by groups such as GRAIN, and appear to have had increased resonance in the global food movement over the past years. According to GRAIN, the rights master frame is not only ineffective to “defend from corporate control the ways of life that people themselves have defined”, it is also damaging. Social organizations and NGOs that have attempted to advance certain rights have “ended up causing confusion and divisions, and even harming the very interests and welfare of those claiming the rights”. For GRAIN, rights regimes have forced many peoples, especially indigenous peoples, to “define according to alien values some fundamental aspects of their identity and way of life, such as their art, their medicinal and agricultural knowledge, their tenure systems and so on” and have contributed to the increased inequity and the loss of sovereignty and dignity”. Moreover, “the very concept of rights is being used to impose and expand neoliberalism” and actions that were previously considered natural and taken for granted – such as keeping, reproducing and

436

“La petite agriculture ecolo, bio, localisée, est-ce qu’elle va se débrouiller tout seul sous prétexte qu’elle est localisée?” (peasant, Confédération paysanne, General Assembly, Montreuil, 4 may 2010). 437 Name changed. 438 Interview, 2 September 2009. 439 Interview, 2 September 2009. 440 There is a seedbank in Bogor and while visiting it I discovered a little bag of seeds with the words “Agroekologi” written on it, testimony to the appeal of this new notion. 441 Discussion with representatives from SPI, Vía Campesina, during a visit to Bogor, 20 March 2010. 442 Name changed. 443 Interview, 24 June 2009.

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sharing seeds444 and animals, accessing water – are no longer permitted but are becoming criminalized, all in the name of property rights”. A central aspect of this critique revolves around the “wide physical, cultural, political and social distance of local communities from the people who write legal definitions of rights”445 (GRAIN 2007).

The Right to Food Sovereignty vs. Reclaiming Control Frame Dispute How is the right to food sovereignty frame evolving as a result of its dispute with the reclaiming control frame? Is the rights master frame loosing relevance in the face of an increasingly potent from below master frame? Is food sovereignty from below gradually taking over food sovereignty from above? Various factors tend to support this interpretation. It has been well documented that changes in public policy – be them objective changes or changes in the interpretation of reality by movement activists – can induce framing changes (Gotham 1999, 342). In the case of Vía Campesina, a number of changes in political opportunity structures446 appear to have induced a shift from international to local issues. First, the WTO is no longer a powerful target. For a good decade, from its entry into force on 1 January 2005 until the 6th Ministerial of in Hong Kong, the WTO was sufficiently active and at the center of global media attention to get peasant activists to engage in global anti-WTO protests. Since the mid-2000s, however, with its successive failing rounds of negotiations, the WTO no longer fuels the outrage needed to catalyze collective action. Is the growing emphasis on change from the bottom to be interpreted as an expression of disappointment with transnational engagement and global protest fatigue? Or does it reflect the victory against the WTO that many food sovereignty activists feel they won in Cancún? The opinions are divided. What is certain is that, since 2003, when the Vía Campesina called on “the agencies of the UN such as the FAO, the UNCTAD and the ILO to take initiatives to develop an alternative framework to the WTO” (Vía Campesina 2003b), calls for an alternative governance framework for trade in agriculture have receded. In contrast, direct opposition to transnational corporations is growing. At Vía Campesina, as Steven explains, “the 444

For some observers, the anti-rights crusade, led by Brewster Kneen in his book the “Tyranny of Rights” (Kneen 2009), is intimately tied to the relatively disappointing history of farmers’ rights at the FAO. See also: (GRAIN 1995; Kastler 2009; GRAIN 1991; GRAIN 2004; GRAIN 2005b; GRAIN 2005c). 445 In contrast, collective rights are seen as having the potential of allowing people not to be “mere beneficiaries” but to “have the capacity to decide how these rights should be exercised. Collective rights could be a way in which people and communities construct, in a supportive, reflective and deliberate way, the norms by which they will live together, without being obliged to make these norms comply with standards established, mainly in the interest of capital, in the centres of power” (GRAIN 2007). 446 Political opportunity structures both constrain and facilitate collective action frames (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 628).

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decision that was made in Maputo was to develop, for TNCs, the same anti-policy as for the WTO. The objective is for Monsanto and others to leave each individual country, to build a counter-power. The focus evolved from WTO to TNCs because TNCs are behind the WTO and the neoliberal government”447. Second, Vía Campesina activists have faced stark economic challenges and the increasingly aggressive appropriation of their resource base by the private sector, making organizing and international work more difficult. As Marc, a peasant activist from the Confédération paysanne put it: “Today’s context is different than in 1993. There are a lot less peasants today”448. In particular since the global food crisis of 2007-08, many peasant organizations have had to defend their members from immediate threats. In France, this has meant a shift towards defensive strategies: “the objective of the [Sarkozy] government is to dismantle acquired rights”449. As a result, Marc argues, “internationalization is declining, there is a withdrawal to save one’s peasants”450. Knowing that activist friends are struggling to make a living makes it difficult to devote time and energy to remote and often purely symbolic battles in institutional settings. Françoise, a French woman activist who used to be a member of the Confédération paysanne and whom I interviewed during negotiations at the Committee on World Food Security, explains: “I am going to fight at the FAO, we managed to establish the voluntary guidelines [on the responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests] against the RAI [World Bank principles for responsible agroinvestment] but them, they are under the steamroller”451. Adding to these challenges, the arrival of new issues on the global agenda, such as climate change, land grabbing, financial speculation, or public reinvestment in agriculture, has diverted the attention of peasant activists away from trade and the WTO. “Mobilizations are inconstant”452, says Gaëtan of the Collectif Stratégies Alimentaires in Belgium. Land “is becoming a nexus, the common denominator”453, argues Gerald454 from the Habitat International Coalition (HIC). The world over, the global food prices crisis has propelled the resurgence of local/localist strategies, which tend to be anchored in the 447

Interview, 25 August 2009. Interview, 4 May 2010. In this interview, this French peasant also explains the negative impacts of the dependence on public agricultural subsidies on mobilizing: “toute l’agriculture européenne est aujourd’hui sous la domination des aides publiques. La réforme de la PAC en 1992 c’est un virage psychologique.” (…) “C’est la rotation des primes plutôt que la rotation des cultures” (…) “l’objectif est devenu de capter des droits à produire, des droits à la prime plutôt”. 449 “Le but du gouvernement c’est de liquider les droits acquis” [referring to the retirement pension debate]. (peasant, Confédération paysanne, General Assembly, Montreuil, 4 may 2010). 450 “L’internationalisation est en recul, il y a un repli pour sauver ses paysans” (interview, 5 May 2010). 451 “Je vais me battre à la FAO, on a gagné les voluntary guidelines contre les RAI et eux ils ont le rouleau compresseur sur eux” (interview, 15 October 2010). 452 “Les mobilisations sont inconstantes” (interview, 13 May 2009). 453 Interview, 14 November 2009. 454 Name changed. 448

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defense of lands and territories. For Sofía455, an Oxfam International representative based in Latin America, the ecological challenge demonstrates the inadequacy of the food sovereignty idea: “The idea of food sovereignty is getting old and not necessarily adequate for this new situation. Climate change, for example, has no borders. I want to be able to say to the US that they can’t produce as they wish. No more borders. This questioning comes from the environmental movement; sovereignty is not ok when it comes to global responsibility. But food sovereignty has been important politically”456. Overall, the right to food sovereignty frame has considerably expanded in an attempt to incorporate struggles around localization and grassroots resistance. It has evolved under the pressure of the increasingly resonant reclaiming control frame and as a result of what Valocchi has called “internal dissent” (Valocchi 1996, 122). New interpretations of food sovereignty appear to be emerging, which insist less on what, in section 2.4.5, we termed the external dimension. The right to decide on agricultural policy is increasingly associated with “the international level”457, and left aside. The structural aspects of the right to food sovereignty frame have given way to a focus on concrete and feasible alternatives, here and now, making the (oppositional) rights master frame less relevant. Despite assertions that the struggle for the right to food sovereignty should be articulated at all relevant levels, the focus on the local is increasingly striking. Efforts by Vía Campesina to reach out to and apply the achievements of the agroecology movement will likely take the right to food sovereignty further below (and away from the rights master frame). This new trend is resisted by a number of activists. A representative of MIJARC, a network of Catholic rural youth movements asks: “Is food sovereignty only about relocalizing production?”458. Fabienne, a peasant woman of the Confédération paysanne, argues: “To win the battle requires articulating all the levels, the local, national, international. Up to now, we have done localization mostly, and analysis, but we have not made the link between all these struggles”459. Frustrations with the perceived abandonment of the international dimension are perceptible. Fabienne adds: “It has been

455

Name changed. “L’idée de la SA [souveraineté alimentaire] devient vieille et elle n’est plus adéquate pour la nouvelle conjoncture. Le changement climatique par exemple n’a pas de frontières. Je veux pouvoir dire aux USA qu’ils ne peuvent pas produire comme ils veulent. Plus de frontières. Cette remise en question vient du mouvement environnemental, la souveraineté ce n’est pas ok par rapport à une responsabilité planétaire. Mais la SA a été importante politiquement” (interview, 15 November 2009). 457 Discussion with different members of SPI, Vía Campesina, Jakarta, 18 March 2010. 458 Representative of MIJARC, Germany, at workshop on the Right to Food Sovereignty and Trade organized by the Confédération paysanne for European organizations of Vía Campesina, Paris, 7 and 8 January 2009. 459 “Gagner la bataille c’est articuler tous les niveaux, le local, le national, l’international. Jusqu’à présent, on a surtout fait de la localisation, de l’analyse, mais on n’a pas fait le lien entre les combats” (interview, 7 January 2009). 456

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ten years that we say this but we are not making progress. What works is communitysupported agriculture”460. Vía Campesina, which is about to celebrate its 20th anniversary, appears to be more internally oriented than before. Whether what is at stake is a regression in international advocacy or is in fact a waning internationalism – how much energy, time and efforts local and national movements devote to building and participating in an international movement, exchanging views, joining international protests and meetings – is unclear. Vía Campesina’s claims certainly appear less instrumental and more identity-focused than before. This could indicate that the movement is facing a tension between sustaining collective actions against an identified enemy and engaging in mobilizations seeking to establish a new life order through alternatives, a tension that has been well documented in social movements studies461 (Neveu 1996, 10–11).

5.2.4 Right to Food Sovereignty vs. Peasants’ Rights Over recent years, the centrality of the right to food sovereignty frame has been threatened by the emergence of another rights-based organizational frame, the peasants’ rights frame. Are rights as “redistribution” losing ground just as rights as “recognition” are gaining visibility (Fraser and Honneth 2003)? As we explored in chapter 4, the peasants’ rights frame was elaborated during villagelevel consultations with peasant communities in Indonesia, in 1999-2000. It was further articulated, and to some extent broadened by the inclusion of new concerns expressed by various organizations within the Vía Campesina network, in the period ranging from 2002 (the first time the “rights of peasants” were discussed at a regional Vía Campesina conference) to 2009 (when the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants was adopted by the International Coordinating Committee of Vía Campesina). The peasants’ rights frame has not yet acquired mobilizing qualities: it does not constitute a uniting and mobilizing frame and is barely used as a “slogan”. The biggest challenge confronting the peasants’ rights frame today is one of “frame diffusion” (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 627). Despite the organization of internal consultations on various drafts of the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants, an internal Vía Campesina document recognizes that there is a “different level of comprehension of the declaration on the rights of the peasants in different countries and regions” and that “the debate in internal is still not dynamic although there is a public document already” (Vía Campesina 2008f). Nevertheless, the decision has been made to institutionalize peasants’ rights at the international level and 460

“Ca fait dix ans qu’on dit ça mais ça n’avance pas ! Ce qui avance c’est les AMAP [community supported agriculture in France]” (interview, 24 November 2008). 461 Good examples of movements which refused confrontation and sought to develop alternatives are the cooperative and mutualist movements (Neveu 1996, 10–11).

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Vía Campesina has worked actively over recent years to “bring” the Declaration “to the UN Human Rights Council” (Vía Campesina 2008d). In contrast with the right to food sovereignty frame, which has proven to be highly motivational and adaptable, and has spread far beyond Central America where it emerged, the peasants’ rights frame remains somewhat disconnected from grassroots activists. Valeria462, a long time FIAN member and activist based at the international secretariat in Germany, explains: “Peasants’ rights, it comes from the leaders and the intellectuals, we will need to see if peasants follow (…) I think there are a lot of problems and critiques”463. The lack of appropriation of the peasants’ rights frame by other regions, in particular Latin America – where references to the right to food sovereignty dominate –-, and by movement activists who are not involved in transnational arenas and debates – unlike the members of the International Coordinating Committee –, remains a considerable obstacle to the diffusion of the peasants’ rights frame, although it appears that African member organizations are quite receptive. Valeria, who has been involved in getting peasants’ rights recognized at the UN explains: “Henri [Saragih] knows the latinos are not convinced but they have not discussed it. The Indonesians have put a lot of political capital and now they need to convince the others. In Africa, there is no aversion. In Latin America, it is different. A different colonialism? A different Marxism? I don’t know”464.

Is Coexistence Possible? Will the right to food sovereignty and peasants’ rights frames reinforce each other in the future? Can they durably coexist? When asked about potential conflicts between the right to food sovereignty and peasants’ rights, Vía Campesina activists tend to discard even the possibility that, due to limited human or financial resources or due to limited access to international fora to push certain rights claims, conflicts might surface between the two rights frames. For some, such as Jean from ECVC, the issue has been little explored: “There has been no debate between the right to food sovereignty and peasants’ rights. Normally it should have been discussed in Maputo”465. Others argue that both frames are compatible and mutually supportive466, or that they simply emerged in different contexts467. 462

Name changed. Interview, 23 June 2009. 464 Interview, 23 June 2009. 465 “Il n’y a pas eu de débat entre droit de la SA [souveraineté alimentaire] et droits des paysans. Normalement ça a (aurait) dû être discuté à Maputo” (interview, 2 June 2009). 466 “A Jakarta, il y avait 100 personnes de 60 pays. (…) La question [de la cohérence/stratégie] interne a été posée. Mais c’est à eux de répondre. C’est vrai que j’ai lancé pas mal de fleurs. Je trouve remarquable que tous les délégués aient participé activement et posé les bonnes questions. La question de la compatibilité avec 463

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So far, the International Declaration on the Rights of Peasants has been generally well received within the movement. But within Vía Campesina, peasants’ rights have raised criticism for not dealing with (and taking the attention away from) what some activists perceive as more relevant or pressing issues. Jean regrets: “But peasants’ rights are not an agricultural policy issue”468. A particular source of concern for him is whether the work on food sovereignty as a right469, will be abandoned “now that the Indonesians are working on peasants’ rights”470. These critiques are well received by Henri Saragih, the Secretary General of Vía Campesina, who has been leading the peasants’rights initiative: “We don’t pressure other regions. We know it is difficult for national organizations to add new issues. Latin America is about land and indigenous peoples. Africa has little capacity. Different regions have different issues”471. As Vía Campesina invests more political capital into getting the rights of peasants codified at the UN, it is likely that internal disputes between the right to food sovereignty and peasants’ rights frames will surface. As ethnographic research shows, human rights ideas and practices developed in one locality are being adopted or imposed transnationally in a variety of ways (Merry 2006, 38). If discursive processes (rights talk during movement interactions) play a major role in this transmission, battles within movements over which frames prevail may not be primarily about ideas. As suggested by Valocchi in his analysis of the civil rights movement, these battles can be about who controls important sources of financing, which organizations are able to court favor with political elites, and which organizations are actively repressed by those political elites (Valocchi 1996, 126). If we compare the relatively weak political, symbolic and organizational resources of the Asian region (and possibly African regions) with the strong and vibrant political capital, influence and capacity of the European, Northern American and in particular Southern American regions (Desmarais 2008b, 142), there is no doubt that the peasants’ rights frame has little chances of becoming Vía Campesina’s key organizational frame.

la SA [souveraineté alimentaire] a été posée. La réponse a été c’est compatible et mutuellement positif. Mon impression est qu’un travail d’information avait été fait auparavant dans le mouvement. (…) A Jakarta il a été décidé d’utiliser ce qui existe dans les mécanismes existants. Et de lancer une convention sur les droits des paysans. Pas la SA” (interview with CETIM representative, 3 July 2009). 467 “Cuál es la relación SA-DC [soberanía alimentaria-derechos campesinos], le he preguntado a varios/as companeros/as, hay interpretaciones distintas. Puede ser también que ambas iniciativas han surgido en contextos y experiencias históricas específicas, es decir, dos partes diferentes del movimiento” (Email Exchange with representative of FIAN International, March 2009). 468 “Mais les droits des paysans c’est pas une question de politique agricole” (interview, 2 June 2009). 469 Indeed, it is unlikely that the movement could simultaneously push for the translation, in international law, of both the right to food sovereignty and peasants’ rights. At some level, the two initiatives would inevitably compete for human and financial resources, symbolic capital, and for access to “legal opportunity structures” (Israël 2003, 62). 470 Interview, 2 June 2009. 471 Interview, 22 March 2010.

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Adding to these differences, regions differ in the political (and economic) opportunity structures they are dealing with and in their ability to create and seize such opportunities (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996, 12). Over recent years, for example, changes in governments in a number of Latin American countries have offered Vía Campesina member organizations a number of favorable opportunities to push for national, regional and local food sovereignty public policies, as we explored in chapter 2. These opportunities are likely to increase the resonance of the right to food sovereignty frame. At the same time, the peasants’ rights frame appears to facilitate the construction of a collective identity for a movement confronted with a highly diverse membership and always in search of new ways to build symbolic links. Now that identification with the WTO as the shared enemy – which helped build the unity of the movement at the global level in the 1995-2005 period – no longer plays a determining role, will the idea of peasants’ rights help continue facilitate the construction of a collective identity? The peasants’ rights frame is potent because of its focus on the expressive (and not instrumental) dimensions. Alberto Gomez, a Mexican peasant leader, argues: “The Declaration on the rights of peasants has a strong symbolic value, it gives strength to our struggle”472. And it is ambitious. By embracing a term traditionally used in pejorative ways, the peasants’ rights frame attempts to induce a radical “frame transformation”: a strategic process which refers to “changing old understandings and meanings and/or generating new ones” (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 625). Yet, it is uncertain at this stage if mobilizing in defense of the concept of peasants’ rights will generate more public sympathy and support, make alliances more difficult, or if it will induce enthusiasm, rejection or criticism.

5.2.5 What does the Right to Food Sovereignty Frame Look like Today? The right to food sovereignty frame has undergone some considerable changes in the last twenty years, largely as the result of various frame disputes and contests we discussed above. Is the right to food sovereignty gradually transforming into “food sovereignty right now”, under the pressure of the growing reclaiming control frame? Is food sovereignty developing outside of the rights master frame and inside the from below master frame? Is the rights master frame currently de-amplifying? (Mooney and Hunt 1996, 193) Or will the rights master frame be reinvigorated by the emerging peasants’ rights frame? The right to food sovereignty has successfully avoided cooptation and dilution. It has expanded as the result of compromise (Siméant 2010, 133), although its ability to absorb 472

Interview, 14 August 2009.

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the competing peasants’ rights frame remains unclear. It has moved away from external and international dimensions to emphasize local change. It has moved away from opposing the global capitalist food system to propose concrete alternative practices. It has moved away from institutional change from the top to valorize grassroots organizing and change from below. It looks less like a right, more like a fight for local control. This evolution appears to reflect the growing perception within the movement that defensive strategies are the only feasible options in the face of a capitalist system that uses institutions to lock the power of capital; and that local initiatives are the most efficient way to encourage the participation of everyone in social change (rather than counting on the concerted efforts of some experts or representatives who move in international arenas). Yet, a good number of Vía Campesina activists are concerned that relocalized agriculture will become a niche market473, in the hands of a small number of rich and well informed consumers, while the rest of society is sustained by low quality and heavily processed foods. They ask: how to change the agricultural development model in the benefit of all? If the right to food sovereignty remains Vía Campesina’s key organizational frame, this section has illustrated the fact that “frame alignment” – the strategic efforts by social movements to link their interests and interpretive frames with those of prospective constituents and actual or prospective resource providers (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 624) – is fragile if it is not a fiction altogether. Contamin suggests that movements generally deploy various frames and need to put considerable efforts in making the different frames “stick together” (Contamin 2010, 75). In the case of Vía Campesina, the task of making frames stick together may be rendered more difficult by the fact that the movement is structured at the international level in a way that preserves and builds on the autonomy of each local or national movement. Former Vía Campesina leader José Bové argues: “it is the task of networks or movements to structure at the international; and there, we should not have the totalitarian pretension of centralizing everything. These movements should keep their autonomy”474. Initial framing happens in an intuitive way, before frames take a more elaborate shape through contested, discursive and strategic processes. Later on, frames become the “property” of a particular movement and more formal efforts need to be put into reaffirming and extending the existing consensus. These efforts are heavily constrained by the ideas, collective identity, and worldviews adopted previously (Zald 1996, 16). 473 “Les atypiques ne m’inquiètent pas le plus. Mais on va vers une agriculture duale et on ne doit pas se cantonner à une agriculture de niche, minuscule et aux circuits courts. On doit garder une vocation généraliste. Les productions globalisées sont plus en danger. On doit se préoccuper d’eux” (peasant, Confédération paysanne, General Assembly, Montreuil, 4 may 2010). 474 “Il appartient aux réseaux ou mouvements de se structurer au niveau international; et là, il ne faut pas avoir de prétention totalitaire à tout centraliser. Il faut que ces mouvements gardent leur autonomie (…) il faut garder cet esprit de quête diffuse et ensuite chercher la cohérence dans les revendications qui sortent ” (Bové and Dufour 2004, 276).

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When frames get older, movement activists may get locked into promoting and repeating a dominant frame and lose the flexibility to adapt their framing strategies to a changing context (Hull 2001, 226). Is it time to get rid of the right to food sovereignty, as this French lawyer, member of the Confédération paysanne, suggests? “Food sovereignty is a suitcase word, we put everything in it. It becomes cumbersome; we don’t know what to do with it”475.

5.3 The Challenges of Institutionalizing New Rights In the last part of this chapter, we explore the various debates that have taken place, within Vía Campesina, on whether or not to pursue the institutionalization of new rights at the international level. After discussing separately the issues raised by both categories of new rights, we compare the institutional trajectory of the right to food sovereignty (5.3.1) to that of peasants’ rights (5.3.2). A few lessons can be learned from that comparison (5.3.3). Internal debates on the virtues and dangers of the institutionalization of new rights are probably best grasped in terms of strategies and political opportunities structures. Indeed, the process of institutionalizing new human rights requires elaborating a strategy of institutional dialog (from above) and creating/seizing “legal opportunity structures”. The concept of legal opportunity structures – taken from Israël who paraphrased Tarrow’s “political opportunity structures” (Tarrow 1998) – is particularly appropriate to describe the opening of institutional spaces allowing for legal changes (Israël 2003, 62). Once established, the institutional strategy needs to be aligned with the movement’s organizational frames and its collective identity construction processes, in order to be successfully deployed. In addition, it needs to be supported by alliances with specialized international human rights NGOs and experts. The interactions between strategies, framing and political opportunity structures are extremely complex and not yet fully explored in the social movements studies literature (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000). Looking at the right to food sovereignty, for example, it appears that frame disputes have limited the range of strategies available, while strategic decisions have influenced the outcome of frame disputes. On one hand, the growing resonance of the reclaiming control frame has generated widespread support for antiinstitutional (from below) strategies, making it difficult to discuss and elaborate an 475

“La souveraineté alimentaire, c’est un mot valise, on y met tout. Cela devient encombrant, on ne sait pas quoi en faire” (member of the Confédération paysanne, at workshop on the Right to Food Sovereignty and Trade organized by the Confédération paysanne for European organizations of Vía Campesina, Paris, 7 and 8 January 2009).

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institutional strategy. On the other hand, strategic decisions to undermine the legitimacy of the WTO and avoid cooptation, firmly implemented by Vía Campesina’s leadership, have reinforced the appeal of the from below master frame, and of food sovereignty practices. In other terms, the movement’s various frames appear to have evolved in sync with its strategies. Changes in political opportunities structures476 also have a deep impact on social movements and can create shifts in fortunes (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996, 12). This is apparent, for example, in the declining emphasis on the WTO as a mobilizing target and in the parallel creation and shaping of new political opportunities structures in countries or regions where the right to food sovereignty can be translated into law or public policies (these opportunities, it should be noted, vary across regions, creating cross-national differences within the transnational movement itself). The space that has recently opened at the UN Human Rights Council to discuss a Declaration on the Rights of Peasants is another of such opportunities.

5.3.1 The Right to Food Sovereignty We saw in chapter 2 that efforts to pursue the institutionalization of the right to food sovereignty at the international level have been largely abandoned. Although the idea that the right to food sovereignty should be enshrined in an international convention started to circulate in social movements and NGO networks (Our World is Not for Sale 2001) around the year 2000, Vía Campesina’s famous demand that agriculture be placed under the auspices of a reformed UN477 (Desmarais 2003, 22) has not made much progress. For the most part, efforts deployed by Vía Campesina over the last fifteen years to build an alternative global governance framework for food and agriculture have focused on the difficult issue of bringing “the WTO out of agriculture” (Vía Campesina 1999b). Yet, no concrete proposals have been put forward by the movement as to how to institutionally organize this symbolic exit of agriculture from the WTO, largely a consequence of a strategic decision not to engage with the WTO or in any kinds of reform of the WTO. Rather, the movement has invested new spaces at the national and sub-national levels, where attempts to institutionalize the right to food sovereignty have been relatively successful, as we saw in chapter 2. 476

At the beginning, political opportunities structures are taken. Later on, they become the result of an interaction between the social movement and institutions. Political opportunities structures are created, seized, captured, perceived, shaped, etc. (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996, 13). 477 For the food sovereignty movement, the UN system, and the FAO in particular, appear to “constitute the only alternative to the WTO/Bretton Woods institutions as a multilateral locus for addressing the issues of food and agriculture according to a logic in which human rights and equity take precedence over the liberalization of markets” (McKeon 2009, 106). The movement has, consistently, limited its involvement with multilateral institutions at the exception of the FAO and other “farmer–friendly” institutions (Desmarais 2003, 21).

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One may wonder whether failures to reach a consensual and fixed definition of the right to food sovereignty478 – a direct result of the various framing contests and disputes that we explored above – somewhat impeded the institutionalization of this new right. A young Belgian neo-farmer from the MAP, a Vía Campesina member organization, argues: “the concept is still being defined. We are not ready yet to establish it as a right”479. If it is reasonable to suspect that the expansion of food sovereignty has made its universal recognition as a right relatively complicated, the opposite might as well be true. Analyzing how new rights have been proclaimed at the UN in the past, Alston comments that many new rights are characterized by “inordinate vagueness”, which he attributes to the fact that the “proclamation process” generally suffers from several shortcomings480. To a considerable extent, Alston argues, it is their “chameleon-like quality” (the absence of a precise normative formulation) which has facilitated the degree of consensus that these new rights have received (Alston 1984, 613). Why, then, did efforts to institutionalize the right to food sovereignty stall in the mid-2000s?

Food Sovereignty From Above or From Below? The following exchanges show how strategies, framing and political opportunity structures are intertwined and shape divisions between activists on whether or not the right to food sovereignty should be institutionalized. They touch on a recurrent question, which appears to be the dividing line481 in many debates on food sovereignty: should food sovereignty be implemented from above or from below? 478

We saw in chapter 2 that the right to food sovereignty remains characterized by a number of question marks: who are the food sovereignty rights-holders? Who is responsible for guaranteeing it? Should its external and trade-related dimensions be the core focus, or not, of this new proposed collective right? 479 “Le concept est toujours en définition. On n’est pas encore prêts à l’instituer comme un droit” (Farmer from the MAP, Belgium, at workshop on the Right to Food Sovereignty and Trade organized by the Confédération paysanne for European organizations of Vía Campesina, Paris, 7 and 8 January 2009). 480 Such as: there has been no prior discussion, not to mention analysis, of the major implications of the proposed innovation; there has been no attempt to seek comments from governments, specialized agencies or NGOs; there has been no request (…) for advice on technical matters (…); there has been no explicit recognition of the fact that a new human right was being proclaimed (Alston 1984, 613). 481 This division has been largely discussed, although in other terms, by other authors. Bové and Dufour comment that two different sets of attitudes towards the WTO came to coexist within the movement: “the anti–WTO and those who believe that we need a new regulatory framework for international trade, on different bases, as well as an international trade tribunal” (Bové and Dufour 2004, 262). Desmarais has analyzed this divergence of opinions as a reformist vs. radical debate: “Initially, the Vía Campesina position straddled the reformist and radical perspectives. Some Vía Campesina organizations, like the KRRS from India, clamored for the abolition of the WTO. Others, like the Canadian NFU and the Unión Nacional de Organizaciones Regionales Campesinas Autonomas (UNORCA) of Mexico, felt that an international trade regulatory system was necessary to counter the skewed power relations and conditions enshrined in regional trade agreements like NAFTA. Still others, like the Confederation paysanne, believed that the Vía Campesina should work to reform the WTO to ensure that it complied with international human rights conventions. In

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Opponents to the institutionalization of the right to food sovereignty prioritize the objective of delegitimizing the WTO and Bretton Woods institutions and tend to see the absence of any agreement in the Doha Development Round of negotiations as a movement victory (no matter if a multiplicity of bilateral trade agreements has progressively replaced the ambitioned multilateral framework and if it is difficult to assess to what extent outside protests actually influenced the outcome of negotiations at the WTO). They believe in changing the world through developing alternative practices, on the ground, or at least believe that the conditions are not met to engage with enemy institutions. Spanish peasant leader Javier Sanchez from the COAG asserts: “The Agreement on Agriculture [of the WTO] is not compatible with food sovereignty. No agreement can ever be”482. His position is echoed by that of another Vía Campesina activist from the SOC, also in Spain: “We need a revolution, a different model. We need to get rid of the WTO. We need alliances with the “rupturistas”, not the reformists”483. They are wary of the danger of “being co-opted to serve watered-down intergovernmental agendas rather than advancing their own visions and objectives (McKeon 2009, 11). Other peasant activists, such as Marta484 from the Confédération paysanne, refuse to see food sovereignty restricted to local alternative practices: “Let us not limit food sovereignty to agricultural practices”485. They want more than limiting food sovereignty to a relocalization strategy, as spelled out by Fabienne, another peasant woman activist: “Localizing is valorizing, it explains with the facts, it makes a link with the consumer. But I don’t believe in food sovereignty islots in an neoliberal ocean”486. These activists the end, the Vía Campesina position was a compromise: rather than calling for the complete disbanding of the WTO as a whole, the Vía Campesina demanded a reduction in its powers by taking agriculture out of its jurisdiction and placing it under the auspices of the UN — albeit a changed, democratic, and transparent UN” (Desmarais 2003, 22–23). For Bonhommeau, the division reflects the fact that Vía Campesina member organizations are very different in their composition and, as a result, diverge in what they identify as their primary concerns, either access to land or trade liberalization: “Derrière la revendication “consensuelle” du droit à la souveraineté alimentaire, je perçois deux pratiques sociales et syndicales significativement différentes : des mouvements paysans d’abord confrontés à l’accès à la terre et secondairement confrontés au marché mondial (…) l’opposition la plus radicale et frontale à l’OMC (l’antimondialisation, l’anti-OMC); des mouvements paysans d’abord confrontés au marché et secondairement à l’accès à la terre (…) une position davantage altermondialiste” (Bonhommeau 2008). 482 “El acuerdo sobre la agricultura no es compatible con la soberanía alimentaria. Ningún acuerdo puede serlo” (Javier Sánchez, COAG, Vía Campesina, at seminar organized by the Collectif Stratégies Alimentaires (CSA) on “The Need to Regulate Agricultural Markets”, Brussels, 4-5 May 2009). 483 Member of the SOC, Spain, at workshop on the Right to Food Sovereignty and Trade organized by the Confédération paysanne for European organizations of Vía Campesina, Paris, 7 and 8 January 2009. 484 Name changed. 485 “Ne cantonnons pas la souveraineté alimentaire à des pratiques agricoles. On pourrait imaginer le système actuel en bio ou en mesures agro-environnementales” (member of the Confédération paysanne, at workshop on the Right to Food Sovereignty and Trade organized by the Confédération paysanne for European organizations of Vía Campesina, Paris, 7 and 8 January 2009). 486 “La localisation, c’est valorisant, ça explique par les faits, ça fait le lien avec le consommateur. Mais je ne crois pas à des îlots de souveraineté alimentaire dans un océan néolibéral” (member of the Confédération

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are scared that the dominant model will prevent their alternative practices from developing: “We need to struggle in our practices but also fight in the streets against governments, otherwise the dominant market model will more and more impede these alternatives”487. They are also anxious to participate in world debates, as this African farmer expressed at a seminar on market regulation: “There can’t be world debates and us absent. We need to be where people talk about us and against us”488. They want to believe in the possibility of reorganizing international institutions into an adequate hierarchy and in giving them a new meaning. They put their hopes in the UN as the only legitimate institution489 although some activists, such as Jacqueline490 from the Confédération paysanne, question the movement’s absolute rejection of any engagement with the WTO491. Trained as an agronomist, Jacqueline raises poultry in the Alpes de HauteProvence department, and sells them on the local market, while her partner produces cereals, feed and lavender. She represents the Confédération paysanne at the European Coordination of Vía Campesina. She regrets: “One limit of Vía Campesina is that we don’t recognize the WTO”492. For these activists, and many other proponents of the institutionalization of the new right to food sovereignty, identifying the right place to bring their claim remains a daunting obstacle. Jean asks: “If we write off the WTO, then where?”493 Another activist, a French paysanne, at workshop on the Right to Food Sovereignty and Trade organized by the Confédération paysanne for European organizations of Vía Campesina, Paris, 7 and 8 January 2009). 487 Representative from the SOC, Spain, at workshop on the Right to Food Sovereignty and Trade organized by the Confédération paysanne for European organizations of Vía Campesina, Paris, 7 and 8 January 2009. 488 “Il ne peut pas y avoir des débats mondialement connus et être absents. Il faut être là où les gens discutent sur nous et contre nous” (African farmer at seminar organized by the Collectif Stratégies Alimentaires (CSA) on “The Need to Regulate Agricultural Markets”, Brussels, 4-5 May 2009, responding to another participant arguing that “we can’t dialog with the WTO”). 489 “Il s’agit de savoir comment dans un premier temps mettre en place de manière permanente ou temporaire une assemblée de la société civile, parallèle à celle des Etats. Dans un deuxième temps, il s’agit de hierarchiser les institutions internationales et de redonner un sens à ces institutions. La seule institution légitime est celle des Nations Unies et elle a pour rôle de coordoner le débat. Par contre, les institutions de Bretton Woods sont inacceptables de par leur fonctionnement indépendant et leurs politiques aux répercussions importantes sur le destin des populations (…) l’institutionnalisation de la reconnaissance des mouvements sociaux ne peut que renforcer ces derniers dans leurs luttes quotidiennes (…) à l’intérieur de chaque Etat, des passerelles avec le politique sont nécessaires” (Bové 2005, 367). 490 Name changed. 491 “A mon avis, on doit faire les deux, travailler sur le droit et continuer la mobilisation politique. Par exemple on pourrait travailler sur d’autres règles de commerce international. Le lieu de ces règles n’est pas important. Mais il y a une peur d’aborder les règles internationales et les institutions, une fuite. On reste à un schéma trop simple. J’aurais voulu qu’à la commission SA [souveraineté alimentaire] et commerce on discute de ça et puis que cela aille au CCI etc. Mais ça bouge un peu au niveau européen” (interview, 2 June 2009). 492 Member of the Confédération paysanne, at workshop on the Right to Food Sovereignty and Trade organized by the Confédération paysanne for European organizations of Vía Campesina, Paris, 7 and 8 January 2009. 493 “Il va falloir faire des propositions, peur de ne pas tomber d’accord? je ne sais pas. Peur de devoir passer du contenu des règles aux mécanismes de régulation des marchés. Peur de glisser du contenu vers le lieu [l’espace de régulation]. Si on fait une croix sur l’OMC, alors où?” (interview, 2 June 2009).

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researcher who has worked extensively with both the Conf and ATTAC, complains: “The WTO is seen as the common enemy, not as an agreement among states. The slogan should be agriculture out of neoliberalism, or neoliberalism out of agriculture. This would allow for a much needed discussion”494. If we consider the two components – internal and external, that we identified in chapter 2 – of the right to food sovereignty, it appears clearly that there is a division in the movement along these (internal/external) lines. One fraction focuses on/prioritizes the external (international, institutional) dimension because it appears easier to institutionalize. To make the right to food sovereignty operational, they contend, requires turning it into the right of states. José Bové, who used to be a key figure of the Confédération paysanne, argues: “We won’t succeed with only an external balance of power, with no dialogue with states or international institutions”495. The other fraction sees the internal (local, political) dimension as central to the struggle, and resists institutionalization: local democracy and local autonomy have to be won and experienced. For this second group, more influential within Vía Campesina, “the dominant policy scheme is one of imposition from the international level on the national and local. This flow should be reversed (…) so that the global level provides support for local and national initiatives” (McKeon and Kalafatic 2009, 15). The conviction is shared, of course, that the local and national/international levels are inevitably intertwined, as expressed by Paul Nicholson: “Food sovereignty will be gained locally, but, at the end of the day, the policies are determined by governments”496. But disagreements are persistent on which collective action repertoires to prioritize, or potentially combine, and on the appropriate timing, nature, and conditions for advocacy and dialog with policy makers. Building food sovereignty from below requires adopting local food and agricultural practices that will bring peasants and the community dignity, autonomy, solidarity, sustainability, a decent livelihood, and control over resources. Building food sovereignty from above requires a combination of protest actions, national and transnational advocacy, negotiation, dialog, as well as alliances with other powerful social movements and international NGOs. While the implementation of the right to food sovereignty takes a combination of efforts from above and from below (and while each approach comes with its own challenges), it is the connection between the two that has been, so far, the most difficult to achieve for the movement. 494

Interview, 18 December 2008. “On y arrivera pas uniquement par un rapport de force extérieur, sans un dialogue avec les Etats et les institutions internationales” (Bové 2005, 366). 496 Interview with Paul Nicholson, EHNE, Vía Campesina. “Food Sovereignty and a New Way of Internal Democracy”. Matola, Mozambique. The interview was conducted (and later edited) by Nic Paget-Clarke for In Motion Magazine on October 17, 2008 during the 5th International Conference of La Vía Campesina. Published in In Motion Magazine, February 23, 2009. 495

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Preserving the Subversive Potential of Rights Talk In this debate over the pros and cons of institutionalizing the right to food sovereignty, the fear that a legal strategy would have a demobilizing effect certainly played a significant role. Talking about one of Vía Campesina’s leaders, Jean from ECVC explains: “Over the last two years, he has been scared to see us move from social mobilization to legal work”497. Indeed, the legalization of social struggles carries a number of potentially negative impacts that the movement is well aware of: the transformation of the movement’s struggle in technical debates to be solved in specialized arenas, the demobilization of the movement’s activists, and the loss of autonomy (Newell and Lekhi 2006, 191–197). The example of indigenous peoples comes to mind. David498, who coordinates the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) argues: “Indigenous peoples have pushed the rights approach to the fullest extent possible. They are confined to a commission on the rights of indigenous peoples. You stay inside and you make the list of violations. They need to become social actors, producers”499. One of the challenges, therefore, consists in keeping alive repertoires of action that are somewhat in conflict: mobilization and protest, but also advocacy, political dialog and legal struggles. In addition, faced with complex issues requiring important levels of expertise, Vía Campesina has suffered from a number of limiting factors that are quite foreign to the NGO world, such as: the lack of research capacity and the time needed to reach consensus across a large disparity of organizations with different cultural backgrounds and ideological convictions. As a result, the movement has experienced difficulties coming up with concrete positions or proposals on controversial issues such as contract farming, the development of agrofuels, orderly marketing, and alternative trade rules. The movement could rely on support from NGOs for research activities but this would threaten the movement’s autonomy and ownership. In the opinion of Jean: “there is a big fear that NGOs will take control over legal work”500. Stammers argues that social movement struggles construct human rights claims in ways that demand their institutional instantiation (Stammers 2009, 106). So far, the experience of Vía Campesina appears to indicate a different trend. Will the right to food sovereignty 497

“Ces deux dernières années, il [un leader de la Vía] a eu une peur qu’on glisse de la mobilisation sociale vers un travail sur le droit” (interview, 2 June 2009). 498 Name changed. 499 “Les peuples indigènes ont poussé le plus loin l’approche des droits ; ils sont confinés dans une commission droits des peuples indigènes ; tu restes à l’intérieur et tu fais la liste des violations ; ils doivent passer à l’état d’acteur social, de producteur” (interview, 16 November 2009). 500 “Il y a une grande peur que les ONGs prennent le contrôle sur le travail sur le droit” (interview, 2 June 2009).

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ever achieve international recognition as a new human right? Will it ever be translated in alternative trade rules? If the multiplication of food sovereignty initiatives from below constitutes a source of unity and hope, the right to food sovereignty from above, in contrast, appears to be in an impasse. Are we witnessing a “retreat to a nebulous populism that instantiates a logic of communitarianism”501 (Patel 2006, 87)? It certainly appears that the “incubation phase” of the right to food sovereignty has so far been too short. Considering that a certain period of time is necessary for new rights to be debated and to mature before they can achieve universal recognition, Alston notes that the “incubation” phase of new rights is now taking place within the UN at a much earlier stage than was the case for rights that found their way in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Rights recognized in the UDHR, he argues, had time to reasonably mature in terms of their transformation into laws, mostly through debates at the national level (Alston 1984, 614). Will the recognition of the right to food sovereignty at national level help promote the universal recognition of the right to food sovereignty in the long term? Or will Vía Campesina continue to be wary of institutionalizing the right to food sovereignty at the international level, in order to preserve its subversive potential? Recent developments tend to suggest that the movement is eager to build a “new institutionality” in the territories that it controls, showing that a middle path can be found between the localized (from below) and institutional (from above) paths, as suggested by Steven. Talking at the consultation on agroecology organized by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, he argues: “We can implement good policies in the territories and spaces under the control of popular movements”, such as indigenous territories or land occupied and managed by the MST in Brazil502. The movement may also, in the future, make more use of the new institutional space provided by the recently

501

It should be noted that Patel does not support such an interpretation of the invocation of peoples’ right to food sovereignty. He writes: “The text of the declaration can support such a reading, but only if one leaves the ill-defined subjects of food sovereignty unproblematized. If, however, one accepts the multiple levels at which sovereignty is expressed as contradictory, the question of the exercise of sovereignty becomes one that cannot be addressed outside of a radically localized context” (Patel 2006, 87). 502 Member of Vía Campesina, at consultation convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Agroecology, Brussels, 21-22 June 2010.

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reformed Committee on World Food Security (CFS) 503. So far, however, the CFS has been little explored to push food sovereignty and trade-related issues504.

5.3.2 The Rights of Peasants We saw in chapter 3 that the International Coordination Committee of Vía Campesina adopted a Declaration on the Rights of Peasants in March 2009. Over recent years, the movement has worked actively to bring the Declaration to the UN Human Rights Council (Vía Campesina 2008d), where a text is going to be discussed in an intergovernmental working group. In contrast with the right of peoples to food sovereignty, which insists on distributional claims, the rights of peasants emphasize questions of recognition505. Indonesian activists from SPI, working to promote the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants are aware that many other human rights conventions and declarations exist and that the proposed new convention “also will not be enforced” and that it “will take a lot of energy and time”506. They recognize that the recently adopted UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has probably not “made a difference here in Indonesia”507. Yet they defend it for its educational and symbolic value.

Collective Identity Work The relevance of Vía Campesina’s Declaration on the Rights of Peasants can only be grasped if we look at it as collective identity work. The broad and complex concept of “identity” has at least two distinct analytic levels, which have been developed in the social movement literature. First, a shared collective identity is necessary for mobilization

503

It should be noted here that for matters discussed at the CFS, Vía Campesina and the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) now need to coordinate with other civil society groups through the Civil Society Mechanism designed to facilitate the participation of civil society in world food governance debates. The website of the CSM is: http://www.csm4cfs.org/. Moreover, it is interesting to note that the right to food frame, more readily accepted in institutional circles, has been used strategically by many civil society organizations in order to seize some of the opportunities offered by CFS. For example, the right to food was chosen as the basis for the Global Strategic Framework for Food Security and Nutrition (GSF) of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), a victory that was celebrated by Vía Campesina (Vía Campesina 2012d). In part, this is due to the fact that the realization of the right to food is recognized as part of the mandate of the CFS. 504 So far, the trade issue has been addressed only indirectly at the CFS: discussions relating to the impacts of the current trading system and the need for alternative trade rules during the 38th session of the CFS (2011) were limited to the round table on food prices volatility. 505 Tensions between distributional and recognition claims have been well discussed by Fraser and Honneth (Fraser and Honneth 2003, 26). 506 Discussion with different members of SPI, Vía Campesina, Jakarta, 18 March 2010. 507 Discussion with different members of SPI, Vía Campesina, Jakarta, 18 March 2010.

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of any social movement508. This assertion is valid for movements oriented towards the defense of a particular identity, but also for old style social movements like the labor movement509. The formation of collective identities is always to be understood as a “process” (Agrikoliansky 2010, 207–208). In the case of Vía Campesina, we saw in chapter 3 how the unity of “people of the land” had to be constructed from heterogeneous local, regional and national farmers’ movements, each coming from different rural classes and from specific histories, experiences and cultures of struggle (H. Bernstein 2010, 120). It is thus crucial to adopt a “constructionist approach” of collective identities (Gotham 1999, 344) and to recall that collective identity work involves a reflexive process, and constant making (Gotham 1999, 334). Second, identity can be a goal of social movement activism, either gaining acceptance for a hitherto stigmatized identity510 or deconstructing categories of identities511 such as “man,” “woman,” “gay,” “straight”, “black,” or “white” (M. Bernstein 1997, 535). From that perspective, it is striking that, in an effort to achieve the recognition of a stigmatized identity, Vía Campesina activists have called themselves “peasants” despite the pejorative connotation of the term (Desmarais 2008b, 139). Collective identity work consists of three processes: establishing group boundaries; creating interpretative frameworks for the movement (framing)512; and using symbols and actions to challenge the system (Gotham 1999, 334). Usually, collective identities develop from existing social networks (such as old social or political organizations, churches, etc.) and evolve as new members join. It requires activists to identify with a movement’s leaders and symbols (Agrikoliansky 2010, 210). It is well recognized that the establishment of group boundaries relies not only on defining the “we”, but also on identifying the opponents, the “them”. The perception of a shared “outside threat” also plays an important role in the construction of a community identity, although it is not sufficient in itself (Gotham 1999, 344). Taking a sample of statements issued by Vía Campesina over the years, the enemies are identified as: land owners and trans-national corporations; multilateral institutions and speculative capital; multinational corporations; WTO; the governments which dominate the WTO, especially the United States, the European Union, Japan and Canada, and the transnational corporations which have benefitted from the WTO system; International Monetary Fund and World Bank policies; the patriarchal system that only accentuates the aberrations of capitalism; the program to privatize land and water; an industrial model, oriented to export, pushed for by

508

Morris. 1992. “Political Consciousness and Collective Action”. In Frontiers in Social Movement Theory. Morris and Mueller (eds). 351–73. Yale University Press. Cited in (M. Bernstein 1997, 535). 509 Calhoun. 1995. “New Social Movements’ of the Early Nineteenth Century”. In Repertoires and Cycles of Collective Action. Traugott (ed.). 173–215. Duke University Press. Cited in (M. Bernstein 1997, 535). 510 Calhoun. 1994. “Social Theory and the Politics of Identity”. In Social Theory and the Politics of Identity. Calhoun (ed.). 9–36. Blackwell. Cited in (M. Bernstein 1997, 535). 511 Gamson. 1995. “Must Identity Movements Self Destruct? A Queer Dilemma.” In Social Problems 42 (3): 390–407. Cited in (M. Bernstein 1997, 535). 512 Collective action framing facilitates the linkage between individual and collective identity or the enlargement of personal identity (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 631).

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transnational corporations, the US, the EU, other industrialized countries, but also by certain elite and important forces within governments of the South513. Part of the creation of group boundaries involves elaborating a narrative that justifies the role and interests of the group to those who do not belong to the group. The Nyeleni Declaration, for example, states that: “Most of us are food producers and are ready, able and willing to feed all the world’s peoples. Our heritage as food producers is critical to the future of humanity. This is specially so in the case of women and indigenous peoples who are historical creators of knowledge about food and agriculture and are devalued” (Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum 2007b). Drafted a year later, the Maputo Declaration reasserts that “We are men and women of the earth, we are those who produce food for the world. We care for seeds, which are life, and for us the act of producing food is an act of love. Humanity depends on us, and we refuse to disappear” (Vía Campesina 2008g)514. Through these processes, activists define the “we” that will help mobilize and federate the group: “We, the people, natives, peasants, black people, women, artisanal fisherfolk, shepherds and all those living from the land and the sea are the hope for life as we are linked to Mother Earth which means that a component of our identity is embodied in the right to water and seeds. We must redouble our efforts to discuss and analyze the new political project that we, the world’s peasants, want” (Vía Campesina 2003a). As we saw in chapters 2 and 3, rights talk plays a key role in forging collective identities. The right to food sovereignty, with its emphasis on the WTO as a common enemy to all, helped build a sense of unity throughout the movement. The rights of peasants, in turn, are a powerful idea because they involve an in-depth transformation of the perception of peasants and their role in society.

Collective identities, Framing and Strategies This leads us to analyzing a third dimension of collective identity work. Expressions of identity can be deployed at the collective level as a political strategy, which can be aimed at cultural or instrumental goals (M. Bernstein 1997, 535). Collective identities can also be strategically deployed to confront dominant values, or to confront the perception of minority groups (Gotham 1999, 334). Although the strategic deployment of identity515 is a relatively new topic of social movements research (Agrikoliansky 2010, 231), existing studies tend to show that differences from the majority are either celebrated or suppressed and that this evolves over time. Bernstein argues that movements tend to start by 513

See Appendix 3 which lists key Vía Campesina and Food Sovereignty movement statements in the last two decades. 514 Emphasis by the author. 515 The term strategic essentialism was originally coined by Gayatri Spivak in In other worlds: essays in cultural politics (Spivak 1987).

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emphasizing “difference” rather than “commonality” (M. Bernstein 1997, 532). Only later, once they have strong organizational structures, access to the polity or in reaction to attacks, may movements start emphasizing commonalities. Looking at Vía Campesina, an opposite trend appears perceptible. Whether it is reacting to the appropriation of the food sovereignty frame by a large number of activists outside the Vía Campesina network, or whether it no longer needs to struggle to acquire sufficient autonomy from NGOs and other important actors in the food movement, Vía Campesina appears to be giving more voice to identity-related claims today than it was ten years ago. Considering the centrality of struggles over distribution in the short history of the movement, and considering the importance of building alliances to advance food sovereignty, the challenges facing Vía Campesina as it embarks on the institutionalization of peasants’ rights appear considerable. Indeed, many “identity movements” have been criticized for overemphasizing difference and thus limiting the potential for a “politics of commonality” between oppressed peoples that could have the potential for radical social change516.

Essentialism and Exclusions In chapter 3, we explored how the Vía Campesina Declaration on the Rights of Peasants attributes social and cultural characteristics to the peasantry. It highlights the importance of maintaining “traditional food cultures” (art. 3.5) and the right of peasants to “the recognition and protection of their culture and local agriculture values” (art. 9.1). It emphasizes the existence of values and of a way of life that are based on household and community: it highlights the importance of local community in preserving seeds and biodiversity (art. 10.4; art. 10.5) and insists on the “right of peasants to develop community-based commercialization systems in order to guarantee food sovereignty” (art. 8.9). The Declaration celebrates harmony with nature: it defines peasants as those who have “a direct and special relationship with the land and nature” (art. 1). It also alludes to the specificity of peasant behavior and to relations of subordination and exploitation with other social groups. It emphasizes peasant resistance: “Peasants (women and men) have to right to resist oppression and to resort to peaceful direct action in order to protect their rights” (art. 12.5). There is no doubt that this emphasis, in Vía Campesina’s international discourse, on what all the “people of the land” have in common has helped activists from distinct socio-political and economic environments find common ground. Yet, there is a risk that “peasant essentialism” (H. Bernstein and Byres 2001, 6) might lead to exclusions once identities become fixed in law. Looking at the way human rights have been institutionalized historically, Stammers concludes that the codification of new human rights often lead to the “institutionalization of particularity” (Stammers 2009, 102). The problematic issue of identities being 516

Gitlin. 1995. The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why America Is Wracked by Culture Wars. New York: Metropolitan Books. Cited in (M. Bernstein 1997, 532).

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“essentialized and fixed in law” has been raised from a wide range of perspectives (Stammers 2009, 175). Historically, the institutionalization in constitutional provision and law of supposedly universal natural rights into “citizenship rights” formalized the exclusion of all those not regarded as citizens – slaves, Native Americans, women, jews, homosexuals, indigenous peoples, the plight of whom was nevertheless debated during the American and French revolutions and the Spanish conquest (Stammers 2009, 111). Having asserted a “we the people” during struggles for social transformation, it was at the point of institutionalization that decisions were taken as to who was “in” and who was “out” of the “we”, decisions which reflected the “prevailing balance of social forces” (Stammers 2009, 110). Closer to us, black and third world feminists have exposed racist hierarchies within feminist organizing (Eschle 2004, 67) and have challenged the construction of the category “women” as privileging white, middle class, heterosexual women, both homogenizing that category in a very narrow form and excluding the majority of women in the world (Stammers 2009, 175). The essentialization of culture517 and social categories has been denounced as inherent to the making of claims for cultural rights (Cowan, Dembour, and Wilson 2001, 3). It has also been noted as a common feature of many indigenous peoples’ rights campaigns, with potentially serious political consequences, such as a “drift to racism” when the so-called cultural identity becomes the basis for “privileged” or “exclusive” rights, for example to resources (Kuper 2003, 390– 392).

Peasantness and Alliances Will Vía Campesina manage to build alliances and gain the support of other rural constituencies for its proposed Declaration while maintaining an emphasis on the “peasantness” of its membership? Experience with human rights standard setting shows that, to be successful in the longer-term, those involved in standard setting need to build a broad and inclusive base. Wide participation ensures that different ethical and legal issues are taken into account, and that standards are relevant to people who are directly affected. In the long run, alliances need to include all key stakeholders – including governments, civil society organizations, experts, victims and beneficiaries, and UN agencies (International Council on Human Rights Policy 2006, 66). Vía Campesina’s leadership appears to be well aware of the need to build alliances. Paul Nicholson, for example, insists that: “food sovereignty will be gained with social movements, not from an agrarian or sectoral perspective”518. Javier Sanchez, another Vía Campesina leader, argues: “Food sovereignty is not a tool only for peasants, it is one for 517

Recent human rights scholarship by anthropologists and others has pointed to the growing deployment and reification of culture as an argument for group or collective rights (Edelman and James 2011, 95). 518 Paul Nicholson, EHNE, at workshop on the Right to Food Sovereignty and Trade organized by the Confédération paysanne for European organizations of Vía Campesina, Paris, 7 and 8 January 2009.

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the whole of society. Food sovereignty is the reappropriation of food production by the population”519. Food sovereignty has indeed proven to be a good vehicle for alliance building and a lot of dialog with other constituencies has taken place over the years through the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC). Yet, despite its inclusiveness, the struggle for food sovereignty has been hampered by identity-related concerns. The struggle for peasants’ rights may make things even more complicated. “We risk being accused of defending our own interests if we focus on food sovereignty. We need common objectives, allies” says one Norwegian farmer from Vía Campesina. “Food sovereignty is part of the solution but if I say it is the right to be a farmer, I am dead in my environment”, he adds. In Europe, where a lot of work has been put into proposing an alternative Common Agriculture Policy in the context of the 2013 reform, the emphasis has been on building alliances with consumers and environmental groups. But alliances with environmental NGOs have been slow in emerging. Gaëtan, a food and agriculture expert who has long worked to promote exchanges between farmers, NGOs, environmental and consumer activists in Europe, argues: “There is a deadlock between environmental NGOs and farmers; a divide over the CAP, over agrofuels. Environmental NGOs remain focused on direct support and conditionalities to change behaviors”520. The world over, the movement has made it a priority to build alliances with indigenous groups, consumers, agricultural and industrial workers but also, to some extent, with the agroecology movement (Altieri, Funes-Monzote, and Petersen 2011; Rosset 2011; HoltGiménez (ed.) 2010). During the World Summit on Food Security of June 2008, the food sovereignty movement as a whole, through the IPC, made an effort to reach out to urban groups, in order to explore rural-urban linkages. Activists from Habitat International Coalition (HIC) were invited. One of them, Gerald, comments: “Food sovereignty brings ecological sustainability, freedom of choice and control over resources, human dignity. It is not difficult to factor this in. And we have urban and peri-urban agriculture”521. Talking extensively about the “right to the city” movement (Harvey 2008) and the joint work that could be undertaken around the central issue of evictions, this activist wonders if and “when they are going to identify with food sovereignty”522. In Brazil, Sofía from Oxfam International explains, where urban movements are strong, the dialogue with rural movements has proven difficult, despite the fact that urban groups “demand the same rights as Vía Campesina” for example, the right to land, water, sanitation or territory523.

519

“La soberanía alimentaria, no es una herramienta solo para los campesinos, es para toda la sociedad. La soberanía alimentaria, es la reappropriación de la producción por la población” (Javier Sánchez, COAG, Spain, at seminar organized by the Collectif Stratégies Alimentaires (CSA) on “The Need to Regulate Agricultural Markets”, Brussels, 4-5 May 2009). 520 “Il y a un blocage entre ONGs environnementales et agriculteurs. Un clivage sur la PAC, sur les agrocarburants. Les ONGs environnementales restent focalisées sur les aides directes et les conditionnalités pour changer les comportements” (interview, 13 May 2009). 521 Interview, 14 November 2009. 522 Interview, 14 November 2009. 523 Interview, 15 November 2009.

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Preserving the Subversive Potential of Rights Talk The institutionalization of new rights raises a number of other risks that social movements need to consider. As disputes become technical (Agrikoliansky 2010, 233–34), the need for expert work increases, and mobilization work tends to decrease (Neveu 1996, 95, 110). This challenge has been well documented in the case of the environmental justice movement in the United States, which has used “cause lawyering” as a key movement strategy. The demobilization of movement activists can occur when the struggle leaves the streets and becomes a topic for discussion in specialized arenas only (Newell and Lekhi 2006, 191–197). So far, the risk of demobilization appears limited in the case of the peasants’ rights process, because the movement is still heavily mobilized on other issues. On the contrary, it appears that the lack of mobilization on peasants’ rights and the lack of collective support for the ongoing process at the UN is more of a concern at present. Paul, a FIAN activist, argues: “There is a danger that peasants’ rights remain a legal battle so the idea [proposed by someone from FIAN] to promote them through peoples’ tribunals is a good one”524. Nevertheless, it is concerning that only a few individuals525 are directly involved in lobbying work at the UN, as highlighted by Frank526, one of the human rights experts who has supported Vía Campesina in its attempts to institutionalize peasants’ rights. This could prove problematic in the future, if it leads to the creation of a small group of specialized individuals within the movement, that are somewhat disconnected from the rest. Quite a few observers have pointed out the fact that Vía Campesina’s “international group” is very small527, and that the group in charge of advancing peasants’ rights is even smaller. This raises a well-known danger that social movements are confronted with: the concentration of power. Neveu summarizes some key issues to be addressed: how are social movements organized? Is there a risk that power is captured by some permanent staff or key representatives? And what are the strategies put in place by the movement to avoid this? (Neveu 1996, 24) As we saw in chapter 3, there is very little awareness of the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants within the Vía Campesina network and in particular in regions other than Asia. Should this be a source of concern? Should the movement invest more energy into ensuring that activists mobilize in support of peasants’ rights? Or are all global issues really local ones? I raised the issue with Paul, a FIAN activist, who quickly dismissed it. In his view, the status of peasants’ rights is no different than that of other supposedly global issues: “The Europeans never got involved in agrarian reform either. It is too far 524

Interview, 24 June 2009. “Les droits des paysans sont peu portés par la Vía Campesina, à part par Henri Saragih et l’autre Henri [Simarmatha]” (interview, 3 July 2009). 526 Name changed. 527 Interview with FIAN representative, 24 June 2009. 525

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away from them and it is normal. The globalization of solidarity is a discourse. In reality, these are people with roots. Hence the importance of international meetings”528. What we know for certain is that the work on peasants’ rights has already forced Vía Campesina to start deploying new repertoires of actions. Lorna529, a Vía Campesina support staff based in Jakarta, explains that she was puzzled when asked by a Vía Campesina leader to post on the organization’s website the statements of various governments which had expressed support for the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants at the Human Rights Council: “the work on the rights of peasants is making us get into lobbying activities. Up to now we were only protest and radical positions”530. Finding the best way to combine various and often contradictory repertoires of action is likely to be a challenge for the movement.

Expertise and Translation In chapter 3, we discussed how a number of individual experts have provided their support to Vía Campesina to advance peasants’ rights at the UN. Based in Indonesia, the Indonesian Human Rights Committee for Social Justice (IHCS) has helped elaborate the vision and strategy. In Geneva, interactions with the Advisory Committee of the Human Rights Council have been facilitated by two international NGOs, FIAN and the CETIM, as well as by members of the team of the previous Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, attached to the Geneva Academy of international humanitarian law and human rights. Reliance on expert advice has been necessary, both to make sure that the proposed text of the Declaration is presented in a format adequate for consideration by the Advisory Committee of the Human Rights Council, but also to elaborate the most appropriate strategy for institutionalizing the new rights claimed by peasants. Endorsement by renowned human rights activists has also been sought because it brings credibility to the initiative. Activists from SPI argue: “If Olivier [the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food] mentions the International Convention on Peasants’ Rights in one of his reports, it will be a small victory”531. The movement has carefully selected the small team of human rights experts in charge of supporting the institutionalization process. This has allowed the movement to retain control over the overall process and to maintain its autonomy. But adding human rights NGOs to the mix has meant sharing ownership over the Declaration to some extent. This food sovereignty movement activist (not a Vía Campesina member), for example, is unclear as to whether the campaign on peasants’ rights is a Vía Campesina or FIAN initiative532. 528

Interview, 24 June 2009. Name changed. 530 “Le travail sur les droits des paysans ça va nous faire entrer dans des activités de lobby. Jusqu’ici on était only protest and radical positions” (interview, 21 March 2010). 531 Discussion with members of SPI, Vía Campesina, Jakarta, 18 March 2010. 532 Asked about peasants’ rights, an NGO food sovereignty activist from Belgium explains that: “FIAN a recensé les atteintes au droit à l’alimentation et il y a le projet de Food and Nutrition Watch qui recense les atteintes aux directrices volontaires” (interview, 13 May 2009). 529

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In chapter 3, we initiated a discussion on the role of “human rights intermediaries”: experts who take local grievances and translate them up into the more powerful language of transnational human rights. This usually means “framing the stories differently than the victims do”, in the hope that the target actors, such as states, will be more responsive to demands framed this way. The role of “human rights translators” (Merry 2006, 42) is important to analyze, because human rights experts are likely to have a deep influence on how the institutionalization process takes place. Several Indonesian Vía Campesina activists I interrogated about the future of the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants expressed concerned that “the spirit of the document will be lost”533. Their concern evokes the second aspect of the paradox of institutionalization that we described in chapter 3, i.e. whether the “emancipatory thrust” of human rights can be sustained through processes of institutionalization (Stammers 2009, 106). How can we understand the role of “human rights intermediaries” (Merry 2006, 42) in this process? Valentine534, a human rights expert from FIAN who is committed to support Vía Campesina’s Declaration on the Rights of Peasants, explains: “It is interesting this convention on the rights of peasants, to see how law evolves with society. It is a back and forth. We listen to their demands, give a feedback and a strategic insight. Myself, I am and feel like a technical person, I am not a stakeholder”535. Despite the perception some might have that human rights work is technical and neutral, this is hardly the case. The human rights experts that the movement has chosen to work with have a long standing commitment to defending the right to food, which means that they are attached to a progressive approach to human rights, but one that is deeply anchored in a social-democratic approach (as we discussed in chapter 4). It is likely that their conception of human rights will, sooner or later, influence the outcome of the institutionalization process. Will it limit the subversive potential of the draft Declaration? Valentine recognizes that “sometimes” she is “too technical” and that human rights people “don’t always have the boldness that is required”. She adds that sometimes she is “surprised to see what passes, the rapid achievements”536. We can identify a number of areas in which the influence of human rights experts is tangible. First, experts engaged in a compilation of existing human rights537, to assess 533

Discussion with different members of SPI, Vía Campesina, Jakarta, 18 March 2010. Name changed. 535 “C’est intéressant cette convention sur les droits des paysans, de voir comment le droit évolue avec la société. C’est un va et vient. On écoute les demandes, on donne un retour et un aperçu stratégique. Moi je suis et me sens une tecnica, je ne suis pas partie prenante” (interview, 23 June 2009). 536 “Je suis d’ailleurs parfois trop tecnica. Nous, on a pas toujours l’effronterie qu’il faut. Je suis étonnée parfois des choses qui passent, des accomplissements rapides. Je me dis ça ne passera jamais et puis hop c’est adopté” (interview, 23 June 2009). 537 “On a travaillé sur une compilation des normes et standards existants, pas vraiment sur les gaps. C’est un rapport FIAN/ICJ qui est mentionné dans un rapport de Ziegler” (interview, 23 June 2009). 534

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“protection gaps”. Valentine recalls: “What always came up in our contacts with them was the right to land, the right to produce, the right to remunerative prices. What we did was to look at what was already covered, and what strategically belonged to other arenas, such as the WTO” 538. The objective of this exercise was to find a way to justify the need for a “specific entitlement”, “like women, children, peoples with disabilities, indigenous peoples”539. In parallel, experts directed institutionalization efforts towards the UN Human Rights Council. If this appears to be a reasonable choice, it may limit the scope of future discussions on peasants’ rights to issues of symbolic recognition (making it less about development, distribution or trade justice). This appears clearly in the position of Frank, a human rights lawyer who has supported Vía Campesina in its efforts to bring the rights of peasants to the UN: “It is good to stay in human rights arenas, it is here that this should be discussed because it is a human rights instrument, then if it is not consistent with the WTO or other agreements, it is another story, on our end what is important is to reinforce tools for the protection of human rights”540. Second, experts insisted on having a draft text finalized and approved, thereby putting an end to consultations both within the movement and with allies, and stopping the likely expansion of the text that would have resulted from longer debates. Frank says: “I pushed them to agree on a text, because otherwise we could not make progress at the UN, we needed a text”541. This push to bring the Declaration to the UN as promptly as possible may have run counter to using consultations on the text as a mobilizing tool and to ensuring that the text reflects the aspirations of all members. Despite the fact that the Declaration was officially adopted by Vía Campesina’s International Coordination Committee in March 2009, and soon after presented at the UN, it appears clearly that, a year later, opinions on the text were still pouring in from other regions and consulted groups. This tends to indicate that the draft could have evolved further and benefited from more support globally. A member of SPI in Indonesia indicates: “we are still receiving a lot of input from indigenous peoples and fisherfolk. They want to add territory, etc”542. Third, human rights “translators” have discussed the content of the text. If many of them, such as Valentine from FIAN, expressed that they liked “working on the basis of their

538

“Ce qui sortait toujours dans nos contacts avec eux c’était droit à la terre, droit à la production, droit à des prix rémunérateurs. Ce qu’on a fait c’est regarder ce qui est déjà couvert, et ce qui stratégiquement appartient à d’autres enceintes par exemple à l’OMC” (interview, 23 June 2009). 539 “L’idée ici c’est qu’il faut un entitlement specifique. Comme les femmes, les enfants, les handicapés, les indigènes” (interview, 23 June 2009). 540 “C’est bien de rester dans les enceintes droits de l’Homme, c’est la que cela doit être discuté puisqu’il s’agit d’un instrument droits de l’Homme, après si c’est pas cohérent avec l’OMC ou autres, c’est une autre histoire, de notre côté c’est important de renforcer les outils de protection des droits de l’Homme” (interview, 3 July 2009). 541 “Je les ai pressés pour qu’ils adoptent un texte [lors de la réunion de Bilbao en décembre] car sinon on ne pouvait pas avancer par rapport aux Nations Unies, il fallait un texte” (interview, 3 July 2009). 542 Discussion with different members of SPI, Vía Campesina, Jakarta, 18 March 2010.

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[Vía Campesina’s] draft,”543 they then transformed it in “UN language” (Vía Campesina 2008h), as the changes made between the second (2002) and third (2009) versions of the Declaration illustrate544. They have strategically framed the issue as one of discrimination, as highlighted by Frank: “We did not win at the Council on peasants’ rights. So we chose a different angle, we proposed a study on the right to food and non-discrimination. It is a larger work, we are going to look at all discriminated groups and use this to say that other discriminated groups are protected but not peasants (…). And we are going to bring Vía Campesina representatives [to the Council] to avoid another refusal”545. Human rights experts have also insisted on having a definition of the term “peasants” included in the text and on extending the list of beneficiaries to “other people living in rural areas, including from traditional fishing, hunting and herding activities” (Human Rights Council 2010a, 22). Patrick, an expert from the CETIM, the first NGO partner on board, recalls: “They revised the first version which had some aspects, let’s say, a bit selfish compared to other groups of society. Now they have come to maturity. For example, they initiate contacts with other groups, such as Habitat International. (…) They accepted the support of human rights experts and they accepted to revise chapters based on the interests of other groups. They opened up to fishers, nomadic peoples, pastoralists”546. Finally, human rights experts have expressed their views when it comes to issues of alliance building. CETIM told Vía Campesina that: “they will need to make alliances with other peasant organizations and with fishers etc, and with non-producers”547. FIAN told them, Valeria explains, that: “the process was dangerous, that they needed to resolve key questions such as what about the other groups? What about the other peasant organizations such as IFAP and ROPPA, the NGOs, the big international organizations like Amnesty?”548. In their exchanges with Vía Campesina, Valentine recalls, FIAN also clarified that “they would need the support of governments and big NGOs. On the 543

“J’ai bien aimé que l’on ait travaillé sur base de leur draft” (interview, 23 June 2009). The successive drafts are presented in Appendix 5. 545 “On n’a pas gagné au Conseil sur les droits des paysans. Donc on a choisi un autre angle, on a proposé une étude sur droit à l’alimentation et non-discrimination. C’est un travail plus large, on va regarder tous les groupes discriminés et utiliser cela pour dire que d’autres groupes discriminés sont protégés mais pas les paysans. (…) On va amener des représentants de Vía Campesina [au conseil des Droits de l’Homme] pour éviter d’autres refus” (interview, 3 July 2009). 546 “Eux ils ont revu la première version qui avait des aspects disons un peu égoïstes par rapport aux autres groupes de la société. Maintenant ils sont arrivés à maturité. Par exemple ils commencent les contacts avec d’autres groupes. Par exemple Habitat international, etc. On a eu une discussion à Jakarta pour décider si on se lançait ou pas [conférence de Jakarta de Vía Campesina sur les droits des paysans] et la question des groupes extérieurs a été posée. Ils ont accepté l’appui d’experts comme FIAN ou Cristophe [Golay] et ont accepté de revoir des chapitres selon les intérêts des autres groupes. Ils ont ouvert aux pêcheurs, nomades, éleveurs, etc.” (interview, 3 July 2009). 547 “Ils devront faire alliance avec d’autres OP [organisations paysannes] et les pêcheurs etc. et les nonproducteurs” (interview, 3 July 2009). 548 Interview, 23 June 2009. 544

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conceptual level and on the lobbying level. We opened to other organizations like ICJ, Amnesty, FIDH. Originally it was just CETIM and us”549.

5.3.3 Distinct Institutional Trajectories In the second part of this chapter, we discussed efforts by Vía Campesina to institutionalize the right to food sovereignty and peasants’ rights at the UN. We saw how the movement managed to preserve the subversive potential of the former, essentially by rejecting its institutionalization, and how the emancipatory potential of the latter is at risk, and will depend on the role played by human rights translators. Comparing the right to food sovereignty and the rights of peasants, it appears clear that strategic decisions on who to engage with have played a determining role in the distinct institutional trajectories of these two categories of proposed new rights. The right to food sovereignty was claimed against the WTO, and its international recognition was only briefly envisaged. It is now being institutionalized at the national and sub-national levels, and may be a topic for future discussion at the Committee on World Food Security (CFS). In contrast, the Declaration on the rights of peasants was brought directly to the UN Human Rights Council, where its future is still uncertain but where it has managed to gain the support of some states. Research in social movements studies has shown that the perception that actors have of their chances of success determines their behavior and eagerness at struggle, which in turn influence political opportunity structures550. The right to food sovereignty and peasants’ rights are radically different from that perspective. First, the recognition of new rights for peasants appears achievable, while recognizing the right to food sovereignty as a guiding principle for global governance in food and agriculture would in fact require completely reinventing both the conception of development which is at the core of the international system and the system itself551. Second, the Human Rights Council has proven to be relatively open to dialog with civil society, while the WTO is best characterized as a closed system552. The two categories of new rights are also distinct in 549

“Je leur ai aussi dit qu’il leur faudrait le soutien des gouvernements et des grosses ONG. Sur le plan conceptuel et du lobby. On a ouvert à d’autres organizations comme ICJ, Amnesty, FIDH. Traditionnellement c’était juste CETIM et nous” (interview, 23 June 2009). 550 McAdam. 1982. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency (1930-1970). The University of Chicago Press. Cited in (Neveu 1996, 87). 551 Global justice movement thinker Gus Massiah identifies three dimensions which could help reshape both development thinking and the international system: international trade and currency, the right of people to choose their development model, and the articulation between different levels of economic governance. It is striking that these three dimensions are constitutive of the proposed new right to food sovereignty (Massiah 2005, 387). 552 Kitschelt. 1986. “Political Opportunity Structure and Political Protest: Anti-Nuclear Movements in Four Democracies”. In British Journal of Political Science. 57-85. Cited in (Neveu 1996, 90–91).

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the alliances and support they were able to generate, which tends to indicate that alliances largely determined the nature of the initiatives that could be pushed at the UN. Tensions between civil society actors who were pushing for the right to food instead of for food sovereignty were so vivid, especially during the WFS:fyl (2002), that they prevented the possibility of any alliance between the food sovereignty movement and human rights networks, in order to push for the recognition of the right to food sovereignty, at the Human Rights Council or elsewhere553. In sharp contrast, human rights groups such as FIAN have provided strong support for peasants’ rights. We will develop further, in chapter 6, the evolution of the relationship between NGOs defending the right to food and peasant organizations advocating for food sovereignty. Our interest here lies in trying to understand the extent to which the right to food sovereignty vs. right to food frame contest somewhat impeded the institutionalization of food sovereignty as a collective right. As it decided to push for this new right at the UN, Vía Campesina confronted itself with the difficult task of forging alliances with human rights experts and of finding the adequate relationship between this new human right and existing codified human rights. This could not be done without contesting the hegemony of human rights organizations and without questioning the way they had been using and applying human rights to food and agriculture debates. The peasants’ rights initiative has managed to gain the support of the human rights community. This may induce a shift in how peasants’ rights are framed in the future: not so much as an anti-capitalist struggle but as an anti-discrimination one. This, in turn, may limit the possibility of other alliances with youth groups, atypical new farmers, urban consumers, indigenous peoples, or the landless. Brass reminds us that empowerment/emancipation can be achieved under capitalism as well as under socialism and that, ironically, “where these contribute to the accumulation process, resistance and empowerment based on identities other than class have been encouraged by capitalism” (Brass 2005, 167). Making the struggle for peasants’ rights too much about identity and recognition may damage Vía Campesina’s long-term goals. Indeed, whether Vía Campesina puts the emphasis on its transformative political project – and societal alternative project, food sovereignty – or on the distinctiveness of the peasantry, will largely determine its future chances of success as a movement. In the short term, finding the right balance between recognition and distribution will certainly be needed to advance the peasants’ rights campaign. On one hand, Vía Campesina needs to find ways to demand new rights for peasants in a way that reflects the complex and contradictory nature of national or sub-national struggles. If Vía Campesina’s international discourse drifts further away from local realities, it runs the risk of losing resonance for grassroots member activists, the world over. On the other hand, Vía Campesina needs to frame its peasants’ rights discourse in a way that manages 553

Alliances were nevertheless possible on other issues such as access to land and agrarian reform. See chapter 1.

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to depict the complex and evolving identity of contemporary rural families who often combine rural and urban, agricultural and non-agricultural, wage employment and selfemployment (H. Bernstein 2009, 73). If such a frame fails to emerge, Vía Campesina runs the risk of alienating potential allies, notably other agricultural constituencies, such as agricultural laborers. At present, the movement appears to have chosen to pursue a multiple-goal strategy. While working on the recognition of specific rights for peasants at the Human Rights Council, the movement continues to work on institutionalizing the right to food sovereignty at the regional, national and all other sub-levels, and to initiate alternative food sovereignty practices (from below). This inevitably leads to some tensions as to which initiatives to prioritize. Asked his opinion on the peasants’ rights initiative, Steven, a Vía Campesina support staff based in Latin America, responds: “It is too long and complex. The most important now is to transfer food sovereignty into public policies at the local, regional and national levels. At different levels of government”554. In addition, the movement strives to advance different objectives in different arenas, and divides its efforts between various specialized bodies: land rights, agricultural investment and food and agriculture governance are brought to the Committee on World Food Security (CFS); agroecology and modes of productions are brought to the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD)(Vía Campesina and Friends of the Earth International 2009), RIO+20 or to the FAO. For the time being, the struggle for peasants’ rights is envisaged as complementary to the necessary work on food sovereignty, trade, and global governance. Igor555, from the secretariat of ECVC, argues: “Peasants’ rights, it is a right to exist. In parallel, we work on governance issues like the CFS, GPAFS556, through the IPC”557. Whether this multiple-goal strategy is the result of a conscious strategic choice or the reflection of a large movement allowing its various regions and organizations to function relatively autonomously is unclear. So are its consequences. In the history of documented social movements, multiple-goal strategies have not necessarily proven less effective than single-goal ones: they may induce divisions among movements and struggles for scare resources but they may also attract new members and have more motivational potential (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996, 15).

554

Interview, 25 August 2009. Name changed. 556 The Global Partnership for Agriculture and Food Security (GPAFS) was defined as a platform for developing countries, exporting and importing countries, donor countries, international institutions, private sector, NGOs and global civil society to work together, with renewed commitment and mutual accountability, to achieve a comprehensive and coordinated international response to hunger and malnutrition in today’s world. It was discussed in preparation for the Madrid High-Level Meeting on food security for all in January 2009. 557 Interview, 2 June 2009. 555

6 Transforming the Right to Food In chapter 4, we described efforts by right to food activists to improve, over the last 30 years, the “operationalization” (Künnemann 1984, 90) of the right to food. Economic, social and cultural rights enjoy greater visibility and legitimacy than ever before. Hunger, malnutrition, homelessness or inadequate housing are increasingly framed as violations of human rights (Glasius 2006, 62). Popular movements responding to globalization are increasingly attempting to apply the full range of human rights standards to economic, trade and financial policy and to the regulation of corporate behavior (Nelson and Dorsey 2008, 170). Yet, many social justice activists “continue to make no reference to economic and social rights, speaking more broadly of justice and equality versus the criminality, greed and destructiveness of the neo-liberal paradigm instead”. Convergence between human rights activists and the social justice movement around economic and social rights has been slow in emerging, in part because the “concerns and approaches” of social justice activists and those of the human rights community “sometimes remain completely separate” (Glasius 2006, 81). We saw in chapter 1 that a similar disconnect is noticeable in the global food movement, between agrarian movements on one hand, and rights-based development and human rights NGOs on the other hand. We highlighted that many actors within the global food movement deploy a rights master frame, but have different conceptions of human rights and develop radically different strategies. Most emblematic of this divide is the fact that Vía Campesina deployed a rights-based frame (Rosset and Martinez 2010; Patel 2007; Borras, Edelman, and Kay 2008b; Houtzager 2005), but grounded its claims in a conception of human rights that differs quite substantially from the social-democratic conception of human rights which is at the core of the right to food. As we saw in previous chapters, the social-democratic approach to human rights, which underlies the existing and already codified human right to adequate food, did not provide Vía Campesina with the narrative, strategy and vision it needed.

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Conceptual and strategic constraints attached to the human rights framework are key to understand why the right to food “never really caught on as a social movement” (Cohen and Messer 2009, 2–3)558. Tensions between NGOs and small farmers’ organizations from South and North also help explain why the right to food failed to ever be substantially taken up by agrarian movements. When they appeared on the international scene in the 1990s, emerging transnational agrarian movements questioned the legitimacy of the NGOs who had been talking on behalf of peasants (McKeon 2009, 12) and decided to remain autonomous of them. As Lorna, a Vía Campesina support staff, explains: “Objection to the right to food was strong because it felt like it was imposed from outside … The objective of the movement was its independence from NGOs, to consolidate itself”. Member organizations wanted “their project, their human rights” 559. In chapters 2 and 3, we explored how Vía Campesina invented new human rights – most prominently the right to food sovereignty and the rights of peasants –, in an attempt to deploy a rights master frame that serves the movement’s goals, resonates with activists’ worldviews and encourages them to take action. In chapter 5, we discussed how the movement dealt with the challenges of institutionalizing rights claims and maintaining their subversive potential. When the food sovereignty movement emerged, the right to food already had its own network and advocates and its own dynamics. As we saw in chapter 4, this network was led by a relatively small number of human rights experts and specialized NGOs. It focused heavily on interactions with governments and UN bodies, using advocacy, campaign, and awareness raising. It did not use repertoires of action such as protest and did not present the characteristics of a social movement. It was very much a global community of committed human rights defenders and intellectuals. If right to food defenders managed to make the right to food more operational in the last decades, they remain confronted, like other economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) advocates, to the challenge of generating sufficient public pressure to impact donor 558

Looking at the US context, they add: “US citizens have mobilized widely around goals such as “ending hunger,” “community food security,” “sustainability” (in agriculture, the environment, and food systems), and “human rights.” But the human right to food achieves policy visibility mainly within other advocacy framings, such as children’s rights, labor rights, or “food sovereignty,” which is the framing preferred by individuals and communities that assert indigenous rights to control their own food systems or by those who advocate the right to say “no” to genetically modified organisms. This conundrum or conflation of issues that is associated with the human right to food but surpasses it in prominence may be both the problem and the explanation for why the human right to food has not achieved more policy relevance or dedicated socialmovement mobilization over its history” (Cohen and Messer 2009, 2–3). While the US political and ideological environment is certainly particularly hostile to the idea of economic, social and cultural rights, the fact remains that the analysis of Cohen and Messer applies to the global level. 559 Interview, 21 March 2010.

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country policies or international regimes (Nelson and Dorsey 2008, 180). While there has not been enough experience so far with efforts to “mobilize shame” at the global level around ESCR to begin to make a judgment, a central issue is whether there is a “constituency” for ESCR (Nelson and Dorsey 2008, 83). This question is of particular relevance for the right to food since, as we saw in chapter 1, only a limited number of human rights and development NGOs use the right to food as their organizational frame, while vibrant agrarian movements maintain an ambivalent attitude toward it. In this context, how the right to food community reacts to/attempts to bridge with peasant claims is of considerable importance. Because they triggered a contest between the right to food and right to food sovereignty frames (as we discussed in chapter 5), interactions between human rights defenders and food sovereignty activists over the last 15 years have often been a source of stress. Having looked at how peasant organizations dealt with the constraints of the human rights framework in the previous chapter, we now turn to how right to food activists dealt with the emergence of transnational agrarian movements. In this chapter, we draw the contours of a peasant movement critique of the right to food (6.1), building on what we believe are an alternative conception of human rights (the conceptual challenge) and an alternative conception of social change (the strategic challenge). We then explore how attempts by right to food defenders to respond to this critique (6.2) and to address issues of legitimacy and representation have led to a profound – and still ongoing – transformation of the right to food as a human right (6.3). We end with an overview of some of the challenges that face the right to food network today (6.4).

6.1 A Peasant Critique of the Right to Food In previous chapters, we identified a number of conceptual and strategic constraints faced by social movements when they seek to mobilize a rights master frame. From a conceptual perspective, three main obstacles are commonly associated with the human rights framework. As we saw in the previous chapter, these are: the dominance of a Western, liberal and individualist conception of rights; state-centrism; and the liberal character of human rights and the resulting emphasis on economic liberty at the expense of equality of outcome/welfare (Charvet and Kaczynska-Nay 2008, 11–12). From a strategic perspective, human rights raise three interrelated challenges: reliance on rightsclaiming through institutional channels (Kolben 2008, 477); the possibly demobilizing effects of solving conflicts in specialized arenas and of depending on human rights experts; and the institutionalization of human rights claims, which may hinder their subversive potential. These conceptual and strategic factors are useful to understand the

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nature of the right to food sovereignty vs. right to food frame contest that has unfolded in the last fifteen years. Building on the analysis we presented in chapters 2 and 3, this section presents the main elements of what constitutes a peasant movement critique of the right to food. The main elements of this critique are summarized in table 6 below.

Right to Food

Peasant Movement Critique

Individual and universal right, entitlement, focus on meeting basic needs, anthropocentric model

Peoplesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; right, autonomy, dignity and independence from markets, interdependency with nature, rights with responsibility

State-centric approach

Multiple-level governance, control over land and territory

Social-democratic approach, focus on vulnerable groups, compatibility test

Anti-Capitalism, anti-Neoliberalism and anti-Imperialism

Top-Down Social Change, objective is institutionalization and implementation of rights

Grassroots mobilization, objective is preserving the subversive potential of rights

Table 6 - A Peasant Movement Critique of the Right to Food

Rejection of the Right to Food as Individual Right We saw in chapter 4 that the right to food has been primarily conceptualized as an universal right, the implementation of which requires specific efforts to ensure that vulnerable groups (re) gain command over food (DrĂ¨ze and Sen 1989, 260). The right to food can be understood as an individual entitlement that should be protected by public support and promoted through public policies (DrĂ¨ze and Sen 1989, 258). Because everyone is entitled access to enough basic goods and services to maintain a decent level of living (Stewart 1989, 348), the right to food requires, at minimum, access to social programs, safety nets, or a minimum income. Yet, the right to food has also been conceptualized as being strongly associated with the freedom to decide where to work, what to produce, and what to consume, and with the attached freedom to transact/participate in economic interchange (Sen 1999, 7, 27).

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In addition, despite tensions between the right to food and the right to private property, the right to food has been shown to be intimately connected to the right to privately own land and productive assets (Eide, Krause, and Rosas 1995, 95). The right to food approach proposes limits to the rights to property to the extent that property claims are not valid until at least all subsistence needs can be met (Stammers 1995, 493). But, as we saw in chapter 4, this requirement has not been operationalized in a way that would put a limit to the right of human beings to appropriate nature. It has also proven difficult to implement. The focus on the right to food as entitlement has been criticized by peasant movements who emphasize the rights of peoples, communities, and countries/states – in the case of the right to food sovereignty (NGO/CSO Forum for Food Sovereignty 2002b) – and the right of peasant communities or families – in the case of peasants’ rights (Fakih, Rahardjo, and Pimbert 2003), while recognizing the importance of individual rights within the community. The right to food as entitlement is perceived as unsatisfactory for it fails to account for the importance of involving all categories of food sovereignty holders in the definition of food and agriculture policies (political/internal dimension). It also fails to emphasize the importance of preserving and reinforcing collective units for managing natural resources and for organizing economic production (economic/external dimension). Moreover, transnational peasant movements have insisted on the importance of autonomy and of being able to reject the incorporation into (globalized) supply chains in which farmers are reduced to price takers or contractors. The right to food, they argue, with its emphasis on access to social programs or a basic income, or on market-based empowerment, fails to take into account the importance of dignity, cultural and historical grounding in a territory or place, and self-esteem. The right to food as right to food aid or as right to social protection, which places beneficiaries in the role of passive recipients, is seen as particularly inadequate. Finally, peasant activists have emphasized the interdependency of human beings and nature and the importance of balancing rights with responsibilities. These dimensions are almost entirely absent from the right to food approach.

Rejection of a State-Centric Approach As we discussed in chapter 4, state accountability is a central pillar of the right to food approach, which can be described as state-centric (Stammers 1995, 507). The right to food approach insists on the obligations of states to respect, protect and fulfill the right to food, and on the role of the state as a regulator. The state is privileged as the “primary agent of change”; the human rights approach is concerned with state-oriented remedies, which means that all claims have to be channeled through the state (Marks 2011, 71).

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In contrast, the food sovereignty movement has targeted the state less than it has targeted all identified perpetrators of human rights abuses (TNCs, International Financial Institutions, but also repressive states). Influenced by a number of ideas central to Marxism560, which imprinted an anti-juridical bias561 (or anti-legalist) onto the left (Hanne 2005, 16), a portion of Vía Campesina activists are suspicious of the right to food because they see any kind of reformism as insignificant or dubious. These activists may even be wary of progressive lawyers because these may help the system adjust. In his overview of how (what he calls) the left perceives legal struggles, Hanne argues that the left implicitly considers the law as imposed and tainted with conservatism562 (it bears the trace of domination, it petrifies the initial balance of power, and it maintains it) rather than possibly negotiated, pluralist, or transformative (Hanne 2005, 23–24); and that the left implicitly identifies the law with the state, because the individual who is forced to obey is a subject of the state, and because the law was born with the state563 (Hanne 2005, 20). These two aspects are found in the views of some food sovereignty activists. David, a member of the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC), argues: “There is mistrust, people don’t believe in the idea of a right that they can claim”564. Paul, a FIAN activist, explains: “peasants don’t like the notion of the rule of law. Because the law often works against them. The seminar [we organized] in Central America with lawyers, peasant leaders, etc. was incredible because all we were asking judges and government representatives to do was apply the law. (…) For peasant movements, the rule of law means repression, status quo, against occupations of land. There is a real tension but we invoke the law to defend people”565. Rather than monitoring states’ activities to ensure enforcement of human rights, the movement has sought to force public debate and to repoliticize food politics (Patel 2007, 91). Departing from an exclusive emphasis on state level action, Vía Campesina has insisted on (re)defining food and agriculture policies at four distinct levels: the 560

Such as: to fight for a better world is necessarily a world without law; to struggle against domination and inequalities is to reject the weapons of the law; the law constitutes an inimical system because it derives from the state (Hanne 2005, 9). 561 In French in the text: “anti-juridisme”. 562 As a result, the social critique of the law is limited to two aspects: to unmask the injustices written in the law, for example in an agrarian or land act (Hanne 2005, 16); or to denounce the fact that norms exist to hide a real situation of exploitation e.g. to affirm that all are equal to better dissimulate the absence of equality for all (Hanne 2005, 18). 563 In response, Hanne invites the left to recognize the ambivalence of the law, to reflect on its appropriation (Hanne 2005, 27), and to recognize the evolution of the law as a valid objective. Considering that capitalist democracies have a proliferating normative apparatus and a complex network of legal institutions, Hanne is convinced that modern emancipatory policies cannot be conceived “outside of the figures of the law” (Hanne 2005, 10). A transformation of the law is thus needed but, he rightly asks, “who will struggle to improve an inimical system?” (Hanne 2005, 47) 564 “Mais il y a une méfiance, les gens ne croient pas en l’idee qu’un droit puisse être exigé” (interview, 16 November 2009). 565 Interview, 24 June 2009.

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international, national, and local levels, as well as the internal organizational level (the movement’s own policies) (Vía Campesina 2008b).

Rejection of the Social-Democratic Model Based on a social-democratic approach to human rights, the right to food has been conceptualized as being compatible with a capitalist market economy, provided that the inequalities generated by such a system are curbed through the intervention of a liberal democratic state (Stammers 1995, 488). The right to food is meant to protect people, in particular vulnerable groups, against potential violations resulting from systemic or structural processes. In addition, according to international human rights law, States have a certain level of discretion to design their own fulfillment systems and to elaborate the right to food policies they deem appropriate to establish these systems as quickly as possible. What the right to food provides, thus, are criteria to monitor such policies (FIAN International 2007, 6), not indications as to which model of economic or agricultural development should be pursued. For peasant movements fighting against capitalism, neoliberalism and imperialism in food and agriculture, the right to food appears insufficiently radical. Francisco, an indigenous leader from the CUC, Vía Campesina in Guatemala, explains: “For us, the right to food is [should be] about the means of production”566. The Secretary General of FIAN confirms: “The limit of human rights is that we can’t condemn capitalism. Capitalism is not a violation of human rights”567. The fact that the right to food is often understood as implying nothing more than access to compensatory policies such as safety nets or social programs568 (Künnemann 1984, 95) plays a big part in the ambivalence that peasant movements express toward the right to food. Saragih, for example, insists that “the implementation of rights such as the right to food is often limited to acts of charity, by which institutions seek to provide the poor with cheap food through diverse programs. These programs can only solve the most urgent cases, not the problem in itself”569. For Indian landless movement leader Rajagopal, the 566

Interview, 2 September 2009. Interview, 16 November 2009. 568 Despite the fact that, for numerous right to food activists, it is clear that the right to food is not a demand to be provided with grants and commodities but a demand to be provided some opportunity for supporting oneself. This was spelled out clearly by Shue: “The request is not to be supported but to be allowed to be selfsupporting on the basis of one’s own hard work” (Shue 1996, 40). 569 “Mais la mise en oeuvre de ces droits se limite souvent à des actes de charité. Concernant la réalisation du droit à l’alimentation, par exemple, beaucoup d’institutions s’efforcent fournir aux pauvres de la nourriture à bon marché au moyen de divers programmes. Or de tels programmes ne peuvent résoudre que les cas les plus criants, pas le problème en tant que tel. Cela ne mérite pas le terme de réalisation du droit à l’alimentation.” (Saragih 2005, 359–360). 567

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right to food leads to a “giver-taker relationship”. The right to food can only be a “temporary solution” because the real issue is “to redistribute resources and power, while these are being transferred to transnational corporations.” In contrast, Rajagopal argues that we should “avoid dependency toward the state” 570. In Haiti, the coordinator of the National Food Security Platform interviewed before the earthquake argues against social assistance policies for they “divert from processes of social demands”571. In Guatemala, the “comedores” (where food is distributed) are criticized by Francisco for being “paternalistic” and nothing more than “emergency measures” rather than the result of a well-thought policy572. In Mexico, the social assistance program Oportunidades that targets poor women is criticized for supporting consumption rather than production, and for creating an assistantialist mentality573. While right to food activists would argue that programs like the Bolsa Familia in Brazil are crucial in the short term because other measures, like agrarian reform, will take a very long time to implement574, MST leaders, in turn, have come out against these programs because they have a demobilizing effect and because, if there are only limited resources, government funds should go in priority to small-scale agriculture and agrarian reform575. Gaëtan, a member of the Belgium-based expert NGO Collectif Stratégies Alimentaires, who has long served as representative of the European Confederation for relief and development (CONCORD), summarizes: “The food sovereignty concept was opposed to the right to food. Food sovereignty is the strong idea of a right to national public policies, and in this regard, the right to food was discredited. The right to food was closer to food security, it was perceived as the right to be fed (…). The right to food is the right not to die of hunger; food sovereignty is more dynamic. It is the right to manage one’s food and agriculture”576. For contemporary peasant movements, the focus on access to food fails to address the increased commodification of subsistence and peoples’ need for dignity, autonomy. Vía Campesina’s rights talk addresses what Galtung has called non-material human needs, 570

Meeting between Rajagopal and the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Louvain-La-Neuve, 7 May 2009. 571 “Cela détourne les processus de demande sociale” (coordinator of the Plate-forme Nationale de Sécurité Alimentaire, PFNSA, Haiti, 27 May 2008). 572 Interview, 2 September 2009. 573 “A las mujeres, el asistencialismo de Oportunidades les parece normal. Es un problema porque el gobierno apoya el consumo y no la producción” (Blanca Rubio, at Public Forum “Sin maíz no hay paíz”, Mexico City, 15 September 2009). 574 Academic, consultant for FIAN Brazil, at the “Policies against Hunger” conference, Berlin, 9 December 2008. 575 Interview with representative from Oxfam International, 15 November 2009. 576 “Le concept de souveraineté alimentaire était opposé au droit à l’alimentation. La souveraineté alimentaire c’est l’idée forte de droit à des politiques nationales et par rapport à ça le droit à l’alimentation était discrédité. Le droit à l’alimentation était plus proche de la sécurité alimentaire, perçu comme le droit à être nourri. (…) Le droit à l’alimentation c’est le droit à ne pas mourir de faim, la souveraineté alimentaire c’est plus dynamique. C’est le droit à gérer son alimentation et agriculture” (interview, 13 May 2009).

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such as “identity needs” and “freedom needs” (Galtung 1978, 14), and the need to feel attached to a particular place, territory or history. These dimensions tend to be obliterated by the right to food approach, which places the emphasis on ensuring that material needs are covered and on securing a basic income, as some of the positions adopted by the current Special Rapporteur on the right to food on issues such as contract farming indicate. Unlike peasant movements which, overall, resist the conversion of peasants into agricultural entrepreneurs, the Special Rapporteur has insisted on the importance of “expanding the choices of smallholders to sell their products on local or global markets at a decent price” (De Schutter 2009d, 52 (c)), while listing a number of criteria that need to be met to ensure that such incorporation into (globalized) markets does not result in the exploitation of farmers (De Schutter 2011b, 10).

Rejection of Top-Down Social Change Over recent years, and under the growing influence of rights-based approaches to development, the right to food has become increasingly associated with a number of criteria against which development, trade, financial and agricultural policies (from the elaboration, to the implementation and monitoring phase) are to be tested. For the most part, these criteria focus on process577, but substantial criteria have been defined as well. In his report on large-scale land acquisitions and leases of land, for example, the Special Rapporteur lists a number of procedural requirements – such as, “any shifts in land use can only take place with the free, prior and informed consent of the local communities concerned” (De Schutter 2009e, principle 2) – but also indicates that “investment agreements with net food-importing countries should include a clause providing that a certain minimum percentage of the crops produced shall be sold on local markets” (De Schutter 2009e, principle 8) or that the “local population should benefit from the revenues generated by the investment agreement” (De Schutter 2009e, principle 4). The same goes for trade agreements, in relation to which human rights impact assessments are demanded. The emphasis on principles or criteria derived from human rights (or to ensure compatibility with human rights) is at odds with the oppositional approach adopted by peasant movements, which have fought against the WTO (Vía Campesina 1999a) and denounced “land grabbing” outright (Vía Campesina and GRAIN 2009). For the Secretary General of FIAN: “The dividing line between the right to food and food sovereignty is between condemning, not legitimizing, and trying to impose principles,

577

Where we refered to the principles of Participation, Accountability, Non-discrimination, Transparency, Human dignity, Empowerment and Rule of law, following the “PANTHER” framework developed by the FAO (FAO Right to Food Unit 2006).

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criteria. The tension appears clearly in the case of the WTO, land grabbing, agrofuels… We find a similar kind of division in the Round Table on Sustainable Soy”578. For Lorna, a Vía Campesina support staff I interviewed in Jakarta, the divergence is indeed mostly of a strategic nature: “The analysis of Olivier [the Special Rapporteur on the right to food] is very good, very useful, but with the recommendations, we don’t agree. For example, we don’t believe in multistakeholder dialog.”579 Steven, another Vía Campesina support staff, adds: “Vía Campesina is against it [multistakeholder dialog]. There is no middle point on moral grounds.”580 For David, IPC coordinator, peasant movements do not exclude institutional dialog but the issue is one of legitimacy: “It is a question of power relations. We chose who we listen to, who we talk with, who we negotiate with. There needs to be respect and dignity”581. While such strategic divergences can be analyzed as the result of very different institutional roles/postures (each actor speaking from a different position), they also reflect distinct beliefs in how social change happens. Social movement activists are much more prone to contesting the possibility that the state or global institutions could be vectors of change, while right to food activists maintain a generally more “optimistic” discourse on the possibility of change through institutions, comments Walter, from Oxfam582. Indeed, the right to food network has placed considerable efforts into achieving institutional advances, in particular at the national level, such as getting national constitutions to recognize the human right to food or parliaments to adopt right to food framework laws. As we explored earlier, peasant movements have also been reluctant to adopt the right to food frame because of its specialized and legal nature. To a large extent, peasant and social movements activists rejected the right to food frame because they felt that it was imposed on them by human rights advocates. Jean, a Vía Campesina support staff based in Brussels, explains: “The right to food, we don’t know, it is a UN thing. I don’t have an opinion. At the European level, it is not relevant (…) Food sovereignty, it came from the organizations themselves, and they are appropriating it”583. Recalling efforts by FIAN and

578

Interview, 16 November 2009. “L’analyse d’Olivier [le Rapporteur Spécial sur le droit à l’alimentation] elle est très bonne, très utile, par contre les recommendations, on n’est pas d’accord. Par exemple, le multistakeholder on n’y croit pas” (interview, 21 March 2010). 580 Interview, 25 August 2009. 581 “C’est une question de rapports de force. On choisit qui on écoute, avec qui on discute, avec qui on négocie. Il faut du respect et de la dignité” (interview, 16 November 2009). 582 Interview, 27 avril 2009. 583 “Le droit à l’alimentation, on ne connaît pas, c’est un truc de l’ONU. Je n’ai pas d’avis. Au niveau européen, ça n’intervient pas. (…) La souveraineté alimentaire c’est venu des organisations elles-mêmes, elles sont en train de se l’approprier” (interview, 2 June 2009). 579

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other civil society groups584 in the late 1990s to get states to adopt a Code of Conduct on the right to food, Lorna, another Vía Campesina support staff, recalls: “The code of conduct on the right to food, they did not feel it was theirs. They will keep proposing new things until it is theirs”585. Assessing the situation 15 years later, she adds: “now Vía Campesina is strong enough and there are no more worries. There is more openness to the right to food now. Also because the work of Olivier [the Special Rapporteur] illustrates our issues well, for example that hunger is rural”586. Although things have changed since the mid-90s, it is striking how much the right to food sovereignty vs. right to food frame contest is, to this day, about which frame is most comprehensive or all-encompassing and hence should be the dominant one. In charge of coordinating the elaboration of a civil society-led alternative policy document in the framework of the 2009 World Summit on Food Security, Dany587, an NGO representative of the More and Better Campaign, explains: “There was a political fight between the right to food and food sovereignty, the issue really is about hierarchy. They want the right to food as part of food sovereignty. I feel that it should be the right to food as an objective, and food sovereignty as a way to get there. There are many dimensions that are not in food sovereignty, such as decent work, social security, agricultural workers, etc.”588 Referring to several hot discussions that took place about the “issue of hierarchy and what to use as framework”, Stan589, a UK-based NGO representative who is a food sovereignty advocate complains: “it is not boring but exhausting to have this debate. NGOs want to have the right to food everywhere, not really FIAN but the others yes”. Interviewed during the parallel summit to the WSFS 2009, Stan adds that, when they discovered the one page summary of the “Policies and actions to eradicate hunger and malnutrition working document” (International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) 2009c), NGOs complained that “they did not see their blessed term in the letter, it just says that the right to food is part of food sovereignty at the bottom”590. Indeed, when I talked to right to food advocates on that day, many complained that the document gave no prominence to the right to food, and did not present the relationship between the right to food and food sovereignty in a coherent way. Many of them seemed disappointed and 584

The other organizations involved were World Alliance for Nutrition and Human Rights and Institute Jacques Maritain International. The objective of such a Code was to clarify the content of the right to adequate food and the responsibilities of all actors involved in ensuring its full realization. A first draft was elaborated in 1997. This civil society demand led to the adoption of Voluntary Guidelines on the right to food by the FAO in 2004. 585 Interview, 21 March 2010. 586 “Maintenant, la Vía est assez forte et il n’y pas plus d’inquiétude. Il y a plus d’ouverture au droit à l’alimentation maintenant. Aussi parce que le travail d’Olivier illustre bien nos problématiques, par exemple que la faim est rurale” (interview, 21 March 2010). 587 Name changed. 588 Interview, 14 November 2009. 589 Name changed. 590 Interview, 15 November 2009.

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upset. One of them said he would send social movements a letter listing the advantages of using the right to food. In the next section, we explore how human rights advocates have dealt with the right to food sovereignty vs. right to food frame contest.

6.2 The Right to Food Sovereignty vs. Right to Food Frame Contest In this section, we discuss the impact of the emergence of transnational peasant movements on how right to food activists frame their claims and relate to the affected communities whose rights they seek to defend. To grasp these impacts, it is important to recall, as we explored in chapter 4, that the current normative content of the right to food is the result of various intellectual and ideological interpretations. The human rights community has devoted important efforts, in the last four decades, to better define this human right, its implications for policy-making and the obligations that fall on states when it comes to its realization. This work was, for the most part, conducted by experts within the United Nations, in dialog with specialized civil society groups. In doing so, human rights lawyers have attempted to solve a number of tensions inherent to economic, social and cultural rights. They have also reacted to a changing international policy environment, and to evolving arguments advanced by opponents to economic, social and cultural rights (in particular when it comes to their content, import and debated justiciability) 591. The next section presents the various frames that circulate within the right to food network (6.2.1), and the (internal) frame disputes that emerged as a result. It also discusses how right to food defenders dealt with the lack of resonance of the right to food frame (6.2.2), and with the right to food sovereignty vs. right to food frame contest (6.2.3). It ends with an assessment of the impacts of this contest on the content of the right to food as a human right (6.2.4).

6.2.1 The Right to Food Networkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Various Frames If the right to food is often presented as a coherent and stable framework, which finds its sources in a number of international instruments and interpretative documents, it is interesting, for the sake of the analysis proposed in this chapter, to see it as composed of various complementary and often competing frames (see table 7 below).

591

This interesting question is, unfortunately, beyond the scope of this study.

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At least three major frames can be identified as circulating in the right to food network. We already introduced them at some length in chapter 4:

Entitlement Frame

Right to Feed Oneself Frame

Rights-Based Development Frame

Key elements

The right to property, the right to work, the right to social security

The right to access land and other natural resources

The right to participate

Human Rights approach

Social-Democratic

Structural

Procedural

Diagnosis

Hunger is the result of lack of political will

Hunger is the result of inequalities in access to resources and of inadequate global governance structures

Hunger is the result of insufficient participation of marginal groups in political processes

Prognosis

Public action and changes in legal and socio-political structures; economic and social empowerment

Redistribution of resources and power

Political empowerment, citizenship and rights education

Actors

Committee on ESCR, RTF Unit of the FAO, previous and current Special Rapporteur on the right to food, FIAN

FIAN, previous and current Special Rapporteur on the right to food

Rights-based development NGOs, current Special Rapporteur on the right to food

Table 7 - The Right to Food Networkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Various Frames

The co-existence of these three frames has led to sustained tensions within the transnational right to food network. The most prominent frame dispute has occurred between the entitlement frame and the right to feed oneself frame, mostly within FIAN International but also within the right to food network more generally.

The Right to Feed Oneself vs. Entitlement Frame Dispute As we saw in chapter 4, the right to feed oneself frame was originally elaborated by FIAN in the early 1980s. As Paul, a FIAN activist who has long been attached to the

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international secretariat of FIAN International in Heidelberg, puts it: “the original philosophy of FIAN was the right to feed oneself”592. The perspective advanced by FIAN at the time was surprisingly close to that we know today as food sovereignty: “Any deviation from the people’s basic food autonomy must be limited: the people’s means of subsistence are not to be alienated and a return to food autarchy in a reasonable period is to remain possible. Any policies undermining that possibility are contrary to human rights” (Künnemann 1984, 95). Another early position adopted by FIAN goes in the same direction: “In hunger regions, food crops, food production for domestic consumption have priority over cash crops, food production for export out of the region” (Künnemann 1984, 96). FIAN International mostly deployed the right to feed oneself frame in its work on cases of violations of the right to food. This work sought to draw the attention of the international community to the link between exclusion from/loss of access to natural resources and right to food violations. FIAN activists felt that it was crucial for the right to food not to be “confused with the right to be fed”593, recalls the former Secretary General of FIAN. As a result, adds the current Secretary General Flavio Valente, they put the emphasis on concrete situations (most often of evictions and displacement) and “country experiences” as a way to “make it more about resources and not only about assistance”594. Yet, the right to feed oneself frame, with its emphasis on structural issues and agrarian dimensions, entered in conflict very early on with the entitlement frame, also deployed by FIAN activists but anchored in a social-democratic approach to human rights. In their efforts to defend the right to food of peasant communities, FIAN activists were thus constrained by the emphasis their organization had decided to put on identifying “violations” of international human rights law and thus on identifiable failures of the state to meet its human rights obligations. In practice, this meant that the right of peoples to feed themselves could only be defended to a limited extent in FIAN’s view: “Individuals and groups may be deprived of their traditional ways of securing the right to food for themselves only if their right to food is secured in another way. The obligation for such a long-term assurance rests with the entity which deprives those individuals and groups of their traditional way of the realization of the right to food” (Künnemann 1984, 95). In other words, if the state had any kind of social program or safety net in place, there was no human rights argument595 that could be advanced to defend peasant communities faced

592

Interview, 24 June 2009. Interview, 23 June 2009. 594 Interview, 25 June 2009. 595 One line of argument which was nevertheless developed is the following: “Systems of social security in the modern welfare states are an initial attempt to curb violations of economic and social rights through national measures. No matter how necessary a national social welfare system may be, the human right to food can never be fulfilled by governmental allocation of food, even if no one remains hungry. Like every other human right, the right to food must be interpreted in the light of the entire range of human rights. Solving the hunger problem from a human rights standpoint means that the right to participate in the production of food and in the related decision-making must be guaranteed” (Künnemann 1984, 92). 593

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with imminent displacement, as a result of mining, dams, or other development projects, or on the edge of bankruptcy following trade liberalization. The right to feed oneself vs. entitlement frame dispute is particularly interesting to analyze because it has taken a number of various forms over the last 15 to 20 years. It has evolved with international, national and local events, with the changing strategic orientations of the right to food network, and, as we will explore, with the emergence of peasant movements in the mid-1990s. The right to feed oneself vs. entitlement frame dispute was perceptible in early discussions on the extent to which the nutritional aspects of the right to food should be addressed. Some experts insisted that the nutritional dimensions should form a key part of the content of the right to food. Prof. Eide, for example, in his updated study on “the right to food and nutrition” (Eide 1999, 1), called for applying “a life-cycle approach to understanding malnutrition, emphasizing the intergenerational cycle and the particular role of women as both victims and “mediators” in the generation of malnutrition” (Eide 1999, 22). Yet, these elements failed to ever be taken seriously into account by the right to food network, largely for two reasons. On one hand, right to food activists, mostly from FIAN, were reluctant to duly incorporate the nutritional aspects because they felt, as asserted by Paul, that “not to address access to resources” was “sterile”596. On the other hand, professionals in the field of nutrition never connected to the right to food frame and deployed a right to adequate nutrition frame instead597. This led to a disconnect between those emphasizing the importance of bringing sufficient food to the mouth and those emphasizing the importance of a healthy body, with the latter often adopting a medicalized and reductionist approach598 to malnutrition, that thinks more in terms of quantifiable food micro- and macro-nutrients than in holistic and food systems terms (Bellows et al. 2011, 85). The right to feed oneself vs. entitlement frame dispute has also surfaced, time and again, in discussions on the emphasis that should be placed on the right to social protection as a component of the right to food. With growing recognition of the justiciability of the right to food across the world, and successful court cases in countries like India (Mander 2012), the right to food is increasingly being interpreted as implying that the state has the obligation to deliver food in kind or implement school meal or social security programs. Some FIAN activists see this as a welcome development, for it leads to a more comprehensive understanding of the right to food. The former Secretary General of FIAN suggests: “We have advocated for this interpretation of the right to food [as the right to 596

Interview, 24 June 2009. I am grateful to Flavio Valente for pointing this out. 598 Such an approach is noticeable in large international programs like the Scaling Up Nutrition program, proposed by the World Bank, with the support of the Bill Gates Foundation and the US and Irish government, which have been criticized by FIAN for potentially alienating people from their capacity for autonomy within their own food systems. 597

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feed oneself] so much than it has been difficult to get cash transfers in. Now we are moving back to right to food language [instead of right to feed oneself]”599. A stronger emphasis on the right to social protection as a key component of the right to food also allows human rights activists to work on the realization of the right to food in the North, where hunger and malnutrition are less immediately connected to the rural world and to those who produce food. Other activists, in particular those who are more interested in defending land rights, are concerned that emphasizing the access- and consumer-related dimensions of the right to food will considerably reduce its subversive potential, for it gives less importance to the structural implications of this right.

6.2.2 Facing the Legitimacy Crisis The emergence of transnational peasant movements in the 1990s profoundly transformed the relationship between right to food defenders and the “victims” of violations they were defending and supporting. The formerly “bilateral” relationship between human rights activists and “affected communities” turned into an – at least symbolically – “triangular” one, as peasants developed strong organizations across the planet to defend their interests and advance their worldviews. The eruption of peasant social movements and the rapid success of their right to food sovereignty frame (that led to a frame contest with the right to food frame) confronted right to food advocates with a number of interrelated challenges: conceptual and strategic challenges, as we discussed above, but also representation and legitimacy challenges. As peasant movements gained in influence, right to food activists found that not only their conceptions of human rights and of social change were being questioned, but that their very role and ways of working were subjected to criticism. Talking with right to food advocates about the right to food sovereignty vs. right to food (here understood as the combination of all the various right to food frames explored above) frame contest is no easy task. Discussions tend to be passionate and intellectually stimulating, but generate a lot of tensions and frustrations. Many activists are highly disappointed that the right to food frame never resonated with peasant movements. The former Secretary General of FIAN, for example, regrets: “We put efforts into trying to get Vía Campesina to work on the right to food and the right to feed oneself and with the UN. But they went into the direction of food sovereignty.”600 Considering the many similarities between the right to feed oneself and the right to food sovereignty frames (beyond the obvious difference that the former is much more focused on the individual rights-holder while the latter includes a variety of collective rights-holders), it is not hard to imagine the perplexity that the lack of resonance of the right to feed oneself frame generated. 599 600

Interview, 23 June 2009. Interview, 23 June 2009.

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Right to food defenders have different perceptions as to why the right to food failed to convince peasant organizations. For the current Secretary General of FIAN: “They [peasant movements] don’t like the right to food, there is a bourgeois perception of rights. (…) It [the right to food] is not their own. And they don’t understand that food sovereignty does not guarantee rights. They feel that it will solve it all.”601 For the former Secretary General of FIAN: “Peasant groups have several problems with the right to food. The individual is the starting point. (…) They are suspicious of the UN. “HR is not in good hands in the UN” is the perception of Vía Campesina. They want their own definition of rights. They identify human rights with human rights law which is in the hands of government. Why should rights be defined by governments or the UN?”602 For Paul, a FIAN activist who has worked extensively in Central America: “Food sovereignty achieved an important success because it highlights the right to produce. It talks about the self-determination of peoples over any food system. It belongs to, and proposes an alternative model. (…) The right to food has no such ideological dimension. It has no vision for an alternative society. It is a strength and a weakness. It is not a source of inspiration”. He concludes: “The difference between the right to food and food sovereignty is between lo acordado y lo visionario [the agreed and the visionary/forwardthinking]” 603. Frank, one of the former advisors to the former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, says he understands this situation: “Why would they use the right to food? It is too vague. The only thing we bring is the protection mechanisms: the Special Rapporteur, the Human Rights Council, the parallel reports to the Committee on ESCR. (…) If I look at country missions, and our recommendations, we have had an impact on the distribution of food programs, for example in India, but not on structural problems. For example, I have found no law on food security that includes the land dimension. The right to food instrument has not proved its efficacy; it is hard to convince them” 604. The right to food sovereignty vs. right to food frame contest did not only confront right to food advocates with an alternative conception of rights. It also led some of them to question the right to food emphasis on state-focused strategies and institutional dialog. Paul, who has been involved in trade and human rights discussions at the EU level through CIFCA, a network created in 1991 to assess and influence EU policies in Central 601

Interview, 25 June 2009. Interview, 23 June 2009. 603 Interview, 24 June 2009. 604 “Pourquoi ils utiliseraient le droit à l’alimentation? c’est trop vague. Le seul apport c’est les outils de protection : le Rapporteur Spécial, le Conseil des Droits de l’Homme, les rapports parallèles devant le Comité DESC. (…) Si je regarde les missions pays, au niveau de nos recommandations, on a eu un impact sur la distribution de programmes alimentaires, par exemple en Inde, mais pas sur les problèmes structurels. Par exemple, je n’ai trouvé aucune loi sur la sécurité alimentaire qui inclut la dimension terre. L’instrument droit à l’alimentation n’a pas prouvé son efficacité, c’est dur de les convaincre….” (interview, 3 July 2009). 602

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America, explains: “The human rights movement has not achieved anything. On association agreements, we gained access to political spaces but we were not seriously taken into account. We achieved that they give us the impression that they listen to us”605. If expressions of skepticism emerge from time to time, most right to food defenders remain firm believers in the virtues of institutional dialog. For example, addressing peasant movements in the framework of the upcoming negotiations of Voluntary Guidelines on the governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests at the CFS, the Special Rapporteur insisted: “It is your duty to participate, otherwise the process [of drafting and negotiating VG on land tenure] will develop without you and your perspective and will be ill-informed”606. While most right to food activists see value in a division of labor between NGOs and social movements, each deploying distinct strategies and repertoires of action, mainly advocacy/research for NGOs and protest/direct action for social movements), many would probably agree that it is crucial that the voice of peasant groups be heard in institutional settings. They would also share Paul’s conviction that their responsibility is to “open spaces for social and peasant movements”, whenever they can: “it is a fundamental part of the strategic alliance between the two. (…) We have access to more spaces and they appreciate the access we give them and for us it is important”607. For Paul, the fact that the Special Rapporteur on the right to food “confronts structures but with his own words (…) even if he does not use the anti-capitalist discourse” and “uses his mandate to open spaces for social movements” helps explain why the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) has “supported Olivier’s [the Special Rapporteur’s] positions, despite the diversity of groups and positions”608.

The Right to Food as Failed Framing As these excerpts demonstrate, right to food actors call on a wide variety of conceptual, strategic and legitimacy considerations to explain the failure of the right to food frame to resonate with peasant movements. While research on failed framing attempts is still at its early stages609, some factors have been identified that can help explain why some frames resonate and others do not. Frame resonance essentially depends on “credibility” and “salience”. The credibility of a frame is the result of the combined following elements: a) the consistency between beliefs, claims and actions (does the frame provide a coherent 605

Interview, 24 June 2009. The Special Rapporteur on the right to food, at regional consultation with civil society organized by FIAN in the context of future negotiations of FAO Voluntary Guidelines on the governance of land, fisheries, and forests, Kuala Lumpur, 24 March 2010. 607 Interview, 24 June 2009. 608 Interview, 24 June 2009. 609 For an interesting study of feminism as a failed frame in post-communist Czech Republic, see (Heitlinger 1996). 606

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link between the three?); b) its empirical credibility (is there evidence out there that the frame’s diagnosis is correct?); and, c) the credibility of the claims makers (do frame articulators appear legitimate and credible?). The salience of a frame, in turn, is tied to: d) its centrality in the lives of participants; e) its experiential commensurability (is it abstract, distant or does it resonate with the every day experience of the participants?); and, f) its narrative fidelity (is it culturally resonant?) (R. D. Benford and Snow 2000, 619–621). Applying this framework to the right to food frame, it appears that it may have lacked both credibility and salience. While its empirical credibility was hardly debated (a), the right to food frame did not provide a coherent link between the peasant movements’ beliefs, claims and actions (b): it was linked to repertoires of action such a letter writing campaigns and advocacy which were perceived as inadequate. The credibility of right to food defenders is more difficult to assess (c). It was probably high in a number of national context in which human rights defenders could contribute to concrete rights-related struggles. In international arenas, however, their expert discourse and talking on behalf of the poor did not go down well, as we explored earlier. In addition, the salience of the right to food frame was considerably limited, as we explored in chapters 4 and 5, for it lacked narrative fidelity (f). The right to food framework proved difficult to adapt to local institutions and meanings or, to use Engle Merry’s term, to “vernacularize” (Merry 2006, 39). It was not perceived as central in the lives of peasants (d) and lacked experiential commensurability (e), for the main concern of food sovereignty activists was not the fight against hunger and malnutrition but the fight for their own survival as food producers. Of course, not all right to food defenders reacted the same way to the lack of resonance of their reference frame, and to the attacks on their legitimacy. As we will explore below, right to food activists found themselves conflicted between two radically different sources of legitimacy: from above – making references to international human rights law – and from below – responding to the claims of peasant movements or facilitating their political participation. The implications of this tension are explored in the next section.

6.2.3 Dealing with the Right to Food Sovereignty vs. Right to Food Frame Contest Confronted with the sweeping popularity of the right to food sovereignty frame, right to food activists had to deal with the confusion that the use of three distinct concepts (right to food, food sovereignty, food security) generated for most actors. They also had to decide on which attitude to adopt toward the right to food sovereignty frame. In this section, I argue that the reactions of right to food defenders to the right to food

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sovereignty vs. right to food frame contest varied greatly, depending on what they identified as the main sources of their legitimacy.

Different Sources of Legitimacy Interestingly, the three main right to food frames that we identified above can be associated with distinct sources of legitimacy. The right to feed oneself frame can be characterized as essentially “inclusive” in nature, it mostly derives its legitimacy from its ability to include as many social voices as possible and in particular to support peasant struggles (from below). The entitlement frame can be characterized as “textualist”, it derives its legitimacy from its ability to refer to codified international norms (from above). The rights-based development frame is kind of in between the first two: it is procedural in the sense that it derives its legitimacy from its ability to encourage participation of all stakeholders in decision-making processes, but it relies heavily on the normative aspects of the right to food (textualist). Attitudes toward the right to food sovereignty ranged from attacking and identifying gaps in the “adversary’s frame” to trying to absorb, dismiss or influence it. One of the tactics that I would characterize as inspired by textualist considerations consisted in highlighting the advantages of the right to food, and the weaknesses of food sovereignty. Paul, for example, argues: “The focus on states obligations is not in food sovereignty. For them, it is the rights of peoples” 610. He also says: “Non-discrimination does not exist in food sovereignty. To look inside households; the division of resources between men and women.”611 And adds: “The focus on vulnerable groups is an addition of human rights organizations.”612 Valeria, another FIAN activist, argues: “The right to food applies to all. Food sovereignty has a globalizing aspiration but there is a focus on producers, [although] Paul Nicholson always insists that it is not a sectarian demand.”613 Another method consisted in insisting on a coherent use of the human rights framework and on having the right to food figure prominently, for example when drafting a joint civil society statement. Recalling her participation to the 2007 Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum, Valentine explains the challenge of finding herself in a minority position: “Not easy to influence the Nyeleni Declaration!”614. Right to food defenders attached to textualist frames shared the fear that the proliferation of new rights claimed by peasant movements – and what they perceived as an inconsistent and imprecise use of the human 610

“Le focus sur les obligations des états n’est pas dans la souveraineté alimentaire. Eux, c’est les droits des peuples” (interview, 24 June 2009). 611 Interview, 24 June 2009. 612 Interview, 24 June 2009. 613 Interview, 23 June 2009. 614 “A Nyeleni, c’était un peu la bataille de Valérie [prénom modifié] contre les moulins à vent. Pas évident d’influencer la déclaration de Nyeleni !” (interview, 25 June 2009).

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rights discourse – would compromise the strength of the human rights framework. For the Secretary General of FIAN: “They try to say that everything is food sovereignty. It dilutes the right to food when they put it under the banner of food sovereignty.”615 Others expressed that they could not understand the “obsession” with working with peasant organizations. Rather, they argued, alliances should be built with other groups, in particular other human rights organizations. Listen to Fiona616, from Rights & Democracy: “Right to food people are stuck in Rome [at the FAO] and trying to get approved by the food sovereignty movement. While at the ESCR-net conference, there were no right to food people. There were many rights represented, and a big rights movement but the right to food is not in the gang”617. Right to food activists more inclined towards inclusive frames, in contrast, felt disposed to reinforce their collaboration with food sovereignty groups because of the added legitimacy it could bring them. Flavio Valente argues: “When we issue joint messages [with Vía Campesina], when we speak with them, it legitimizes us. It is a very strong combination.”618 Paul, in turn, explains: “we felt very honored when Vía Campesina decided to work with us”619. An Indian FIAN activist adds a more pragmatic explanation: “Enforcement [of human rights] is always a problem. We need people’s movements to make things move.”620 When taking part in the WSFS parallel forum in Rome in November 2009, I was able to witness a recent example of how right to food activists with divergent reference frames approach the right to food sovereignty vs. right to food frame contest in different ways. On the night of 15 November 2009, right to food activists held a “right to food crisis management meeting” to deal with the fact that the civil society alternative document to the Comprehensive Framework for Action did not adequately integrate the right to food. While some activists (that I could qualify as textualist) said they would only get satisfied with an entire restructuring of the document, a number of (inclusive) activists showed signs of fatigue and expressed the desire to put their efforts into a different kind of interaction with peasant organizations. Valeria said she was “depressed” to see that the right to food group was “angry with the policy document”, while she was “happy that they [peasant organizations] invited new constituencies and realized that they can’t solve everything and that there are gaps in policy”. “Why do we always have to force them to include the right to food?” 621, she added. Fiona, from Rights & Democracy echoed: “I am

615

Interview, 25 June 2009. Name changed. 617 Interview, 20 March 2010. 618 Interview, 25 June 2009. 619 Interview, 24 June 2009. 620 Interview, 10 December 2008. 621 Interview, 15 November 2009. 616

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tired of trying to get them [the food sovereignty group] to include the right to food in their documents”622. If the peak of the right to food sovereignty vs. right to food frame contest can be situated between 1997 (when right to food activists drafted the Code of Conduct on the right to food and sought endorsements for it) and 2002 (WFS:fyl, when food sovereignty became the dominant frame at the parallel civil society summit), this recent incident shows that tensions between right to food and food sovereignty activists persisted for many years afterwards. Over recent years, however, a compromise language623 appears to have been found and both groups appear to favor a respectful and non-aggression approach. The former Secretary General of FIAN explains: “The consensus here is to deal with food sovereignty as a strange cousin, in a constructive way. (…) It is not fundamentally different624. The current Secretary General of FIAN summarizes: “We don’t oppose food sovereignty. We try to promote the complementarity of both. We mention it but it has no bearing on institutions. Food sovereignty is the struggle of the people.”625 He adds: “But they use it [the right to food] in an opportunistic way. They understand they should not oppose the right to food. I understand their perspective, they have a much broader struggle.”626 Paul explains: “the point of view of FIAN, in order to convince, is to say that there is no contradiction”627. According to him, the publication of “Food Sovereignty. Towards Democracy in Localized Food Systems” by two right to food activists in 2005 (Windfuhr and Jonsén 2005) contributed significantly to the establishment of more peaceful relations. “The document (…) is a document of reconciliation. It sent a message to the outside world that it is compatible”628. Addressing social movements at the parallel forum to the World Summit on Food Security in Rome in November 2009, the Special Rapporteur on the right to food endorsed the idea that the two frames are compatible and mutually supportive: “We should explore the link between the right to food and food sovereignty, they present many similarities. (…) The right to food brings democratization. The effect of human rights impact assessments and right to food strategies will be food sovereignty.”629

622

Interview, 15 November 2009. Many joint statements now combine both frames. For example: “States should promote policies and actions that actively support the measures outlined above that will realize food sovereignty and the progressive realization of the human right to adequate food” (International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) 2009c). 624 Interview, 23 June 2009. 625 Interview, 25 June 2009. 626 Interview, 25 June 2009. 627 Interview, 24 June 2009. 628 Interview, 24 June 2009. 629 Discussion between the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and civil society, during the parallel Forum to the World Summit on Food Security, Rome, 13 November 2009. 623

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6.2.4 Impacts of the Right to Food Sovereignty vs. Right to Food Frame Contest on the Right to Food as a Human Right Not surprisingly, right to food defenders have different perceptions of the extent to which the right to food has been influenced (or should be influenced) by the formulation of rights-based claims by peasant movements. For textualist activists, the strength of the right to food resides first and foremost in the internationally agreed and relatively rigid human rights framework. This framework should be respected and preserved, as the former Secretary General of FIAN argues, while showing signs of impatience and frustration: “I don’t agree that the right to food has been influenced by food sovereignty, the right to feed oneself was there long before (…) I would interpret food sovereignty in a way that is consistent with the right to food. I guess that, yes, it would change the right to food? (…) But I feel that Vía Campesina should be based on human rights. It would be a mistake if they don’t. I would tell them that.”630 For this right to food thinker, it is important to “deal with food sovereignty in the context of the Covenant [the ICESCR]”. A number of ways could be explored to “include the right to food sovereignty in the right to food”, such as reinforcing the “right to political participation”, reinforcing emphasis on article 1 on the right to self-determination, and better exploit reference in article 11 to land and productive resources, in order to make the right to an adequate standard of living “not about income but about assets, at the level of communities.”631 For inclusive activists, the right to food framework would be reinforced if it managed to better echo peasant movement demands. These activists, such as Paul, interpret the emergence of peasant movements as a useful reminder: “food sovereignty exerts a pressure on us, so that we don’t lose sight of the reality of the struggles. The right to food stresses el suffrimiento [the suffering]”632. Such activists appear more inclined to recognizing the influence of food sovereignty on the right to food. Paul, for example, shares his perception that “the right to food is evolving towards a leftist concept”633. Valeria explains: “On trade, food sovereignty has had a lot of influence on us. No one in the right to food community has said agriculture out of the WTO. We talk human rights impact assessments, which is very different. But we are silent on certain things, such as we need trade, on which everyone would however agree. And we heard no criticism [from peasant movements] that impact assessments legitimize [free trade agreements]”634.

630

Interview, 23 June 2009. Interview, 23 June 2009. 632 Interview, 24 June 2009. 633 Interview, 24 June 2009. 634 Interview, 23 June 2009. 631

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Even the most inclusive right to food advocates, however, feel somewhat constrained by the right to food framework (they are, in part, textualist) and it is fair to say that most of them would concur on the need to ensure that their discourse remains within the limits set by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This confronts them with tensions that are sometimes difficult to solve, as Valentine, a French lawyer who has long worked at the international secretariat of FIAN, expresses very well, when I ask her if she thinks that food sovereignty has influenced the right to food: “Yes and no. No because I continue to work with the normative content provided by General Comment 12, which derives from FIAN’s Code of Conduct, which had involved a lot of consulted actors. It is not advisable to change this definition. Moreover, it is wide enough. And then we have applications to concrete cases, we are going to have cases in relation to the Optional Protocol, and national legislations. Yes because we are going to reach a right to land. There was a lot of resistance before about a right to land. Now it has changed, thanks to the reports of Miloon [Kothari, the former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing]”635. Frank, a swiss lawyer who long worked with Jean Ziegler, the former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, also spells out the constraints of the right to food framework very clearly: “What can the right to food take from food sovereignty? We could compare with the right to water. The right to water does not say against privatizations. The right to food is the same. There is no political dimension. It is hard to say that states have to produce organic. You can say that the right to food is against GMOs or free trade but you must prove it. It is ok if people reject them. It is ok if there are intellectual property rights and indebted peasants [talking about GMOs]”636.

635

“Oui et non. Non parce que je continue de travailler avec le contenu normatif de l’observation générale 12 qui dérive du code de conduite FIAN qui lui-même avait impliqué un grand nombre d’acteurs consultés. Il n’est pas souhaitable de faire changer cette définition. En plus elle est déjà assez large. Et puis on a les applications à des cas concrets, on va avoir les cas liés au protocole facultatif, et aux législations nationales. Oui parce que l’on va arriver à un droit à la terre. Il y avait beaucoup de résistance avant par rapport au droit à la terre. Maintenant cela a changé, notamment à travers les rapports de Miloon” (interview, 25 June 2009). 636 “Qu’est ce que le droit à l’alimentation peut prendre de la souveraineté alimentaire? On pourrait faire le parallèle avec le droit à l’eau. Le droit à l’eau ne dit pas contre les privatisations. Le droit à l’alimentation c’est pareil. Il n’a pas de dimension politique. C’est difficile de dire que les états sont obligés de produire bio. Tu peux dire que le droit à l’alimentation c’est contre les OGMs et le libre échange mais tu dois le prouver. C’est ok si les gens les refusent. C’est ok s’il y a des droits de propriété intellectuelle et le résultat c’est des paysans endettés [ces deux dernières phrases se réfèrent aux OGM] ” (interview, 3 July 2009).

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6.3 Adjusting to an Alternative Conception of Rights and Social Change: The Evolving Content of the Right to Food In this section, we look at transnational peasant movements as “makers of legal change” (Rajagopal 2003, 167). While we looked at their rights creating activity in chapters 2, 3 and 5, we focus here on another dimension of the contribution of peasant movements to law-making: their impact on the existing and already codified human right to adequate food. The content of the right to food evolved considerably as a result of the food sovereignty vs. right to food frame contest. To a large extent, it is the flexibility and multi-dimensionality of the right to food framework that made it possible for human rights experts to respond to and incorporate the critique that had been formulated by peasant movements. It is fair to say that inclusive right to food advocates have played the strongest role in the recent evolution of the right to food as a human right. Because they felt that the legitimacy of their work derived from its potential contribution to the global struggle led by peasants, these human rights defenders generally tried to expand and redirect the content of the right to food to better integrate the concerns and claims of peasant movements. This led them to try to be more responsive to peasant claims, in their conceptualization of the right to food but also, to some extent, in their strategies. For example, it led them to a shift from (often paternalistic) expressions of solidarity to affected communities to granting more direct support to peasant organizations in order to facilitate their access to international arenas or UN bodies. Yet, textualist right to food defenders have also shaped the content of the right to food. Convinced that the legitimacy of human rights derived primarily from their codification, they have insisted on using “already agreed” language and on referring to commitments made by states under international human rights law. They have defended the solidity and rigidity of the right to food framework. They have highlighted the added value of the “legal” (right to food) over the “political” (food sovereignty) (Windfuhr and Jonsén 2005, 13, 15). They have sought to reinforce the universal relevance of the right to food, to a large extent in response to the perceived lack of universality of the right to food sovereignty. As a result, a number of components of the right to food have been reinforced, while other aspects have been silenced or are simply apprehended in a different fashion. In this section, we explore how the three major frames we identified above – the right to feed oneself, the rights-based development frame and the entitlement frame – changed as a result of their confrontation with peasant movements’ rights-based claims. We discuss the radicalization of the right to feed oneself frame (6.3.1), efforts by the right to food

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network to reinforce internal and external participation (6.3.2) and the increased attention paid to the nutritional and urban dimensions of the right to food (6.3.3).

6.3.1 Radicalization of the Right to Feed Oneself Frame The right to feed oneself frame, under the influence of the right to food sovereignty frame, evolved in at least four directions: a) an increased emphasis was placed on the importance of moving toward sustainable and pro-smallholder agricultural development models; b) a growing insistence was put on the contribution of relocalized food systems to the realization of the right to food; c) a increased emphasis was put on the importance of recognizing the right to accessing land/agrarian reform and natural resources (water, seeds, forests, fisheries); d) support for Vía Campesina’s demand that the UN Human Rights Council recognize new rights for peasants (as we discussed in chapters 3 and 5). The radicalization of the right to feed oneself frame has coincided with it being formally abandoned by FIAN International, in favor of the (more universal) right to food frame. The former Secretary General of FIAN argues: “You cannot replace the right to food by the right to feed oneself (…) Vía Campesina uses the point of view of producers (…) but they do not see themselves as having to solve this (…) the right to feed oneself was dropped from FIAN’s vision and documents.”637

Emphasis on the importance of Moving toward Sustainable and ProSmallholder Agricultural Development Models As we explored in chapter 4, the right to food was very early on conceptualized as implying a particular relationship to the food system. Food can be bought, but it can also be exchanged or produced. As an important proportion of the planet’s hungry and malnourished lives in rural areas, investing in rural development is a key component of implementing the right to food. The emphasis on reinforcing everyone’s ability to produce its own food – associated with the right to feed oneself frame – did not originally come with explicitly recommending a particular type of production system. Yet, over recent years, right to food activists have been more vocal in rejecting industrial agriculture and in demanding alternative food systems that respect and protect nature, and respond to the particular needs of smallholder farmers. During the global food crisis, for example, FIAN recommended to High Level Task Force members that they “support the transition from an agriculture that heavily depends on 637

Interview, 23 June 2009.

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fossil energy and chemical inputs, to an agriculture based on agro-ecology and improved local knowledge” (FIAN International 2008, 5). Valentine explains: “We use IAASTD [International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development] a lot. We are not partisans but empirically we see that some models are more conducive to right to food violations than others”638. The organization went as far as concluding that “the right to adequate food conceptual framework should be revised”, in order to “incorporate the dimension of sustainable agroecological food systems, with reduced climate change impact as a guarantee of the right to adequate food and nutrition of the present and next generations” (Bellows et al. 2011, 88). Similar kinds of policy recommendations were made by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, who expressed his belief in the potential of agroecological (De Schutter 2011a) and/or peasant farming639 practices, and called for “affirmative action to support small-scale farming640. The Cordoba Group, which gathers right to food experts, also issued a statement in support of “local, agro-ecological model of small scale farming production as a way to overcome hunger, as recommended by the IAASTD” (Cordoba Group 2008)641. These positions have contrasted with those of other right to food actors, notably with those who deploy the entitlement frame. For the FAO right to food Unit, for example, the “right to food is realized when people have access to food that meets specified adequacy standards — irrespective of whether that food is imported or produced domestically, or whether it is produced by family farmers or by agribusiness” (Cotula, Djiré, and Tenga 2008, 20). Interestingly, as we highlighted above, even inclusive activists within FIAN, such as Paul, have expressed concerns with taking too prescriptive an approach with respect to production models: “yes we support peasant agriculture but we are careful not to be prescriptive, we rather propose criteria to ensure coherence with the right to food”642.

638

“On a beaucoup utilisé IAASTD. On n’est pas partisans en soi mais empiriquement on voit que certains modèles sont plus propices à des violations du droit à l’alimentation que d’autres” (interview, 25 June 2009). 639 Debate on Food Sovereignty organized by Campus Plein Sud, Louvain-la-Neuve, 26 February 2009. 640 UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, at the “Policies against Hunger” conference, Berlin, 10 December 2008. 641 The Cordoba group is composed of the following experts: Enrique Alonso Garcia, Counsellor of State, Spain; Barbara Ekwall, Coordinator of the Right to Food Unit, FAO; Asbjørn Eide, Professor emeritus at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights and former Special Rapporteur of the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights on the Right to Adequate Food as a Human Right; José Esquinas Alcazar, Professor and Director of the Chair of Studies on Hunger and Poverty (CEHAP), University of Cordoba; Miguel A. Martin-López, Chief of Department, Diputacion de Cordoba, Spain; Luis M. MartínMartín, Professor of the University of Cordoba; Olivier de Schutter, Professor and Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food of the UN Human Rights Council; Flavio Valente, Secretary-General of FIAN; Carlos Villan Duran, President, Spanish Society for International Human Rights Law; Jose Luis Vivero Pol, Food Security Officer, Hunger-Free Latin America and the Caribbean Initiative, FAO RLC, Santiago. 642 Interview, 24 June 2009.

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Insistence on the Contribution of Relocalized Food Systems to the Realization of the Right to Food When it comes to advocating for relocalized food systems, the evolution of the right to feed oneself frame is also clearly perceptible. The Special Rapporteur has defended the idea that international trade in agriculture should have only a “subsidiary role”, pointing to the fact that international trade creates vulnerabilities, has detrimental social and environmental impacts, and accentuates the dualization of the agricultural sector643. “The mistake was to include agriculture in the WTO”644, he adds645. FIAN has recently considered “the inclusion of the concept of food sovereignty”– understood as the “right of the population, women and men, at local, regional and national level to define what food stuffs should be produced at each region, how, and by whom”— in the right to food, because the organization believes that it “could create conditions for the local populations to participate in the political discussions related to land utilization, land tenure, agricultural production options, access to local and regional markets and decision on what type of agricultural production model should be adopted” (Bellows et al. 2011, 90). The influence of peasant movements on this issue is blatant. For Valeria, a FIAN activist who has put a lot of efforts into developing relations with Vía Campesina: “We need to have a real debate on the industrial mode of development. Do we want all societies to follow the western model of industrialization? All this comes from the dialog with them”646. If the idea of including food sovereignty as a “prerequisite and enabling condition for and integral part of the promotion and protection of the right to adequate food and nutrition at local, national and international level” (Bellows et al. 2011, 88) is an attractive idea for most right to food defenders, their attachment to the entitlement frame represents a considerable obstacle to them openly advocating for relocalized food systems. Many point to the need to find a logical and defendable justification. Valentine, for example, explains: “We make, I make, the link between the quality of food and localization [to build on the adequacy dimension of the right to food]. From the point of view of the conservation of vitamins. (…) Certain things require a societal debate. For 643

UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, at conference on the Global Food Crisis entitled “Crise alimentaire, droit à l’alimentation et droits humains”, organized by the Ligue des droits et libertés, Montreal, 5 November 2008. 644 “L’erreur a été d’avoir fait entrer l’agriculture dans l’OMC” (UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, at debate on Food Sovereignty organized by Campus Plein Sud, Louvain-la-Neuve, 26 February 2009). 645 The Special Rapporteur on the right to food develops a number of arguments in favor of relocalizing food systems in his report of his mission to the WTO (De Schutter 2009b). 646 Interview, 23 June 2009.

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example, localization. Other things could become part of the right to food”647. Generally, right to food advocates feel more comfortable defending the “primacy” of human rights obligations over trade obligations (Ziegler 2002) or “the right [of countries] to structure their agricultural policies in such a way that the human right to food is not violated” (Windfuhr 2003), than relocalization itself. Even when they do advocate openly for relocalized food systems, most right to food activists still feel that they cannot reasonably exclude other approaches/business models that can potentially improve the economic well-being of producers, such as contract farming or supplying international markets. Should they encourage the integration of small peasants in global supply chains so as to allow developing countries to benefit from foreign investments and so as help farmers get a higher income? Should large-scale plantations coexist with small peasant farms or should they be dismantled and all land redistributed? Should the conversion of agricultural workers into smallholder farmers be encouraged? Which sector will fuel development at the local, national or regional level, industry or agriculture? While these questions are certainly debated by food sovereignty activists as well, Vía Campesina’s clear oppositional stance (against trade liberalization) and strategy (against the WTO and against TNCs) probably make it be easier for food sovereignty activists to adopt less complex public messages (against contract farming, against the diversion of land for agrofuels, against corporate investment in agriculture). Right to food activists, in contrast, feel that they have to assess, based on compliance with human rights criteria, whether policies or programs will increase the material welfare of the most vulnerable, an evaluation they usually conduct without integrating non material aspects such as dignity or autonomy (as we saw earlier).

Importance of Recognizing the Right to Accessing Land and Natural Resources Over recent years, the right to feed oneself has been increasingly deployed in land-related debates. A growing number of right to food activists have argued that “land rights should be placed at the center of the right to food”648. A fraction of the right to food community has even come out in favor of a formal recognition of the human right to land at the UN (FIAN International 2009). In their attempts to better conceptualize the link between land rights and the right to food, right to food activists have had to delicately position themselves in an increasingly polarized debate on ways to protect land users. Should they advocate for individual titling 647

“On fait, je fais le lien entre qualité de l’alimentation et localisation. Du point de vue de la conservation des vitamines. (…) Certaines choses sont de l’ordre du débat de société. Par exemple, la localisation. D’autres pourraient passer dans le droit à l’alimentation” (interview, 25 June 2009). 648 Interview, 23 June 2009.

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schemes and for the creation of a market for land rights? Or should they defend the strengthening of customary land tenure systems and the reinforcement of tenancy laws? Pointing to a “fundamental opposition between two concepts of security of tenure” – “one oriented toward promoting land marketability through titling, and the other oriented toward broadening the entitlements of the relevant groups” – the Special Rapporteur has encouraged the formal legal recognition of existing customary rights, including collective rights, as an alternative to individual titling, while highlighting the risk that traditional, patriarchal forms of land distribution would be further legitimized through the recognition of customary forms of tenure, in violation of women’s rights (De Schutter 2010c, 11). How strong has the influence of peasant movements been on these discussions? For Paul, “to say that agrarian reform is a state obligation is not consensual, for example the Committee on ESCR does not defend that interpretation, but it is the point of view of FIAN and this trend is growing. It is important for peasant organizations”649. For Valeria: “the Right to Food Unit of the FAO650 says the right to food does not require a particular production model. For FIAN, that is impossible. For reasons we can justify but also because of the influence of peasant movements, one needs land. So we interpret ‘reforming agrarian systems’651 in the International Covenant on ESCR as meaning agrarian reform whilst god knows what it meant originally”652. Valeria even argues that: “the right to land itself could be the result of the interaction and mutual influence between the right to food network and the food sovereignty movement”653. Over recent years, the idea of a new “human right to land” has indeed made notable progress. In its report to the Human Rights Council in 2007, the former Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Miloon Kothari, recommended that the Council recognize the right to land in international human rights law654. The Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier de Schutter, in his report presented to the General Assembly in October 2010, recommended that international human rights bodies consolidate the right to land (De Schutter 2010c, 43(d)). He also called on states to implement land redistribution programs wherever there is a high degree of land ownership concentration (De Schutter 2010c, 42(c)). If the struggle for agrarian reform has provided an opportunity for joint campaign work for FIAN and Vía Campesina activists since 1997, it is interesting to note that the 649

Interview, 24 June 2009. She is alluding to the publication “The Right to Food and Access to Natural Resources. Using Human Rights Arguments and Mechanisms to Improve Resource Access for the Rural Poor” (Cotula, Djiré, and Tenga 2008). 651 She is alluding to para. 11.2 (a) of the ICESCR which reads “by developing or reforming agrarian systems in such a way as to achieve the most efficient development and utilization of natural resources”. 652 Interview, 23 June 2009. 653 Interview, 23 June 2009. 654 See: A/HRC/4/18, para. 33(e). 650

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formal/universal recognition of a right to land in international human rights law has not been a priority objective for peasants’ movements. Their concern, rather, has been to expand the scope of the Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform to better take into account the issue of access to land in Northern countries (and outside of Latin America, more generally, where the Campaign has been most vibrant) and of counter-agrarian reforms. They have insisted that the Campaign not be “limited to the “letter writing” and “investigative mission” style of an NGO, FIAN, and thus limited in its ability to act more as a social movement”655, and have drawn the attention to the specific challenges faced by indigenous peoples in the defense of their territories (Rosset and Martinez 2005, 22). This last point has raised quite a conceptual challenge for right to food activists, which have wondered, such as Paul, “how to link agrarian reform, territory and right to food”. The important number of indigenous peoples’ organizations within Vía Campesina (Rosset and Martinez 2005, 16) has brought to the fore diverging viewpoints, in particular when it comes to (peasant) land vs. (indigenous) territory. For Paul, “the link between food sovereignty and territory is not clear”. On one hand, the issue of territory, which “emerged in the context of the struggle against megaprojects”, “has become central for peasant movements”656. On the other hand, “agrarian reform does not speak to indigenous peoples”657 and there might be “negative impacts of agrarian reforms on indigenous peoples”658. Finding the adequate way to articulate the somewhat conflicting demands of indigenous peoples and peasant groups represents a considerable challenge for right to food defenders, but for food sovereignty activists as well. In addition, right to land advocates within the right to food network will have to deal with their more reluctant colleagues who argue that the proposed new right to land would not be universal and that the rights of land users should be protected as part of the existing right to food and right to housing659.

Support for Vía Campesina’s Demand that the UN Human Rights Council Recognize New Rights for Peasants As we discussed in chapters 3 and 5, FIAN and the former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food have been key allies of Vía Campesina in its efforts to get new rights for 655

According to interviews conducted Rosset and Martinez with peasant groups in Honduras (Rosset and Martinez 2005, 20). 656 To the extent that some have extended the concept of territory to peasant communities, as we saw in chapter 3. 657 He is refering to indigenous groups such as the Coordinadora Nacional Indígena y Campesina (CONIC) in Guatemala who have been claiming a “right to the territory” (interview, 24 June 2009). 658 Interview, 24 June 2009. 659 Interview, 23 June 2009.

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peasants institutionalized at the UN. Although right to food activists were originally reluctant to refer to food sovereignty and were certainly opposed to promoting this new right at the international level, they have come out in the last years in favor of the proposed Rights of Peasants. The peasants’ rights frame has provided an opportunity for joint work by right to food defenders and food sovereignty activists at the UN. For some observers, peasants’ rights represent some kind of compromise with the human rights community. Their significance is best understood as the result of a dialogue between peasant organizations and human rights groups. The Secretary General of FIAN explains: “I think the way to operationalize food sovereignty is peasants’ rights. It is a correct perspective. And it does link to the right to food.”660 The same idea is expressed by Fiona, a human rights defender whose organization has long funded Vía Campesina’s human rights work: “Peasants’ rights is food sovereignty applied to human rights, or a leftist version of human rights”661. Asked about this, the Secretary General of Vía Campesina recognizes that the decision was made, jointly with human rights allies, to strategically use the right to food as an entry point for peasants’ rights: “The right to food, it became clear to me in 2003. I was pushing for peasants’ rights and Michael Windfuhr [from FIAN] tells me why not use the right to food, why a new instrument. At that time FIAN was campaigning for right to food in FAO. I tell him “we need rights for people in the village”. Michael makes the link between right to food and right to produce, in a press release in 2003, we did it together. Jean Ziegler [the former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food] talked with us and integrated our issues in their strategy. Many talks with FIAN also. We try not to make antagonistic and to make link. We decide with Malik [from CETIM] and Golay [from Ziegler’s team] to use the right to food as a door for peasants’ rights” 662.

6.3.2 Reinforcing Participation The emergence of transnational agrarian movements in the 1990s contributed significantly to a shift toward more participatory approaches in the global food movement, both in the way human rights and development networks are organized (the internal aspect), and in their advocacy and policy positions (the external aspect). Human rights groups and development organizations increasingly see participation663 as key to “making rights real” (Veneklasen et al. 2004, 16).

660

Interview, 25 June 2009. Interview, 18 March 2010. 662 Interview, 22 March 2010. 663 Interpretations and approaches to participation, however, vary to a considerable extent. 661

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Internal Dimension Internally, participation has been explored as a way to achieve more efficient programs and to gain buy-in from key populations (utilitarian approach); to provide rights and development groups with credibility achieved through a constituency base (legitimizing approach); and to strengthen the organization by reinforcing grassroots leadership (organizational-strengthening) (Veneklasen et al. 2004, 13–14). FIAN, the international network for the right to food, provides a good illustration of this. We saw earlier how FIAN activists today consider that opening spaces and offering support to peasant organizations forms a key component of their work. Yet the network has also sought to reinforce participation within its own structure. Under the leadership of its new Secretary General from Brazil, it has sought ways, over recent years, to develop more horizontal decision-making structures, and, to revise its statutes to give more control and autonomy to each of its sections. A considerable part of this work has consisted in decentralizing the documentation and follow-up of cases of violations, as a way to reinforce follow-up and accountability to victims, but also internal participation. Up to recently, FIAN’s predominant strategy for gathering information about human rights violations relied on short-term fact-finding missions, a strategy deployed by most traditional international human rights groups. Investigative missions are “extractive” in nature: staff or human rights experts carry out short visits to countries in order to document abuses, put together a report and later denounce violations internationally through the media and other public fora. In this approach, participation is limited to using people providing data as informants. While this approach was justified in the past by the closed political environments in which violations occurred, and the dangers that denouncement would provoke, it has become largely obsolete as the result of the opening of many political systems (Veneklasen et al. 2004, 16). It has also shown its limits because of the complex nature of most cases of violations of the right to food and the difficulties faced in documenting them (such as accessing land registries, collecting information about corporate behavior, interviewing the authorities, etc), requiring longer research missions and more meticulous data gathering and cross-checking. In addition, the format of such missions makes it difficult to assess how local situations evolve over time, raising problems of follow-up and pointing to the importance of building local capacities to ensure that information about the “case” can be gathered over extended periods of time (although some contact is usually maintained because the consent of communities is traditionally sought before launching an international action such as a letter campaign). While often providing opportunities for demonstrations of solidarity and for building stronger ties between Northern and Southern human rights defenders, fact-finding missions can be experienced as “paternalistic” or “colonizing”. Indeed, such missions rely

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on the ability of mission delegates to apply the right to food framework: to “translate” what they see and hear (in a particular local context) into violations of international human rights law to be denounced globally. Such processes have been well documented by Engle Merry who demonstrates how “human rights intermediaries” or “translators”, as she calls them, “work within (…) discourses of justice and seek to place the experiences of poor people in urban and rural areas in these frameworks”. Translators work at various levels to negotiate between local, regional, national, and global systems of meaning. They “translate up and down”. They reframe local grievances up by portraying them as human rights violations. They translate transnational ideas and practices down as ways of grappling with particular local problems. Despite arguments that human rights must be translated into local webs of meaning based on religion, ethnicity, culture or place for them to appear both legitimate and appealing, translators must please their donors (Merry 2006, 42) and make sure that their message gets across to governments and the media. Efforts to actively include Southern partners and community members in the documentation of cases of human rights violations are likely to require focusing more on ways to help people analyze local problems and develop solutions that use and promote rights, and less on disseminating information about laws and legal procedures. Yet, linking rights and participation represents a considerable challenge. Human rights work tends to be “too narrowly focused” on “the technical aspects of trying to influence UN conventions”, “train local organizations in documentation techniques and elite-level advocacy strategies”, and on “delivering technical outputs in short time-frames (such as strengthened legislatures, law and constitutional reform, legal rights pamphlets and workshops)”. Because of this focus, human rights group are at risk of losing sight of “how change takes place or how power operates”. To take participation and social change seriously inevitably raises the issue of how to develop strategies that strengthen disenfranchised populations and their organizations as powerful protagonists” (Veneklasen et al. 2004, 19–20). This is a step that is difficult to take for human rights organizations, because it requires a methodological shift. To actively support communities in identifying the violations of human rights that are affecting them and in looking for solutions is best achieved by resorting to participatory learning processes and “methods that are grounded in adult education theory and Freirian and feminist notions of empowerment and dialog” (Veneklasen et al. 2004, 16). This kind of activity takes human rights organizations away from their core business (to respond to and denounce human rights abuses) and brings them closer to the uncomfortable territory of development work (to inform people about their rights and help them claim them). Paul, a FIAN activist, explains: “One of the weaknesses of the right to food is that our work depends on the self-organization of people, and 95% of the people are not organized. It is a total dilemma. For example our work in Latin America and Asia is far more important than in Africa. What happens to those who are not organized? It is a real question. The response is to reinforce capacities. For example non-organized women fighting for the land don’t appear in our work. There

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is a gap in the defense of human rights. Food sovereignty does not reach those people either.”664 In their attempts to build more direct and long-term relationships with local groups, human rights defenders are likely to be confronted with alternative conceptions of rights and social change, as we explored above. If they are open to questioning their reference frame (if they are convinced that their legitimacy depends at least as much on how they respond to the needs and perceptions of local communities than on how they manage to apply the human rights framework to the situation they witness), right to food defenders may enter in a transformative dialog with grassroots groups on “the process of building and defining rights” (Veneklasen et al. 2004, 16).

External Dimension Externally, participation of marginalized groups has been encouraged as a way to ensure policies and programs meet people’s expressed needs or concerns (starting point approach); to involve the disenfranchised as authentic protagonists, fostering more inclusive and democratic leadership and accountability (decision-making approach); to turn people into citizens, and to increase their engagement in political processes and public policy (involvement in advocacy and electoral politics); and to defend and advance the human right to participation665 (Veneklasen et al. 2004, 13–14). Over the last decade, right to food experts have increasingly insisted on the importance of the various dimensions of participation in their work. This is manifest in the numerous references to the principles of Participation, Accountability, Non-Discrimination, Transparency, Human Dignity, Empowerment and the Rule of Law (PANTHER), as we explored in chapter 4. It is also manifest in the growing focus on the procedural aspects666 of the right to food, as recent proposals to conduct human rights impact assessments of trade and investment agreements (De Schutter 2011d) or of specific investment projects, such as acquisitions and leases of land (De Schutter 2009e)) illustrate. The objective of such assessments is to increase “democratic control” and reinforce “accountability of government” to the people667. How is participation envisaged in such processes?

664

Interview, 24 June 2009. The right of every citizen to take part in the conduct of public affairs is recognized under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (art. 25 (a)). 666 Some authors, such as O’Connell, argue that economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) cannot be truly protected if they are reduced to formal, procedural guarantees, rather than substantive material entitlements. O’Connell, moreover, contends that ESCR are increasingly recasted into market friendly, consumerist norms, indicating a shift to a neo-liberal conception of rights (O’Connell 2011, 533). 667 UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, at a consultation he convened on Human Rights Impacts Assessments of Trade and Investment Agreements, Geneva, 23-24 June 2010. 665

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Participation is generally conceptualized by right to food advocates as to be channeled through existing political or institutional processes, such as parliamentary debates or consultations organized by the government. This human rights expert at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) who has worked extensively on environmental impact assessments argues in favor of conducting human rights impact assessments because they allow for a democratic process. An impact assessment, he says, “peacefully channels social claims”, adding that “channeling controversy” is important because “if people feel that there voice is not heard, there is a problem of violence”668. While human rights activists work within the confines of a statist framework and generally believe in the importance of using “proper channels” (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996, 13), they also express skepticism, at times, about the effectiveness of such an approach and of its ability to address issues of power. Comments made by participants to the consultation convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Human Rights Impact Assessments of Trade and Investment Agreements are interesting in that regard. “Experience with environmental impact assessments shows that mitigation measures have been ineffective. So why do we conduct them?” says the representative of CIEL, highlighting that assessments raise “the issue of alternatives [to the proposed development or infrastructure project] including the “no project” option” 669. The representative of the Centre for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CER) echoes: “Is the issue that we have to demonstrate negative impacts?”670. Questions of strategy are raised by other participants: “Should we not put our energy in resisting and putting out alternative options?”671; “Is pressure from outside more effective than pressure from inside and how to combine both?”672 The former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing responds: “We have this assumption that states are sincere. We are politically naïve!”. And, clearly illustrating the internal tensions many human rights activists are confronted with, he concludes: “As an activist, I think this will not result in anything positive. As a technical person, I want it to work”.673 These exchanges show the abyssal distance that exists between human rights 668

Representative of CIEL, at consultation convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Human Rights Impacts Assessments of Trade and Investment Agreements, Geneva, 23-24 June 2010. 669 Representative of CIEL, at consultation convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Human Rights Impacts Assessments of Trade and Investment Agreements, Geneva, 23-24 June 2010. 670 Representative of CESR, at consultation convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Human Rights Impacts Assessments of Trade and Investment Agreements, Geneva, 23-24 June 2010. 671 Representative of IATP, at consultation convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Human Rights Impacts Assessments of Trade and Investment Agreements, Geneva, 23-24 June 2010. 672 Representative of Focus on the Global South, at consultation convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Human Rights Impacts Assessments of Trade and Investment Agreements, Geneva, 23-24 June 2010. 673 Former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing, at consultation convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Human Rights Impacts Assessments of Trade and Investment Agreements, Geneva, 23-24 June 2010.

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defenders’ and food sovereignty activists’ views on participation. While peasant movements have taken a “no to participation” stance on issues such a trade negotiations agreements and agribusiness corporations policies, choosing subversion over participation, human rights defenders have maintained a firm conviction in the virtues of participation, often at the expense of adequately accounting for the dangers of and obstacles to participation674.

6.3.3 Reinforcing the Nutritional and Urban Dimensions of the Right to Food and its Application to the North In their attempts to counter-frame the potent right to food sovereignty frame, right to food activists have sought to reinforce the relevance of the right to food frame, primarily by demonstrating its universality. For FIAN, this has meant moving away from a strong focus on evictions and shifting to a different type of strategy, as the current Secretary General explains: “Now we push for a broader understanding of the right to food, through public policies, through the inclusion of the situation of the urban poor. We have been working a lot with evictions. It has influenced the focus on food production and on resources. But access to resources is not a guarantee. We have to enter public policies, markets, urban sector, nutrition, because movements are not working on this. We need to link evictions to other issues and work on other issues even if we have to go after cases. This will require capacity building so that people can by themselves bring us cases.”675 In parallel to focusing on “new” constituencies such as the urban poor and “new” issues such as nutrition, human rights activists have sought to apply the right to food framework to food security and malnutrition in the North. Efforts to deploy the right to food frame in the context of developed countries have proven challenging from a conceptual perspective, but have also required a shift in positioning for human rights organizations such as FIAN. Originally structured to function in the same way as Amnesty International, FIAN International had initially prevented its members from looking at the realization of the right to food in their own countries. This early FIAN member recalls: “I was involved in setting up a FIAN US group at the beginning. I was very frustrated because of the German hegemony and control over the rest of the organization and because we were prohibited to work on hunger in the US. FIAN was inspired from Amnesty and for security reasons they had an interdiction on working in one’s own country.”676 This institutional set-up was combined with a paternalist vision of the organization’s work, which focused on providing Southern communities with 674

Former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing, at consultation convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Human Rights Impacts Assessments of Trade and Investment Agreements, Geneva, 23-24 June 2010. 675 Interview, 25 June 2009. 676 Interview, 25 August 2009.

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international and legal support and Northern support groups (or members) with channels through which they could express their solidarity. Conceptually, the right to food framework has proven difficult to apply in the North where hunger and malnutrition are combined with obesity and food-related health problems (as it is increasingly the case in the South too), and not rural in nature. Anderson, in her attempt to link food security, health, decent livelihoods, gender equity, safe working conditions, cultural identity and participation in cultural life, has developed the interesting concept of “rights-based food systems” (RBFS)677, which she uses to look at the implications of fulfilling human rights throughout our food systems (Anderson 2008). While Anderson hopes her approach could help build bridges in the North between blooming local food movements, environmental activists, human rights defenders and development workers, Valentine is startled at the challenges of envisaging such alliances: “I had this debate often when I was an activist at Peuples solidaires [a French NGO]. Here it is the kingdom of the consumer. We have lost the awareness of or demand for basic needs and rights. For example, the right to water. We buy plastic bottles rather than demand cleaner tap water. We are less politicized. Up to now we could afford it. But people complain more and more, but that does not mean that they mobilize. For example, food concerns. Food is not a priority, look at the percentage that is spent on food. The shift would be to demand public policies rather than buy organic. The human rights logic for the North is to demand the conversion to organic farming or a public support for organic farming, rather than to buy posh organic”678.

677

Anderson argues that six criteria would need to be met for food systems to be rights-based: the absence of human exploitation; democratic decision-making on food system choices that have impacts on people in more than one sector of the system (e.g., consumers and producers, or distributors and producers); fair, transparent access by producers to all necessary resources for food production, including knowledge; multiple independent buyers; the absence of resource exploitation; and, no impingement on the ability of people in other locales to meet these criteria (instead of trade relationships that undermine decent wages, fair prices, or environmental quality, she suggests encouraging trade between RBFS (Anderson 2008). 678 “J’avais souvent ce débat quand j’étais militante chez Peuples solidaires. Ici c’est le règne du consommateur. On a perdu la conscience ou la revendication des besoins et droits de base. Par exemple, le droit à l’eau. On achète des bouteilles en plastique plutôt que de demander de l’eau du robinet plus pure. On est moins politisés. Jusqu’à présent on pouvait se le permettre. Mais bon les gens râlent de plus en plus, mais ne s’engagent pas pour autant. Par exemple, les préoccupations alimentaires. La priorité n’est pas à l’alimentation, regarde le % du budget qui part en bouffe. Le shift ce serait exiger des politiques publiques plutôt que d’acheter du bio. La logique droits de l’homme pour le Nord c’est demander une conversion ou un soutien public au bio, plutôt que d’acheter du bio snob ” (interview, 25 June 2009).

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6.4 The Right to Food at Crossroads The right to food has gained in legitimacy and visibility in the last decade. It is increasingly implemented at national level, where framework laws are passed and where successful court cases have long-term tangible impacts, such as in India. It is also a growing reference in global governance debates, as policy discussions at the reformed Committee on Food Sovereignty indicate (Committee on World Food Security (CFS) 2012). As we explored above, the right to food sovereignty vs. right to food frame contest has led to an expansion of the right to food frame in two main directions: down, to include rights-based claims made by peasant organizations and increase legitimacy from below; and up, to revive the legal foundations of the right to food and increase its legitimacy from above. The right to food sovereignty vs. right to food frame contest has also reactivated a number of framing disputes internal to the right to food network. With its emphasis on the right to land, peasants’ rights and sustainable, relocalized, agroecological rights-based food systems on one hand, and its emphasis on urban constituencies and nutrition on the other, the right to food frame today is caught between a structural approach and a social-democratic approach to human rights. While the former insists on making sure that producers receive a fair price for their crops and agricultural workers a decent wage, the latter places the emphasis on ensuring that all consumers have access to decently priced nutritious foods679. While the former insists on redistribution and social struggles, the latter insists on poverty reduction and public action. While the former is more emancipatory and more egalitarian, the latter is more assistantialist but also more universal. At the heart of the tension between the structural and social-democratic approaches to human rights is the following question: should the final goal of rights-based development be poverty reduction – including through growth – or the reduction of inequalities? If some human rights thinkers argue that “approaches to development or trade which cause, ignore or tolerate inequality do not meet the norms (…) which international human rights law sets out as guiding the process of social progress and development” (Moon 2008, 9), equality has not been a strong focus of the right to food frame, which has emphasized access to food for all (and vulnerable groups in particular) as a matter of priority. The violations approach, the use of which is widespread in the right to food network, has

679

The right to food approach in fact advocates for a compromise or balance to be found between the two (UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, at debate on Food Sovereignty organized by Campus Plein Sud, Louvain-la-Neuve, 26 February 2009).

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rendered this issue even more difficult to tackle: “If inequality increases but the welfare of all increases, is it a human rights violation?”680 This issue is fundamental because it touches on the delicate question of whether human rights should, or not, dictate a particular model of economic development and of political organization. While, as we saw, a number of policy recommendations have been made in the name of the right to food which link it to a certain type of economic (and political) model, these attempts to explore the policy implications of the right to food represent a serious threat to the legitimacy of the human rights framework, which opponents are quick to point out. The Secretary General of the WTO, Pascal Lamy, for example, has contested the value of a rights-based approach to trade issues: “the real question is which agricultural market system we want. Localized? Regionalized? Globalized? But where there is a legal problem, I don’t see.”681 To prevent such attacks, right to food advocates have to continuously reassert that “a human rights approach does not favor liberalization or protectionism” and that the only thing that “human rights do require is accountability of governments”, in the form of “more transparency through the use of impact assessments, indicators to evaluate commitments, and flexibilities allowing countries to react to situations that may affect human rights as they occur”. They advocate for mechanisms that “would promote compatibility between the norms of trade and human rights” because “trade per se, in most cases, will have a very indirect relationship to a human rights violation” (3DThree 2008). If the compatibility approach appeals to many right to food activists, especially when combined with the procedural view that insists on participation, it presents the risk of eliminating potential tensions between trade, development and the realization of human rights. Indeed, it allows reducing a rights-based approach to meaning that “whatever the policy choice, measures must be taken to ensure that those who lose out have access to reliable, alternative sources of support” (Cotula, Djiré, and Tenga 2008). This use of the right to food (as entitlement) as a “conceptual bridge” considerably hinders its subversive potential. As this academic puts it: “There is no tension between any of these frameworks: growth, Sen, right to food. The difference is a matter of emphasis, not of conceptual disagreement.”682 This “weakness” or ambiguity of the human rights framework has allowed Pascal Lamy to claim that “trade is human rights in practice” since the “opening of markets creates efficiency, stimulates growth and helps spur development, thereby contributing to the implementation of the fundamental human

680

UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, at a consultation he convened on Human Rights Impacts Assessments of Trade and Investment Agreements, Geneva, 23-24 June 2010. 681 “la vraie question c’est quel système de marché agricole veut-on? localisé? régionalisé? internationalisé? (…) mais où y a-t-il un problème de droit? Je ne vois pas” (Pascal Lamy, during the Special Rapporteur’s official mission to the WTO, Geneva, 25 June 2008). 682 Academic, Columbia University, at consultation convened by UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Market Regulation, Brussels, 19-20 May 2009.

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rights that are social and economic rights” (Lamy 2010), while completely downplaying the potentially negative impacts of trade liberalization on the right to food. How to ensure that market-based empowerment is indeed empowering is a central issue that the right to food frame will need to address in the coming years, if it is to remain relevant for addressing key development policy dilemmas such as: how can the farming sector contribute to the realization of the right to food? What role should trade play in development? And, should the incorporation of smallholders in supply chains be promoted or resisted?

Between Freedom and Equality In other terms, one of the main challenges facing the right to food network is one that is inherent to the liberal project itself: to find the appropriate balance between “freedom” and “equality” (Charvet and Kaczynska-Nay 2008, 355). Liberalism can be said to rest on three pillars: political liberalism (accountability to the people), social liberalism (social outcomes must respect the equal freedom and rights of others) and economic liberalism (the property and contractual rights of others must be respected). Diverging opinions on the necessity and size of the state and on the need to guarantee a substantial or limited degree of economic liberty have given rise to a broad family of liberal doctrines, ranging from anarchical libertarianism (and a minimal state) and welfare liberalism (and a big bureaucratic state) to liberal socialism (which rejects economic liberalism but affirms liberal values in the social and political realms) (Charvet and Kaczynska-Nay 2008, 7). These different schools offer a distinct view of what ensuring equal liberty in the economic sphere entails. Should economic liberty be based on existing holdings (with inheritance) but with a degree of equality of opportunity (and a welfare state)? Should it be based on equal holdings for each generation (thus with no inheritance)? Or should it be limited to ensure equality of outcome/welfare through collective control over resources (economic socialism)? What appears from this typology is that, in order to maintain equality, liberty must be restricted (Charvet and Kaczynska-Nay 2008, 12). But what is the appropriate balance and how should it to be found? The right to food frame has insisted on individual, including market-based, empowerment, somewhat at the expense of equality/community. The food sovereignty frame has insisted on collective control over resources and on redistributive claims. Because of its emphasis on equality, it runs the risk of being deployed without adequately considering what Charvet and Kaczynska-Nay have called “the entitlements of community members to be treated as equals within the community” (Charvet and Kaczynska-Nay 2008, 13). The former has demonstrated a kind of “impersonal” and “cold” concern for others while the latter expresses the “warm” and “mutual care” that can take place in small communities (Charvet and Kaczynska-Nay 2008, 356).

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It is thus no coincidence if, to use Valeria’s words, the “need to conceptualize the articulation between individual and collective rights”683 appears as one legacy of the emergence of peasant movements in the 1990s. In an attempt to deal with this unresolved tension between the importance of the individual and of the community, some human rights thinkers have reflected on ways to include the dimensions of participation and community rights, but also gender684 and nutrition, into the right to food, thereby building a case for “community food security”685. Community food security developed in part from theories of food and economic democracy686 but the influence of the food sovereignty movement is patent (Bellows et al. 2011, 73). Similarly, Chilton has presented an interesting table in which she crosses states’ obligations to respect, protect, fulfill (facilitate and provide) the right to food, with different levels/categories of rights-holders, which she categorizes as individual, household and community (Chilton 2009, 1208). For FIAN, to take gender, nutrition and community seriously would require going “beyond Sen to place participation at the core of the right to food”. The core of the right to food should lie “in the social, collective and participatory process of identifying and defining what is adequate food (culturally, nutritionally, safety-wise, environmentally, socially, etc.) for a specific social group, community or people; what is the adequate way of producing it to guarantee social, environmental and economic sustainability; who should produce it; how should it be distributed, how people could have adequate options to chose from to satisfy their personal food habits, nutritional and other needs, in an informed way, and protect from abusive and false propaganda” (Bellows et al. 2011, 88– 89). In other words, the core of the right to food would reside in the exercise of the freedom to: a) collectively and sovereignly – with the equitable participation of all – define the ways, policies and programs through which the society wishes to use its natural resources to produce, organize and guarantee the sustainable access to adequate, safe and nutritious food to all, in line with cultural and religious practices, taking into account the sustainability of the system, exercising people’s food sovereignty; and b) individually have the freedom – women and men - to exert her/his self determination, to chose, and 683

Interview, 11 October 2010. Despite discrimination in private and public spaces, countless studies identify women as the key to household food security. Women have culturally gendered roles as caretakers of family health and nutrition. In much of the world they produce significant contributions and even the majority of foods for household consumption and local market retail. Importantly, a body of research confirms both that women invest a greater proportion of their income into household welfare and that women’s relative decision making power in the household (often influenced by their relative income status) is correlated with household well-being (Bellows et al. 2011, 9). These aspects are still unrepresented in the right to food framework. 685 Community food security is defined as “a condition in which all community residents obtain a safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes community self-reliance and social justice” (Bellows et al. 2011, 73). 686 Koc, M., MacRae, R., Mougeot, L.J.A. and Welsh, J. (eds.). 1999. For Hunger-Proof Cities: Sustainable Urban Food Systems. Toronto: International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and The Centre for Studies in Food Security, Ryerson Polytechnic University. Cited in (Bellows et al. 2011, 73). 684

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the entitlement to have access to nutritious and safe food, adequate to meet individual specific needs to achieve nutritional well being and capabilities, reaffirm cultural identity and lead an active healthy life. Girl and boy children need to learn these rights and freedoms to carry the concept and implementation of self-determination forward (Bellows et al. 2011, 88â&#x20AC;&#x201C;89). Will these adjustments help the right to food frame increase its subversive potential and reach out to new, agrarian and non-agrarian constituencies?

Conclusion Key Findings Vía Campesina’s Rights Talk The transnational agrarian movement Vía Campesina is both an “old style” and a “new” social movement. Just like the “new social movements” of the post-1960s687, Vía Campesina opposes what Habermas has called the “colonization of the lifeworld” by the state and the economy (Habermas 1987, 318) that “robs actors of the meaning of their own actions” (Habermas 1987, 302). The transnational agrarian movement shares a number of features with movements oriented toward questions of identity and lifestyle: its forms of protest are mostly sub-institutional, and its claims are not geared toward compensations that the welfare state can provide. Rather, Vía Campesina is very much about what Habermas has called “defending and restoring endangered ways of life” (Habermas 1987, 392) and about ensuring that peasants regain “the possibility of controlling their own destinies” (Vía Campesina 1996b). Despite this focus on the lifeworld, numerous aspects of Vía Campesina’s claims echo demands made by old style movements. Vía Campesina deploys an anti-capitalist rhetoric close to that of capitallabor struggles and in which conflicts over distribution occupy a central place (Claeys 2012b, 846). Rights have enabled Vía Campesina to articulate questions of redistribution and recognition688. A large number of the rights claimed by the movement emphasize redistribution and access to resources: the “right to land and territory”, the “right to means of agricultural production”, the “freedom to determine price and market for agricultural production”, and the “right to biological diversity” (Vía Campesina 2008b). The other new rights claimed by Vía Campesina contest the commoditization of labor and emphasize recognition. The “right not to disappear” opposes trade, investment, and development policies that negate the very existence of the peasantry. The “right to produce” is the expression of a demand to form a full part of society. The “right to be a 687

Whether there is actually anything “new” about these movements is, however, a well debated point in the social movements field (Edwards 2008, 301). 688 The challenge of articulating redistribution and recognition has been amply discussed by (and after) Fraser and Honneth (Fraser & Honneth 2003, 26).

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peasant” and the “right to the protection of agriculture values” express the belief in an alternative, less urban, less technological, less industrial and less western, modernity and the quest for a “natural”, “pre-capitalist” form of existence (Brass 1997, 218). Taken together, these new rights constitute a good illustration of the dual face of the movement, which dialectically combines “instrumental” – political, economic, or social – demands with an “expressive” dimension oriented toward norms, values, identities, and lifestyles (Stammers 1999, 985). Rights have provided a common language to organizations which are politically, culturally and ideologically different (Borras 2008, 109), and the discourse of rights has shaped the movement (Rosset and Martinez 2010; Patel 2007; Borras, Edelman, and Kay 2008b; Houtzager 2005). Vía Campesina, however, has not used existing, universally recognized human rights to frame its demands. The already codified human right to food, despite gaining much legitimacy and visibility in the last 25 years has not been embraced by Vía Campesina as its rallying slogan, a role that has been fulfilled instead by the new right of peoples to food sovereignty and, over recent years, by the notion of peasants’ rights. The considerable influence of the social-democratic approach on the right to food – which calls on the intervention of the liberal democratic state to curb the inequalities generated by the capitalist market economy (Stammers 1995, 488) – helps explain its lack of appeal for radical agrarian movements. By claiming the “right to produce food” (Saragih 2005, 356) instead of the right to food, Vía Campesina activists insist on regaining control over a part of the societal product and over the associated authority to organize production. Rejection of the right to food can also be explained by tensions between NGOs and rising small farmers’ organizations from South and North (McKeon 2009, 12).

Transformation and Radicalization of the Right to Food The emergence of transnational agrarian movements in the 1990s, and their formulation of rights-based claims have had a profound impact on the transnational right to food network and on the normative content of the right to food. Confronted with a legitimacy crisis, and with the lack of resonance of their reference frame, right to food defenders have undertaken the difficult task of partially reinventing their ways of working, and the conception of human rights they rely on. This has led to a number of conceptual and strategic changes in the way the transnational right to food network operates. The right to feed oneself frame has been formally abandoned by the international human rights organization FoodFirst Information and Action Network (FIAN), although it is still a potent reference for many FIAN activists. The right to food frame has been reactivated to highlight the universality of the right to food, its relevance for non-rural constituencies (such as the urban poor, women and girls)

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and nutritional aspects. In parallel, FIAN has lent its support to Vía Campesina’s demand that the UN Human Rights Council recognize new rights for peasants (as we discussed in chapters 3 and 5), and has worked to reinforce participation, both internally and externally. In advocacy messages, the international human rights organization FIAN and some other actors of the right to food network have placed, over the last years, an increased emphasis on the importance of moving toward sustainable and pro-smallholder agricultural development models; on the contribution of relocalized food systems to the realization of the right to food; and, on the importance of recognizing the right to land and natural resources (water, seeds, forests, fisheries). Advocacy work is still centered on internationally recognized states obligations, but the need to broaden the sources of accountability to all the actors that may create obstacles to the fulfillment of human rights in a global economy (Nelson and Dorsey 2008, 173) has been well understood, as work on extra-territorial obligations and human rights impact assessments demonstrates. The transnational right to food network has made considerable efforts to link to agrarian movements, a phenomenon that can be attributed both to the lack of constituency for economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) (Nelson and Dorsey 2008, 83) and to the agrarian identity of FIAN. But this has not meant that the right to food network has stopped pursuing specific goals in alliance with other economic, social and cultural rights groups or with development and environmental NGOs (goals that are not shared by peasant movements). Although right to food defenders still draw on a social-democratic approach to human rights, they have initiated a dialog with the conception of rights that emanates from peasant movements. This dialog may lead to a more subversive/innovative interpretation of the right to food in the future, as some of the uncertainties that surround the right to food will likely need to be addressed. As we saw, a number of tensions remain at the heart of the right to food, such as: a) Is the final goal of the human rights project the reduction of poverty or the reduction of inequalities?; b) Is a particular type of economic development model required for the realization of human rights and if so, which, and how can human rights activists deal with the necessary margin of discretion left to states?; c) Which kind of political organization is needed for reconciling competing rights claims?; and, d) If market-based empowerment cannot be truly empowering, how can citizens be empowered to act on their lives and how can capabilities689 be developed so as to overcome the limits of individual rights (Thévenot 2010)? The reconceptualization of the right to food is still in the making, and will be worth following closely.

689

Ferreras interestingly suggests a reconfiguration of Sen’s notion of “capabilities” to account for the collective dimension of individual freedom (Ferreras 2008; Ferreras 2012).

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On Social Movements and Human Rights An Alternative Conception of Rights This research shows that an alternative conception of human rights emanates from the praxis of the contemporary transnational agrarian movement Vía Campesina. Through their rights-based claims, peasant organizations worldwide contribute to the grassroots reconstruction of the human rights project (Santos and Rodríguez-Garavito 2005, 21). The creation of new human rights by Vía Campesina could be analyzed as one contemporary case in the long expansion of human rights (Edelman and James 2011, 81). The recent addition of new categories of rights holders such as women, children, migrant workers, and people with disabilities, to which the category of peasants could potentially be added in the near future, supports this interpretation. Yet, such a reading would fail to fully capture the rupture with existing conceptions of human rights that is introduced by peasant movements’ rights claims (Claeys 2012b, 848). Indeed, as we have seen, the emerging conception of rights that peasant movements formulate represents a departure from not only the liberal project, but also from the social-democratic project, and from Marxist conceptions of human rights690. Are peasant movements indicating a fourth way691, and if so, what does this novel way look like? As the various frame contests and disputes discussed in chapters 5 and 6 indicate, the elaboration of this alternative conception of human rights is a highly dynamic and contested process. Successful organizational frames, such as the right to food sovereignty or, possibly, peasants’ rights, are formulated by social movement leaders and activists, then appropriated and contested. Past frames, such as the right to self-determination or the right to development, are reactivated and reinterpreted. New frames, such as the reclaiming control frame emerge in response to transnational developments, building on notions of autonomy, peasant identity, community, land and territory. Frames respond to international and local events and adjust to movement strategies; they evolve over time. In this process, a lot of old meanings are up for review, and new understandings of development, empowerment, autonomy, and participation are shaped. The emphasis on peoples’ and community rights, and on autonomy and control over natural resources and 690

Marxism wrongly assumed the existence of fixed social structures based on categories of social agents e.g. the proletariat, failed to interpret social struggles as a mix of material/economic and cultural/symbolic claims, and assumed the superiority of western modernity. Santos argues that both the liberal and the Marxist models, which suggest distinct conceptions of human rights (one prioritizes civil and political rights, the other prioritizes economic, social and cultural rights), are the products of western modernity (Santos 1997, 89). The multi-cultural reconstruction of the human rights project must take into account other rationalities. 691 I am grateful to Jean De Munck for pointing this out.

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over the production process, can be seen as a double rejection of individual entitlements, and of market-based empowerment. As they react to the further capitalist appropriation of their resource base, and to their forced or exploitative integration into globalized markets, peasants point to the limits of making claims both against the state and to the state (which has been the emphasis of ESCR advocacy). What they seek first and foremost is to secure access and control over productive resources, and to preserve their livelihoods and very existence. Hence the emergence of a “right to reject” (Edelman and James 2011, 93) and attempts, in the recent negotiations on Voluntary Guidelines on the governance of land, fisheries and forests, at the Committee on World Food Security, to extend the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) principle692 to all non-indigenous rural constituencies potentially victims of eviction. The insistence on the import of the territory, the land, the sub-political, and the local as arenas/agents of socio-political change, represents a challenge to liberal, socialdemocratic and Marxist views on the respective roles of the state and civil society693. It suggests a different perspective on the public space694 (Merklen and Pleyers 2011, 30). Peasant organizations target all levels, from the local to the international, where food and agriculture governance issues ought to be discussed, and they see all levels as crucial to the realization of human rights and to building alternatives to neoliberal globalization. In so doing, they inject a new meaning to participation, which they don’t limit to what Baxi has termed “the right to participate in development” but see as “requiring to break the monopoly of the government in defining public interest” (Baxi 2007d, 132). In essence, peasant claims formulated in the language of human rights constitute what Falk would call “a challenge to the state as the only legitimate source of law making and applying” (Falk 1988, 27).

Toward Autonomous Law-Making Vía Campesina’s use of rights moves beyond the Marxist critique of human rights because the movement deploys rights to challenge capitalism itself and frame redistribution claims. Marx, and many Marxist intellectuals after him rejected human rights as part of their wider critique of capitalism (Douzinas 2010). At the heart of this critique was the belief that the recognition and enforcement of rights for the disadvantaged was unlikely to improve their well-being in absence of reforms altering 692

The FPIC principle is recognized in articles 10, 11, 19, 28, 29 and 32 of the UN Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples (UN General Assembly 2007). 693 As we saw, both Marxism and liberal theory see the state as the main agent for social change. 694 In the sense suggested by the authors who argue that, in the case of Latin American social movements, there is no opposition between the “community” space and the “public” space but rather a demand by social movements to be respected and integrated in the public space. These movements are anchored in the local but denounce the non-respect of their rights in the public space (Merklen and Pleyers 2011, 30).

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distribution of wealth and power, an argument that has also been advanced by some liberal thinkers (W. H. Simon 2003, 20). The question raised by Vía Campesina is no longer: are human rights bourgeois rights (Marx 1875) but by whom are they appropriated? Are they defined by social struggles or by dominant/hegemonic powers695? This research shows that, as nearly every social controversy today is framed as a clash of rights (Glendon 1991, 4), the struggle to determine human rights is highly political. Vía Campesina’s incursions into rights creation illustrate the tension between human rights and popular sovereignty that is described by Habermas in Between Facts and Norms (1992). In his effort to integrate the moral and the legal side of human rights, Habermas defends a “system of rights” in which “the addressees of law are simultaneously the authors of their rights” (Habermas 1998, 104). Only by ensuring “participation in the practice of politically autonomous lawmaking” (Habermas 1998, 121) can the conflict between Kant’s idea of human rights – as moral rights that precede and constrain the will of the sovereign lawgiver (Habermas 1998, 101) – and Rousseau’s principle of popular sovereignty – according to which human rights have a binding character for a political community only as elements of their own consciously appropriated tradition (Habermas 1998, 100) – be solved in a satisfactory manner. Do peasant movements suggest a Habermasian way of solving this tension? This is far from certain. For Habermas, “citizens can come to enjoy the rights that protect their human dignity only by first uniting as authors of the democratic undertaking of establishing and maintaining a political order based on human rights” (Habermas 2010, 473). If Vía Campesina’s involvement in the elaboration of new rights indeed suggests an interest in “self-legislation by citizens”, the movement appears to insist more on the community as subject of rights than on the rights of equal participation for each person, as Habermas does (Habermas 1998, 127). In that sense, Vía Campesina’s emerging conception of rights does not seem to offer the “alternative to both atomistic individualism and a strong version of communitarianism” that Habermas attempts to find696 (Flynn 2003, 452). Nevertheless, the contribution of peasant movements to the emergence of a global “political community” in which human rights could acquire the “quality of enforceable rights” (Habermas 2010, 475) appears undeniable. Habermas sees an active public sphere as offering a space for the extension and radicalization of existing rights (Habermas 1998, 370). Applying Habermas’ framework to the international context, one could argue that human rights require institutionalization within the framework of a “cosmopolitan legal order” if they are to be more than a “weak force” (Flynn 2003, 435–436). How are 695

I owe this idea to Véronique Champeil-Desplats, who participated to the Congrès Marx International VI in Paris, on 23 September 2010. 696 Yet, the perspective of the peasant activists interviewed cannot be described as communitarian either, and the perceived tensions between individual and collective rights, and between collective use of land and private property over land, deserve further research.

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peasant movements contributing to shaping this new legal order? Are they eager to see their new rights institutionalized?

Dealing with the Paradox of Institutionalization A number of lessons can be drawn from Vía Campesina’s attempts to institutionalize new rights. First, the movement places a lot of hopes in United Nations arenas, such as the FAO, the UN Human Rights Council, or, increasingly, the Committee on World Food Security (CFS). The UN, however, is blatantly ill-equipped to deal with the enormous global governance challenges of our times, and to counterbalance the power held by those, powerful states, international financial institutions and transnational corporations, which control the economic and financial agenda. Second, the institutionalization of new rights needs to be studied over long periods of time. The potentially positive contribution of institutional advances to social change, and the potentially negative impacts of institutionalization efforts on the movement’s ability to mobilize will only be identifiable in the years or decades to come. So far, the emancipatory potential of the alternative conception of rights put forward by Vía Campesina appears relatively intact, an achievement which the movement owes to a combination of institutional/from above and extra-institutional/from below strategies. Careful engagement has been combined with transnational protest, international advances with national/local struggles, and redistributive demands with recognition claims. At present, the recognition of the right to food sovereignty at the international level appears to be in an impasse; but it may just be that what Alston refers to as the “incubation phase” (Alston 1984, 614) has so far been too short, and that advances at the national level (with this new right increasingly recognized in a number of constitutions and framework laws or policies) will enable the necessary dialog for the solid elaboration of this new right as a universal right. If this is the case, research on developments at the national level should provide interesting insights in the future. Indeed, peasant organizations are often divided at that level, but they may also be in a position to secure important gains, if well connected to progressive governments. The recognition of new rights for peasants, in contrast, is now under way at the UN Human Rights Council, although it is still at its very early stages. As we saw in chapter 5, the process is full of risks (specialization, demobilization, essentialism, translation and loss of emancipatory potential) but it also contains important potentialities (collective identity building, mobilizing tool, coalition building). Its success will depend on the ability of the movement to both externalize the idea (beyond the South-East Asian region and a small group of movement activists) and build alliances globally (which it has not done so far) with indigenous groups in the South, critical consumers in the North, and agricultural and industrial workers all around the globe. At the same time, the movement

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will need to sustain an oppositional discourse and unconventional repertoires of action, if it is to keep its mobilizing force, in particular at the international level. This means that the future of peasants’ rights will be determined, in part, by the extent to which food sovereignty remains a key mobilizing slogan in the coming years. Paradoxically, the lack of externalization and absence of broad support for peasants’ rights within the movement may work in favor of the international recognition of new rights for peasants, provided that an adequate balance can be found between institutional and non-institutional movement activity (International Council on Human Rights Policy 2006, 71). But the increasingly difficult social and economic environment in which farmers operate may lead movement organizations to turn to localist and defensive strategies. The outcome of the institutionalization process will also depend on the nature of Vía Campesina’s relations with human rights experts, and the extent to which it will manage to keep enough control over the translation process that institutionalization inevitably entails.

The Importance and Limits of Institutionalizing New Rights This research shows that tensions between the right to food and right to food sovereignty frames have led, over the years, to a fruitful dialog between the progressive (socialdemocratic) and radical (peasant) conceptions of human rights, as well as to the institutionalization of new rights for peasants, to the radicalization of the right to food and to the potential recognition of a human right to land, and to the elaboration of food sovereignty laws and policies at national and local levels. Yet this research also shows the limits of institutionalization as a goal in and of itself. As discussed in chapters 5 and 6, strategic considerations are central, and both conceptual and strategic factors are key to making the use of rights by social movements subversive and emancipatory. McAdam, who analyzes movement tactics, explores the potential of what he calls institutionalized and non-institutionalized tactics when combined with the pursuit of reformist or radical goals (McAdam 1996, 342). His analysis of various social movements suggests that pursuing progressive goals with non-institutionalized tactics is potentially the most effective. It can bring heightened public attention but can also lead to polarized conflict. To his view, it is a difficult balancing act. Pursuing radical goals outside of institutional channels often leads to repression, while pursuing progressive goals through institutional means is the least threatening of all combinations, and often generates indifference or at best, minimal opposition or support. Finally, the pursuit of radical goals via institutional channels makes little tactical sense, and involves more costs than benefits; it can generate indifference, or surveillance and harassment (McAdam 1996, 342).

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Table 8 below presents a summary of the various goals pursued by Vía Campesina and the transnational right to food network (together or separately), that are discussed in this research.

Institutionalized Tactics (from above)

Non-Institutionalized Tactics (from below)

Progressive Goals

(1) Implementation of the right to food at the national and international levels

(2) Food sovereignty practices

Radical Goals

(3) Recognition of the right to food sovereignty at international level (abandoned objective, to be revived at the CFS?) (4) Elaboration of public policies for food sovereignty at regional, national and sub-national levels (5) UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (at the UN Human Rights Council) (6) Recognition of a human right to land

(7) Reclaiming Control over land and territory, defensive tactics (reconfiguration of the deamplifying right to food sovereignty frame) (8) Right to feed oneself (abandoned frame)

Table 8 - Tactics and Goals Pursued by Actors in the Global Food Movement Source: adjusted from a table proposed by McAdam (McAdam 1996, 342)

In this table, the distinction is made, building on McAdam, between progressive697 and radical698 goals, and between institutional699 and non-institutional700 tactics. The table 697

Many actors within what Holt-Goménez has called the progressive trend of the global food movement advance practical alternatives to industrial agri-foods, such as sustainable, agroecological and organic agriculture and farmer–consumer community food networks – largely within the economic and political frameworks of existing capitalist food systems. This is often coupled with calls for the right to food and food justice for marginalized groups self-defined by ethnicity, gender and socio-economic status, or the desire for pleasure, quality, and authenticity in the food system (Holt-Giménez 2011, 115). 698 The radical trend of the global food system also calls for food systems change on the basis of rights, but focuses much more on structural reforms to markets and property regimes, and class-based, redistributive demands for land, water and resources, as captured in the notion of food sovereignty (Holt-Giménez 2011, 115). 699 By institutionalized tactics, we mean the use of “proper channels” (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996, 13).

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highlights the importance of considering each of these goals in interaction with the others. A number of lessons and future challenges can be drawn from this table. Vía Campesina intends to put increased attention, in the years to come, to the elaboration of public policies for food sovereignty (4) at the national, regional and sub-national levels (Vía Campesina 2012c). In doing so, it may be confronted with challenges long faced by right to food defenders with the implementation of the right to food at national level (1): how to gather the necessary public pressure to ensure that such laws and policies are implemented? How to ensure that such laws and policies bring real social change? The food sovereignty movement will also put more and more efforts into the multiplication of alternative food sovereignty practices at the local level (2) that provide concrete examples of the very possibility of social change. Yet, how can food movement activists ensure that such practices initiate structural change and do not remain limited to isolated alternatives that co-exist with, but do not threaten/move beyond capitalism701? How can these alternative practices be scaled-up? Should they be supported by public policies, and if so, which? The institutionalization of peasants’ rights at the UN (5) and food sovereignty in public policies (4) both point to the issue of how radical goals will evolve as they are institutionalized. How will the new rights contained in the draft Declaration on the Rights of Peasants develop in the course of negotiations at the Human Rights Council? What aspects will be transformed, or disappear during the process? Which new rights will be formally recognized, which will be set aside? Similarly, will national and local food sovereignty policies (4) lose their radical edge as they are put in place and implemented? Developments at the reformed Committee on World Food Security will also be worth following closely. Following its reform in 2009, the CFS has slowly emerged as the central UN political platform dealing with food security, agriculture and nutrition. With an explicit mandate on realizing the right to food for all, the CFS has been celebrated for proposing an alternative governance model for decision-making on global issues. Indeed, the CFS membership extends beyond states, to include international financial institutions and organizations dealing with food security, but also private philanthropic organizations/foundations, the private sector and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs). Hence, it has provided peoples’ movements and NGOs with a new institutional space to which they can bring their claims.

700

By non-institutionalized tactics, we mean the use of “disruptive tactics” that do not follow proper channels (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996, 13). 701 This would require addressing the conditions under which alternative markets can be created that truly reinforce farmers’ control over production and marketing. The writings of Douwe van der Ploeg who talks about “nested markets” are particularly relevant here (Van der Ploeg et al. 2010).

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Vía Campesina’s interactions with the CFS have been rather ambivalent. On one hand, Vía Campesina has, mostly through the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC), ensured that a Civil Society Mechanism (CSM) be established to allow civil society to participate in CFS debates in a meaningful and significant way. The CSM is an autonomous and self-organized mechanism702, which provides for the participation of 11 constituencies (smallholder farmers, fisherfolk, pastoralists, landless, urban poor, agricultural workers, women, youth, indigenous peoples, consumers and NGOs) from 17 sub-regions. Vía Campesina sits on a number of CSM working groups where issues such as land, agricultural investment, gender or nutrition are debated. Moreover, Vía Campesina has, alongside other CSM participants, taken an active part in the negotiations of Voluntary Guidelines on the governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests that took place in 2011-12 and has actively participated in the subsequent CFS process that is to lead to new principles on responsible agroinvestment. On the other hand, despite its promising innovative governance structure (McKeon 2011; Duncan and Barling 2012), the CFS is perceived by Vía Campesina as yet another international arena which is unlikely to bring social change. The issues that have featured on the agenda of the CFS have included land, investment in agriculture, volatility, climate change and social protection, but not international trade rules, and it is unlikely that the CFS will touch on issues perceived as belonging to the WTO in the near future. In addition, the right to food sovereignty frame has proven difficult to mobilize at the CFS, where the already codified human right to food tends to be used by civil society instead703, for it is recognized as the reference frame for CFS work and thus easier to impose on CFS member states. Will the CFS be explored, in the future, as a global arena in which to institutionalize the right to food sovereignty (3)? The success of the various institutional efforts undertaken by Vía Campesina will largely depend on the ability of the food sovereignty movement to mobilize its social base and exert social pressure, a pressure that ESCR advocacy groups have often not been able to apply. Will the right to food sovereignty frame (3, 7) and the emerging reclaiming control frame (7) provide the movement with the mobilizing force and oppositional discourse it needs? If the potency of the reclaiming control frame will likely be reinforced, in years to come, by local struggles against the continuing appropriation of the resource base on which peasants rely, this may not work in favor of institutional goals because activists who focus on protest and resistance (7) tend to be opposed to putting movement efforts into institutional advances. However, this may not be the case, if the movement manages

702

http://www.csm4cfs.org/ The human right to food has been accepted as a reference frame in a number of CFS documents, such as the Voluntary Guidelines on the governance of land, fisheries and forests, and the Global Strategic Framework, while references to food sovereignty are still highly contested. At the 39th session of the CFS, states from the Latin American region, among which Ecuador, demanded that the food sovereignty concept be discussed at the CFS. This was met with fierce opposition by the United States. 703

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to combine institutional and non-institutional tactics, for example by dividing roles, both within the movement and by resorting to allies. The transnational agrarian movement Vía Campesina is at a particularly delicate stage of its history. Asked if we are in the aftermath, Ndiakathe Fall, a Senegalese peasant from the CNCR responds: “after the euphoria, yes”704. The global justice movement, of which Vía Campesina was a key component, is dissolving. The days of intense transnational protest are gone. Successful organizational frames, such as the right to food sovereignty, may be “de-amplifying” (Mooney and Hunt 1996, 193), although it is too soon to tell. New movement organizations want to have a say in strategic decisions. Old movement organizations are facing dire internal and external challenges. And the future transfer of the international secretariat of Vía Campesina to the African continent will likely lead to profound changes. In this context, and looking at the global food movement as a whole and at the relationship between right to food defenders and food sovereignty activists as indicative of the two major trends – progressive and radical – that can be found within it (HoltGiménez 2011, 134), it is worth wondering whether the co-existence and possible articulation of progressive and radical goals, and of institutional and non-institutional tactics, may present the possibility for bringing about a structural transformation of our food systems. Holt-Giménez suggests that the global food movement’s ability to bring structural change depends on the potential for convergence (or divergence) between its progressive and radical trends. The challenge for the movement, he argues, is to reach beyond the easily occurring, tactical relationships to forge strategic alliances across its progressive and radical components (Holt-Gimenez 2011, 134). This research shows that alliances between groups who use distinct organizational frames can be particularly difficult to achieve, as the example of the right to food sovereignty vs. right to food frame contest demonstrates. Behind frame contests lie divergent worldviews, conceptions of rights and social change, and different strategies (mostly institutional or mostly non-institutional). But this research also highlights that frame contests between social actors may have a dynamic effect: they have an impact on the outcome of frame disputes within social movements and NGO networks, which may in turn lead to the expansion or phasing out of some frames, and to shifts in strategies. Complementarities can be found in such newly created configurations, as FIAN’s support for Vía Campesina’s peasants’ rights initiative suggests. While supporting the institutionalization of the rights of peasants at the UN Human Rights Council (5), the transnational right to food network is likely to initiate work aiming at achieving the universal recognition of a human right to land (6). These two dimensions can be seen as a reconfiguration of the failed right to feed oneself frame (8). 704

Moi: “Est-ce qu’on est dans l’après?”. Lui: “l’après euphorie, oui” (interview, 9 September 2010).

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In addition, the network will continue demanding the implementation of the right to food at the national and international levels (1), building on the entitlement and rights-based development frames.

Under Which Conditions Can Human Rights Open Spaces for Emancipatory Activism? The concept of human rights remains heavily influenced by a number of Western ideas (i.e. that human nature is distinct and above other realities, and can be grasped by rational means; that the absolute dignity of the individual is to be defended against society and the state; that the autonomy of the individual requires a non hierarchical organization of society, understood as a set of free individuals) (Santos 1997, 86). Yet, transcultural exchanges on human rights have developed and anti-hegemonic conceptions of rights are gaining ground, leading to the transformation of the discourse and policy of human rights intro a truly cosmopolitan project (Santos 1997, 88). Under which conditions, Santos asks, can human rights be reconceptualized from below? First, this research shows that, if Vía Campesina succeeded in revitalizing the human rights project with subversive dimensions, from below, it is largely because it managed to frame new rights in a way that combines what Santos has called the global validity and local legitimacy of human rights. Peasant activists called on the universalizing and legitimizing force of human rights, but added on the local appropriation (and contextual relevance) needed for rights-based claims to be subversive and therefore effective. The fact that activists did not feel constrained to refer to strictly codified human rights contributed greatly to the emergence of a lively, spontaneous, inventive and intimate rights discourse within the movement. The alternative conception of human rights that emerges from peasant movements does not rely on “false universalisms”; it is organized, rather, as “a constellation of local and mutually understandable meanings” (Santos 1997, 89). In this sense, peasant movements may have identified a way to formulate a “global master frame”, i.e. a collective action frame that can be regarded as culturally universal (R. Benford 2011, 71), although ambiguities surrounding food sovereignty “rightsholders” (peoples or peasants?) remain problematic. Vía Campesina’s experience with new human rights also points to the importance of political mobilization for the success of rights-centered strategies, and of combining what Santos has called legal (litigation, lobbying) and illegal (direct action, civil disobedience) strategies, thereby echoing the experience of other movements (Santos 2005, 15). The comparison with the human right to food is interesting in this regard. The right to food, this research shows, is often perceived by food and agrarian movement activists as a

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“globalized localism”705 (Santos 1997, 84). The perception that the right to food is imposed from above and comes from outside plays a key role in explaining its lack of resonance and its somewhat limited emancipatory potential. Second, this research shows that the new rights-based frames formulated by Vía Campesina take us beyond the welfare state706 and the social-democratic compromise,707 and appear to provide an alternative to neoliberalism. To what extent does the rightsbased food sovereignty paradigm enable us to envisage a new common good? On many levels, the claims put forward by agrarian movements are more radical than those formulated by workers’ rights movements: peasant activists demand control over production (beyond sharing the value) and full participation in determining food and agricultural policies. Yet, in order to demonstrate their specificity as new rights-holders, peasant movements have emphasized their particular relationship to land, territory, community and culture, leading to well documented potential problems of essentialism (H. Bernstein and Byres 2001, 6) and culturalization (Edelman and James 2011, 95). By failing to account for the complex and evolving identity of contemporary rural families (H. Bernstein 2009, 73), these movements run the risk of excluding existing and potential member activists, and of limiting their ability to build alliances with other (rural or urban) groups. Although inherent to collective mobilization and rights claiming, this focus on identities may limit the potential for social change and hinder the construction of a common good. Rights, when framed as absolutist claims, may inhibit the necessary political dialog with other fragments of society (Glendon 1991, 18). As it pursues the institutionalization of new rights, the Vía Campesina movement will increasingly face a fundamental dilemma 705 Looking at the various processes that produce globalization, Santos broadly opposes two kinds of globalization processes, from above and from below. Globalization from above gives way to instances of “globalized localism” (the successful globalization of a local phenomenon, such as fast food) and of “localized globalism” (the specific impact of international practices and imperatives on local conditions which are destructured and restructured to satisfy these imperatives; such as deforestation, free-trade, ecological dumping, etc.). Yet, some processes (such as social movements resistance and the emergence of truly global issues) are led “from below” and cannot be adequately defined as either “globalized localism” or “localized globalism” (Santos 1997, 84). 706 In their seminal work De la justification. Les économies de la grandeur (On justification. Economies of worth. 2006. Princeton University Press) originally published in 1991, Boltanski and Thévenot identified various ways in which individuals justify their actions to others, drawing on their experience to appeal to principles they hope will command legitimacy (Thévenot and Boltanski 1991). The authors argued that justifications fall into six main forms of legitimate authority that social actors call on to when, in conflict with others, they attempt to demonstrate how their perspective contributes to the public good: civic (Rousseau), market (Adam Smith), industrial (Saint-Simon), domestic (Bossuet), inspiration (Augustine), and fame (Hobbes). The welfare state, itself the result of labor rights struggles, articulated principles from the “industrial” (technical authority, efficiency) and “civic” orders of worth. The neoliberal order combines the “industrial”, “liberal” and “market” orders of worth (Thévenot 2010). It would be interesting to further explore which of these principles are combined and articulated by peasant movements, and how. 707 The limits of the social-democratic compromise also point to the importance for the right to food to reinvent itself.

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between advancing rights/identity-based claims and proposing alternatives that appeal to the greater public (such as food sovereignty). Vía Campesina is well aware that it can only succeed in advancing new rights if it manages to demonstrate that its claims are connected, not to the improvement of the lives of peasants alone, but to a more broadly shared notion of public interest. The success of the food sovereignty frame is certainly linked to the fact that it managed to articulate an appealing vision and alternative development model for all. How can the movement mobilize and build its collective identity while ensuring that the movement’s rights rhetoric does not revolve too much around peasants’ distinctiveness, and their quest for recognition (Morris 2010, 324)? This dilemma may point to the limits of human rights to build a common good. In the liberal grammar, the legitimate source of authority is considered lying in the individual conceived as an autonomous entity. Differences are expressed as choices between the “opinions” or “interests” of individuals. Intimate attachments must be transformed to fit the format of options recognized as valid by others (Thévenot 2010). The limits of “rights talk” are well summarized by Glendon, who argues that the absoluteness of human rights promotes unrealistic expectations, heightens social conflict and inhibits dialog that might otherwise lead toward consensus, accommodation or at least discovery of common ground. Occasions for conflict among rights multiply as catalogues of rights grow longer, because rights are not tempered by limits or obligations (Glendon 1991, 14–17). Moreover, rights talk glorifies independence and self-sufficiency. It relies on “the image of the rights-bearer as a self-determining, unencumbered individual, connected to others only by choice” and does not recognize that “a large collection of self-sufficient individuals cannot be a society”(Glendon 1991, 74). To this list, French philosopher Marcel Gauchet adds that human rights do not provide any other perspective than the defense of formal liberties and individual rights; they are incapable of helping imagine a different future708 (Gauchet 1980, 12). As Gauchet puts it, the ideology of human rights is “presentist” (Gauchet 2000, 272). This research shows that Vía Campesina has opened a path to a conception of human rights that overcomes the limits of the liberal grammar. Illustrative of this is the movement’s tentative conceptualization of peasants’ rights as group rights, of individual autonomy as connected to collective autonomy, and of self-determination as resting both on the individual and the collective709. In addition, the emphasis put by peasant activists on familiar and personal ways of relating to their environment – through notions of attachment to land and territory –, which points to the growing relevance of the “regime of familiarity” (Thévenot 2006), counter-balances the importance of the liberal grammar. 708

“D’horizon de transformation sociale d’ensemble il n’en est pas d’imaginable” (Gauchet 1980, 12). I owe the idea of articulating individual and collective self-determination to Camilo Perez-Bustillo who describes it as “Sen+” (Van Genugten and Perez-Bustillo 2001; Pérez-Bustillo 2011). 709

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Still, history is in the making and numerous conceptual and strategic challenges lay in the way of the successful elaboration of an alternative conception of rights by peasant movements, that would be less statist, less individualistic, more plural, and, overall, more subsersive and emancipatory than dominant conceptions of rights. Whatever the outcome of Vía Campesina’s future efforts, the movement’s incursions into rights creation have already had a profound impact. For, more than anything, what the creative tension between the codified right to food and the pre-institutional right to food sovereignty indicates is the powerful and ongoing search for another balance point on the spectrum between “individuality affirming freedom” (as embodied by the right to food) and “community affirming equality” (as embodied by the right to food sovereignty), where neither can be abandoned or wholly subordinated to the other.

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Vermeulen, Sonja, and Lorenzo Cotula. 2010. Making the most of agricultural investment: A survey of business models that provide opportunities for smallholders. IIED, FAO, IFAD and SDC. Vía Campesina Regional South East Asia and East Asia. 2002. Peasant Rights. Droits paysans. Derechos campesinos. Vía Campesina. Vía Campesina. 1992. Managua Declaration of La Vía Campesina. ———. 1993. Mons Declaration of la Vía Campesina. ———. 1996a. Compte Rendu de la IIème Conférence Internationale de la Vía Campesina (Tlaxcala, Mexique, 18-21 avril 1996). ———. 1996b. Tlaxcala Declaration of the Vía Campesina (Declaration of the Second International Conference of Vía Campesina, Tlaxcala, Mexico). ———. 1996c. The right to produce and access to land. Food Sovereignty: A Future without Hunger (Statement at the occasion of the World Food Summit, Rome, Italy). November 11. ———. 1999a. Seattle Declaration: Take WTO out of agriculture. December 3. ———. 1999b. Déclaration de Seattle: Sortir l’agriculture de l’OMC - Vers une alternative aux politiques néo-libérales et aux institutions telles que l’OMC, Banque Mondiale (BM) et le Fonds Monétaire International (FMI). December 3. ———. 2000. Bangalore Declaration of the Vía Campesina (Declaration of the Third International Conference of Vía Campesina, Bangalore, India). October 6. ———. 2001a. Sobre Atraso De La Cumbre FAO En 2001. November 2. ———. 2001b. Vía Campesina strongly condem[n]s Doha declaration. November 16. ———. 2001c. Via Campesina Condena Enérgicamente La Declaracion De Doha. November 16. ———. 2002. Statement to the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg, South Africa). September. ———. 2003a. Final Text Of Peasants World Assembly (Porto Alegre, Brazil). January 23. ———. 2003b. It is urgent to re-orient the debate on agriculture and initiate a policy of food sovereignty. Post Cancún Release. September 2. ———. 2003c. Position Via Campesina Cancun. September 2. ———. 2004a. José Bové Meets Kofi Annan: Civil Society Raises Food Sovereignty Issue (at the occasion of the UNCTAD meeting of 14-18 June 2004, in São Paulo). June 13. ———. 2004b. Declaration of the Fourth International Conference of Vía Campesina (Itaici, Sao Paulo, Brazil). June 14.

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Appendix 1: Participant Observation Sites 1.

Session 39 of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), FAO, Rome, 15-19 October 2012

Open-Ended Working Group on responsible agriculture investment, Committee on World Food Security (CFS), negotiations of terms of reference for the consultation process to be initiated on principles for responsible agroinvestment, Rome, 25 July 2012

ISS Colloquium on Land Grabbing, Den Haag, 11 June 2012, with, among others, presentations by Sofía Monsalve (FIAN), Duncan Pruett (Oxfam), Sérgio Sauer (University of Brasilia), and Philip McMichael (Cornell University)

Official Mission of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food to Canada, 5 to 16 May 2012. - Meeting with anti-poverty groups, community kitchens, and farmers from Quebec (Union paysanne and UPA), Montreal, 6 May 2012 - Meeting with Canadian Human Rights organizations, Ottawa, 7 May 2012 - Meeting with Canadian Development NGOs, Ottawa, 8 May 2012 - Meeting with the Toronto Food Policy Council, Toronto, 10 May 2012 - Meeting with Migrant Workers’ organizations, Toronto, 9 May 2012 - Meeting with The Stop Community Centre and FoodShare, Toronto, 9 May 2012 - Meeting with the National Farmers Union (NFU, Vía Campesina) and MAFRA, Winnipeg, 10 May 2012 - Meetings with Aboriginal groups in Alberta and Manitoba, 11-13 May 2012 - Meeting on human rights impacts assessments of trade agreements organized by CCIC, Ottawa, 14 May 2012

Open-Ended Working Group on Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests, Committee on World Food Security (CFS), Rome, 5-8 March 2012

International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) meeting, Rome, 4 March 2012

Consultation convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Agrofuels and the Right to Food, Brussels, 24-25 November 2011

Appendix 1: Participant Observation Sites

337

Session 37 of the Committee on World Food Security, FAO, Rome, 17-22 October 2011

Meeting between the Civil Society Mechanism (CSM) of the CFS and the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Rome, 17 October 2011

10. Open-Ended Working Group on Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests, Committee on World Food Security (CFS), Rome, 17-18 June 2011 11. Conference on human rights extra-territorial obligations, organized by the ETOConsortium, University of Antwerp, 17-18 May 2011, with the participation of, among others, Amnesty International, TNI, Brot für die Welt, FIAN, Equal in Rights, Housing Rights International-HIC, ESCR-NET, Greenpeace, CIEL, ICJ, Rights & Democracy, FIDH, Oxfam UK 12. Fact-Finding Mission on the right to food in Boliva, organized by Rights & Democracy, 5 to 15 February 2011 - Meetings with the Minister of Health, Minister of Education, Minister of Planning, La Paz, Bolivia, 11 February 2011 - Meeting with representatives of the Fundo Indigena, chaired by Olvida Barra, Confederación Nacional de Mujeres Campesinas Indígenas Originarias de Bolivia “Bartolina Sisa” (Vía Campesina), La Paz, Bolivia, 10 February 2011 - Meeting with representatives of the CSUTCB (Vía Campesina), La Paz, Bolivia, 10 February 2011 - Meeting with representatives of the National Council for Food and Nutrition Security (CONAN), with the participation of, among others, Ana María Aguilar, Ciro Kopp, Luís Rico, Olga Soto, La Paz, Bolivia, 10 February 2011 13. Critical Agrarian Studies Colloquium organized by the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Den Haag, 21 January 2011 14. Meeting of the International Council of FIAN International, La Foresta, Belgium, 22 October 2010 15. Session 36 of the Committee on World Food Security, FAO, Rome, 11-16 October 2010 - Side-event on Land Issues organized by the Transnational Institute (TNI) and the International Planning Committee for food sovereignty (IPC), Rome, 16 October 2010, with presentations by W. Wolford, I. Scoones, P. McMichael, B. White, P. Mathieu, R. Hall and comments by Olivier De Schutter. - Meeting on Land Issues between the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and representatives from TNI, ICCO, FIAN, Vía Campesina, and Focus on the Global South, Rome, 13 October 2010

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Meeting between the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and Barbara Ekwall of the FAO Right to Food Team, Rome, 13 October 2010 Vía Campesina side-event on land grabbing, CFS, Rome 12 October 2010

16. Marx International Congress VI, Université de Paris-Ouest-Nanterre-La Défense, Paris, 22-25 September 2010 17. Fact-Finding Mission on the right to food in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, co-organized by FIAN and Vía Campesina and hosted by the Confédération paysanne du Congo (COPACO), DRC, 30 August to 15 September 2010 - Meeting with the Minister for Rural Development of the DRC, Kinshasa, 14 September 2010 18. Consultation convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Human Rights Impact Assessments of Trade and Investment Agreements, Geneva, 23-24 June 2010, with the participation of academics and representatives of, among others, the South Centre, Focus on the Global South, CESR and CIEL 19. Consultation convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Agroecology, Brussels, 21-22 June 2010, with the participation of, among others, H. Herren, M. Altieri, M. Pimbert, P. Rosset, J. Wright, U. Hoffmann, P. Stassart, etc. 20. International Seminar on Food Reserves organized by IATP, Oxfam Solidarité and the Collectif Stratégies Alimentaires (CSA), Brussels, 1 June 2010, with the participation of, among others, Ndiagou Fall (ROPPA) and Philip Kiriro (EAFF) 21. General Assembly of the Confédération paysanne (Vía Campesina), Montreuil, France, 4 and 5 May 2010 22. Field visits organized by FIAN Tamil Nadu for the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food around Chennai, India, 1 April 2010 23. Expert meeting on the Right to Food, Access to Resources and Gender, organized by PWESCR for the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Chennai, 30 March 2010 24. Consultation convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Land Rights, with civil society from South Asia, coordinated by the Tamil Nadu Women’s Forum, Chennai, 28-29 March 2010 25. Field visits organized by Tanaganita for the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food in indigenous territories affected by palm oil plantations and the construction of the Bakun dam, Sarawak, Malaysia, 25-26-27 March 2010 26. Regional consultation with civil society organized by FIAN in the context of future negotiations of FAO Voluntary Guidelines on the governance of land, fisheries, and forests, Kuala Lumpur, 24 March 2010 27. Consultation convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Land Rights, with civil society from South-East Asia, coordinated by PAN-AP, Kuala Lumpur, 23 and 24 March 2010

Appendix 1: Participant Observation Sites

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28. Visit to the Warung Kiara community, Sukabumi, and to Bogor, Indonesia, 20 March 2010, with members of the peasant organization SPI, Vía Campesina 29. Discussion with different staff members from SPI, Vía Campesina, Jakarta, 18 March 2010 30. Participation to the World Summit on Food Security, and to the parallel Forum organized by social movements, NGOs and civil society, Rome, 13 to 18 November 2009 - Discussion between the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and civil society, Rome, 13 November 2009 - Meeting between the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and representatives from the International Land Coalition, Rome, 18 November 2009 31. Roundtable on the Right to Food and Food Sovereignty organized by the Coalition belge contre la faim (BOF), Brussels, 12 novembre 2009, with the participation of Mady Sissoko (Concertation Nationale des Organizations Paysannes du Mali) and Francisco Menezes (IBASE, Brazil) 32. Meeting on the role and actions of FIAN Belgium with members of the board and with the participation of Flavio Valente, Secretary General of FIAN, Brussels, 7 November 2009 33. Dinner with representatives from Vía Campesina (Paul Nicholson, Nico Verhaegen), Friends of the Earth, Our world is not for Sale, Corporate Observatory Europe, World Development Movement, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Brussels, 5 November 2009 34. Meeting of the European Coordination of Vía Campesina (ECVC) on the Milk Crisis, Brussels, 14 October 2009 35. Meetings with civil society in Mexico in order to prepare for the official visit of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, 5 August 2009 and 15 September 2009 (with the Special Rapporteur) -

Public Forum Sin maíz no hay paíz, Mexico City, 15 September 2009

36. Official Mission of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food to Nicaragua, 615 September 2009 37. Summer University for young peasants from Central America organized by ATC, Vía Campesina, Managua, Nicaragua, 9 September 2009 38. Official Follow-up Mission of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food to Guatemala, 2-6 September 2009 39. Conference on the Global Food Crisis organized by the Critical Development Studies network, Zacatecas, Mexico, 13-15 August 2009

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40. Meeting of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food with representatives from the European Commission (DG Relex, Trade, ECHO, Envi, and AGRI), Brussels, 13 July 2009 41. Expert Meeting on the impact of ESC Rights Special Procedures on Human Rights Protection, organized by the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, Geneva, 4 July 2009, with the participation of, among others, Mara Bustelo (OHCHR), Miloon Kothari (former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing), and members of the former team of Paul Hunt (former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health) 42. Presentation by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food of his Report on the WTO and the right to food to the WTO Committee on Agriculture, Geneva, 2 July 2009 43. Consultation convened by UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on the Role of the Agribusiness Sector in the Realization of the Right to Food, Berlin, 19-20 June 2009, with the participation of, among others, Tim Lang, Harriet Friedmann, Sophia Murphy (IATP), René Louail and Gérard Choplin (Vía Campesina), Peter Rossman (IUF) 44. Consultation convened by UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Market Regulation, Brussels, 19-20 May 2009, with the participation of, among others, Raj Patel (University of California at Berkeley), Sanjay Reddy (Columbia University), Jo Swinnen (KUL), Aileen Kwa (South Center) 45. Meeting between the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and Rajagopal P.V., leader of the landless movement Ekta Parishad (India), Louvain-la-Neuve, 7 May 2009 46. Meeting between the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and Paul Mathieu (FAO, Land Tenure and Management Unit) on Land Rights, Louvain-la-Neuve, 7 May 2009 47. Seminar organized by the Collectif Stratégies Alimentaires (CSA) on The Need to Regulate Agricultural Markets, Brussels, 4-5 May 2009, with the participation of, among others, Olivier De Schutter, Marek Posnanski (CSA), Charles Akande (UPA/SM5), Claude Girod (Confédération paysanne, Vía Campesina) and many representatives from peasant organizations in Africa (Vía Campesina, ROPPA, FIPA) 48. Presentation of the book Dieu n’est pas paysan by Mamadou Cissokho (ROPPA), introduction by Yves Sommeville (FWA), Brussels, 27 April 2009 49. Expert meeting Towards a new balance of trade in agriculture organized by the World Trade Institute (WTI), Bern, 27 March 2009 50. Conference Ecofair Trade Dialogue at the European Parliament, Brussels, 17 March 2009

Appendix 1: Participant Observation Sites

341

51. Debate on Food Sovereignty organized by Campus Plein Sud, Louvain-la-Neuve, 26 February 2009, with the participation of Olivier De Schutter, John Cornet d’Elzius (Ministry of Development Cooperation, Belgium), Amadou Waigalo (Faranfasi-so, Mali, peasant), A-M Tasiaux (Union des agricultrices wallonnes, FWA), Thierry Kesteloot (Oxfam Solidarité) 52. Civil Society Dialogue in the context of the negotiations of a free trade agreement between the European Commission and Central America, European Parliament, Brussels, 28 January 2009 53. Workshop on the Right to Food Sovereignty and Trade organized by the Confédération paysanne for European organizations of Vía Campesina, Paris, 7 and 8 January 2009, with the participation of, among others, Paul Nicholson (EHNE, Spain), Gérard Choplin (ECVC staff), Paul Bonhommeau (Confédération paysanne, France), Claude Girod (Confédération paysanne), Josie Riffaud (Confédération paysanne), Geneviève Savigny (Confédération paysanne), René Louail (Confédération paysanne), Stéphane Parmentier (FUGEA, Belgium), Javier Sanchez (COAG, Spain), and members of the SOCSOC-SAT (Sindicato de Obreros del Campo - Sindicato Andaluz de Trabajadores, Spain), MAP (Mouvement d’Action Paysanne, Belgium), and other farmers’ organizations from Turkey, Austria, Norway, UK, etc. 54. Meeting between European organizations of Vía Campesina and allied NGOs to discuss the organization of the Nyeleni Europe Forum, Paris, 8 January 2009, with the participation of, among others, Thomas Lines (Vredeseilanden), Gert Engelen (Vredeseilanden), Gilles Lemaire (ATTAC France), Dany Van Der Steen (Collectif Stratégies Alimentaires), Patrick Mulvany (UK Food Group), Helen Holder (Friends of the Earth Europe), Alexandra Strickner (IATP/ATTAC Austria) 55. Consultation convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on the African Green Revolution, Luxembourg, 15-16 December 2008 56. Public Policies Against Hunger Conference, Berlin, 10-12 December 2008 57. IATP Conference The Global Food Challenge. Towards a Human Rights Approach to Trade and Investment Policies, Geneva, 24-26 November 2008 58. Meeting between the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and members of the Coalition Souveraineté Alimentaire, Montreal, 8 November 2008 59. Consultation convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on Food Aid, Ottawa, 6 November 2008 60. Conference on the Global Food Crisis entitled Crise alimentaire, droit à l’alimentation et droits humains, organized by the Ligue des droits et libertés, Montreal, 5 November 2008 61. First National Forum on Alternative Rural Education (Educación Rural Alternativa) organized by CEDRSSA and UNICAM-Sur, Mexico City, 11 September 2008

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62. Conference Who will feed the world? at the European Parliament, Brussels, 3 July 2008 63. Mission of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food to the WTO, Geneva, 25 June 2008 (meetings with Director General Pascal Lamy, advisors and experts) 64. Consultation convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on the WTO, Univ. de Paris I-Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, 19-20 June 2008 65. Fact-Finding Mission on the right to food in Haiti, organized by Rights & Democracy, 26-30 May 2008 - Meeting with Doudou Pierre, coordinator, Réseau national de souveraineté et sécurité alimentaire (RENHASSA), and representatives from the national farmers’ organizations MPP and MPNKP (Vía Campesina) - Meeting with representatives from the Coordination nationale pour la sécurité alimentaire (CNSA) - Meeting with the Association nationale des agro-professionnels d’Haïti (ANDAH) - Meeting with Maggy Mathurin, coordinator, Plate-Forme Nationale de sécurité alimentaire (PFNSA) - Meeting with Action Aid Haiti - Meeting with the Minister of Planning - Meeting with the IMF and World Bank - Meeting with the Human Rights branch of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) 66. Special Session of the UN Human Rights Council on the Global Food Crisis, Geneva, 22 May 2008

Appendix 2: Interviews 1.

Akram Lodhi, Haroon, Trent University (Canada), Zacatecas, Mexico, 17 August 2009

Anderson, Fergal, European Coordination Vía Campesina (ECVC) staff, Brussels, Belgium, 02 June 2009

Anunciación, Roy, People’s Coalition for Food Sovereignty, Rome, Italy, 18 October 2011

Balcazar, Norma, Diálogo y Asesoría en Agricultura Sostenible y Soberanía Alimentaria (PIDAASSA), Mexico City, Mexico, 09 September 2008

Barrientos, Carlos, CUC, Vía Campesina, Guatemala City, Guatemala, 02 September 2009

Beas Torres, Carlos, Unión de Comunidades Indígenas de la Zona Norte del Istmo (UCIZONI), Oaxaca, Mexico, 19 September 2008

Beghin, Nathalie, Oxfam International (Brazil), Telephone interview, 16 December 2009

Beghin, Nathalie, Oxfam International, Rome, Italy, 15 November 2009

Bonhommeau, Paul, Confédération paysanne, Vía Campesina, Paris, France, 06 January 2009

10. Buisson, Michel, Agroeconomist, Brussels, Belgium, 24 April 2009 11. Buisson, Michel, Agroeconomist, Paris, France, 18 December 2008 12. Cabaret, Jean, Confédération paysanne, Vía Campesina, Montreuil, France, 05 May 2010 13. Cabaret, Jean, Confédération paysanne, Vía Campesina, Montreuil, France, 04 May 2010 14. Cannie, Elena, Centro de derechos humanos de la montaña Tlachinollan (Guerrero, Mexico), Telephone interview, 08 September 2008 15. Cariño, Bety, CACTUS (Oaxaca), Mexico City, Mexico, 11 September 2008 16. Carriquiriborde, Alicia, FIAN Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico, 08 September 2008 17. Checa Rubio, Raquel, Oxfam International, Guatemala City, Guatemala, 02 September 2009 18. Choplin, Gérard, European Coordination Vía Campesina (ECVC) staff, Brussels, Belgium, 02 June 2009 19. Courtis, Christian, International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), Geneva, Switzerland, 24 June 2008

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20. Covantes, Liza, Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo Rural Sustentable y la Soberanía Alimentaria (CEDRSSA), Mexico City, Mexico, 09 September 2008 21. Danau, Alex, Collectif Sratégies Alimentaires (CSA), Brussels, Belgium, 04 May 2009 22. de Ita, Ana, CECCAM/LRAN, Mexico City, Mexico, 21 August 2009 23. De Schutter, Olivier, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Brussels, Belgium, 22 April 2009 24. Delforge, Isabelle, International Secretariat of Vía Campesina, Jakarta, Indonesia, 21 March 2010 25. Desmarais, Annette Aurélie, University of Regina (Canada), ex-NFU, Zacatecas, Mexico, 15 August 2009 26. Esparza, Omar, CACTUS (Oaxaca), Mexico City, Mexico, 11 September 2008 27. Estevez, Ariadna, Centro de Investigaciones sobre América del Norte (CISAN), UNAM, Mexico City, Mexico, 26 September 2008 28. Fall, Ndiakathe, CNCR (Senegal), Vía Campesina, Kinshasa, DRC, 08 September 2010 29. Ferrante, Andrea, Italian Association for Organic Agriculture (AIAB), Vía Campesina, Rome, Italy, 25 July 2012 30. Gauster, Susana, CONGECOOP/IDEAR, Guatemala City, Guatemala, 02 September 2009 31. George, Susan, Transnational Institute (TNI), Zacatecas, Mexico, 14 August 2009 32. Girod, Claude, Confédération paysanne, Vía Campesina, Brussels, Belgium, 04 May 2009 33. Girod, Claude, Confédération paysanne, Vía Campesina, Paris, France, 07 January 2009 34. Girod, Claude, Confédération paysanne, Vía Campesina, Geneva, Switzerland, 24 November 2008 35. Golay, Cristophe, Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, Geneva, Switzerland, 03 July 2009 36. Gomez, Alberto, UNORCA, Vía Campesina, Mexico City, Mexico, 21 August 2009 37. Gomez, Alberto, UNORCA, Vía Campesina, Zacatecas, Mexico, 14 August 2009 38. Gonzales, Alfredo, UNDP, Regional Human Development Report, Mexico City, Mexico, 26 September 2008 39. Gutiérrez Rivas, Rodrigo, Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas, UNAM, Mexico City, Mexico, 02 September 2008 40. Guttal, Shalmali, Focus on the Global South, Rome, Italy, 13 October 2010 41. Halim, Ujjaini, FIAN India, Berlin, Germany, 11 December 2008 42. Hernández Navarro, Luis, CECCAM, La Jornada, Mexico City, Mexico, 21 August 2009

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43. Hernández Navarro, Luis, CECCAM, La Jornada, Zacatecas, Mexico, 15 August 2009 44. Hernández Ortíz, Pánfilo, Proyecto de Desarrollo Rural Integral Vicente Guerrero A.C., Mexico City, Mexico, 09 September 2008 45. Holt-Giménez, Eric, Food First, Mexico City, Mexico, 11 September 2008 46. Hurtado, Adolfo, FAO, Managua, Nicaragua, 14 September 2009 47. Jacovetti, Chantal, ex-Confédération paysanne, Vía Campesina, Rome, Italy, 15 October 2010 48. Jala Flores, Julian, CSUTCB (Bolivia), Vía Campesina, La Paz, Bolivia, 10 February 2011 49. Kesteloot, Thierry, Oxfam Solidarité, Brussels, Belgium, 27 April 2009 50. Künnemann, Rolf, FIAN International, Heidelberg, Germany, 23 June 2009 51. Lamba, Davinder, Mazingra Institute, HIC, Rome, Italy, 14 November 2009 52. Machaca Yupanqui, Rodolfo, CSUTCB (Bolivia), Vía Campesina, La Paz, Bolivia, 10 February 2011 53. Maluf, Renato, CONSEA (Brazil), Rome, Italy, 15 November 2009 54. Marks, Stephen, Harvard University, Department of Global Health and Population, Geneva, Switzerland, 24 June 2011 55. Martinez, Diana, Centro de Derechos Humanos “Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez” A.C., Mexico City, Mexico, 01 September 2008 56. Miguel Diez, Juan, United Nations, Information Officer, Mexico City, Mexico, 10 September 2008 57. Monsalve, Sofía, FIAN International, Rome, Italy, 11 October 2010 58. Monsalve, Sofía, FIAN International, Rome, Italy, 15 November 2009 59. Monsalve, Sofía, FIAN International, Heidelberg, Germany, 22 June 2009 60. Monsalve, Sofía, FIAN International, Berlin, Germany, 10 December 2008 61. Montero Pedraza, Ricardo, Coordinadora de Integración de Organizaciones Económicas Campesinas Indígenas y Originarias de Bolivia (CIOEC) (Bolivia), La Paz, Bolivia, 05 February 2011 62. Mulvany, Patrick, UK Food Group, Brussels, Belgium, 19 April 2012 63. Mulvany, Patrick, UK Food Group, Rome, Italy, 15 November 2009 64. Muralles, Myra, Oxfam UK, Guatemala City, Guatemala, 02 September 2009 65. Naerstad, Aksel, Development Fund, More and Better Campaign, Rome, Italy, 15 November 2009 66. Nicholson, Paul, EHNE, Vía Campesina, Paris, France, 06 January 2009 67. Onorati, Antonio, Crocevia, IPC, Rome, Italy, 24 July 2012 68. Onorati, Antonio, Crocevia, IPC, Rome, Italy, 18 October 2011 69. Onorati, Antonio, Crocevia, IPC, Rome, Italy, 16 November 2009

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70. Oviedo, Cecilia, Diálogo y Asesoría en Agricultura Sostenible y Soberanía Alimentaria (PIDAASSA), Mexico City, Mexico, 09 September 2008 71. Ozden, Malik, CETIM, Geneva, Switzerland, 03 July 2009 72. Paasch, Armin, FIAN Germany, Brussels, Belgium, 13 July 2009 73. Penman, Madeleine, Centro de Derechos Humanos “Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez” A.C., Mexico City, Mexico, 01 September 2008 74. Pérez Casas, Luis Guillermo, FIDH/CIFCA, Brussels, Belgium, 22 April 2009 75. Pérez Rocha, Manuel, Red Mexicana de Acción frente al Libre Comercio (RMALC), Mexico City, Mexico, 25 September 2008 76. Polanco, Ivan, ANEC, Vía Campesina, Mexico City, Mexico, 06 August 2009 77. Polanco, Ivan, ANEC, Vía Campesina, Mexico City, Mexico, 09 September 2008 78. Posnanski, Marek, Collectif Sratégies Alimentaires (CSA), Brussels, Belgium, 05 May 2009 79. Prudencio Böhrt, Julio, Researcher, La Paz, Bolivia, 14 February 2011 80. Ratjen, Sandra, FIAN International, Heidelberg, Germany, 25 June 2009 81. Rengam, Sarojeni, PAN-AP, Rome, Italy, 18 October 2011 82. Rengam, Sarojeni, PAN-AP, Rome, Italy, 13 October 2010 83. Riffaud, Josie, Confédération paysanne, Vía Campesina, Montreuil, France, 04 May 2010 84. Rosset, Peter, Support staff, Vía Campesina, San Cristóbal, Mexico, 25 August 2009 85. Ruppanner, Violette, 3D-Three, Telephone interview, 13 October 2009 86. Saleh, Ridha, National Human Rights Commission of Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia, 19 March 2010 87. Samdup, Carole, Rights & Democracy, Rome, Italy, 14 October 2010 88. Samdup, Carole, Rights & Democracy, Jakarta, Indonesia, 20 March 2010 89. Samdup, Carole, Rights & Democracy, Rome, Italy, 15 November 2009 90. Sánchez Díaz de Rivera, María Eugenia, Universidad Ibero Puebla, Puebla, Mexico, 03 September 2008 91. Sandoval, Areli, DECA Equipo Pueblo A.C., Mexico City, Mexico, 04 September 2008 92. Saragih, Henri, SPI, Vía Campesina, Jakarta, Indonesia, 22 March 2010 93. Schorpion, Annelies, European Coordination Vía Campesina (ECVC) staff, Rome, Italy, 13 October 2010 94. Singh, Ramesh, Action Aid, Luxembourg, Luxembourg, 15 December 2008 95. Soto, Dolores, FIAN Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico, 09 September 2008 96. Strapazzón, Ángel, Movimiento Campesino Indígena (Argentina), Vía Campesina, Rome, Italy, 17 June 2011 97. Suárez, Víctor, ANEC, Vía Campesina, Mexico City, Mexico, 09 September 2008

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98. Suarez Franco, Ana María, FIAN International, Berlin, Germany, 10 December 2008 99. Tiney, Juan, CONIC, Vía Campesina, Guatemala City, Guatemala, 05 September 2009 100. Toruño, Gustavo, UNAG, ex-Vía Campesina, Managua, Nicaragua, 14 September 2009 101. Valente, Flavio, FIAN International, Rome, Italy, 14 October 2010 102. Valente, Flavio, FIAN International, Rome, Italy, 16 November 2009 103. Valente, Flavio, FIAN International, Heidelberg, Germany, 25 June 2009 104. Vandersteen, Dany, Collectif Sratégies Alimentaires (CSA), CONCORD/IPC, Brussels, Belgium, 13 May 2009 105. Velásquez, Marco, Red Mexicana de Acción frente al Libre Comercio (RMALC), Mexico City, Mexico, 25 September 2008 106. Verhaegen, Nico, Support staff, Vía Campesina, Telephone interview, 03 June 2009 107. Villamar, Alejandro, Red Mexicana de Acción frente al Libre Comercio (RMALC), Mexico City, Mexico, 25 September 2008 108. Windfhür, Michael, German Institute for Human Rights (ex-FIAN International), Rome, Italy, 15 November 2009 109. Winter, Lea, FIAN International, Rome, Italy, 11 October 2010 110. Wolpold, Martin, FIAN International, Heidelberg, Germany, 24 June 2009 111. Woldpold, Martin, FIAN International, Brussels, Belgium, 22 April 2009 112. Yanni, Irma, SPI, Vía Campesina, Jakarta, Indonesia, 18 March 2010

Appendix 3: Key Food Sovereignty Statements in the 1996-2012 Period Key Documents

Date

Type of Event

Key Actors or Networks

Context

“Tlaxcala Declaration of the Vía Campesina”

April 1996

Second International Conference

Vía Campesina

Upcoming World Food Summit (WFS) in Rome

“The right to produce and the access to land. Food sovereignty: a future without hunger”

November 1996

Parallel event to WFS

Vía Campesina

WFS in Rome

“Profit for a few or food for all”

November 1996

Parallel event to WFS

NGO Forum to the WFS (1200 CSOs from 80 countries)

WFS 1996 in Rome

“Declaration de Seattle”

November 1999

Protest against the WTO

Vía Campesina

WTO Ministerial Summit of Seattle

“WTO – Shrink or Sink! The Turn Around Agenda”

Early 2000

Post- Seattle Campaign

Our World Is Not For Sale Network

Aftermath of WTO Ministerial Summit

“Bangalore Declaration of the Vía Campesina”

October 2000

Third International Conference

Vía Campesina

Vía Campesina meeting in Bangalore, India

“Towards Farmers’ rights”

October 2000

Third International Conference

Vía Campesina

Vía Campesina meeting in Bangalore, India

“For the peoples’ right to produce, feed

September 2001

World Forum on Food

400 delegates from 60 countries

Food Sovereignty

Appendix 3: Key Food Sovereignty Statements in the 1996-2012 Period

Key Documents

Date

themselves and exercise their food sovereignty”

Type of Event

Key Actors or Networks

Sovereignty

349

Context

Movement meeting in Havana, Cuba

“Vía Campesina strongly condem[n]s Doha declaration”

November 2001

Protest against the WTO

Vía Campesina (mentions OWINFS)

WTO Ministerial Summit of Doha

“Food Sovereignty: A right for All”

June 2002

NGO/CSO Forum for Food Sovereignty

Vía Campesina and participating NGOs/CSOs

FAO World Food Summit five years later

“Who is responsible for the environmental destruction?”

August 2002

World Summit on Sustainable Development

Vía Campesina

World Summit on Sustainable Development (Rio+10) in Johannesburg

“Final Text of First Peasants’ World Assembly of Porto Alegre”

January 2003

First Peasants’ World Assembly

300 delegates coming from Asia, Africa, Oceania, Europe and the Americas (at invitation of Vía Campesina)

World Social Forum of 2003 in Porto Alegre, Brazil

“It is urgent to re-orient the debate on agriculture and initiate a policy of food sovereignty”

September 2003

Post Cancun Release

Vía Campesina

WTO ministerial Summit of Cancún

“Declaration of the 4th International Conference of Vía Campesina”

June 2004

Fourth International Conference

Vía Campesina

Vía Campesina meeting in Itaici, Brazil

“People’s Convention on Food Sovereignty”

November 2004

People’s Caravan for Food Sovereignty

People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty / PANAP

Meeting of People’s Coalition for Food Sovereignty in Dhaka,

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Key Documents

Date

Type of Event

Key Actors or Networks

Context

Bangladesh “No to WTO and Free Trade Agreements”

October 2005

Protest against the WTO

Vía Campesina

WTO ministerial Summit of Hong Kong

“Declaration of Nyeleni”

February 2007

The Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum

500 representatives from more than 80 countries

Food Sovereignty Movement meeting in Nyeleni, Mali

“An Answer to the Global Food Crisis: Peasants and small farmers can feed the world!”

April 2008

Vía Campesina

Global Food Crisis

“Declaration of Maputo”

October 2008

Fifth International Conference

Vía Campesina

Vía Campesina meeting in Maputo, Mozambique

“Jihye Lee’s address to the Vth Conference”

October 2008

Fifth International Conference

Vía Campesina

Vía Campesina meeting in Maputo, Mozambique

“Crise laitière: la Coordination Européenne Via Campesina soutient les producteurs de lait en grève et appelle à des actions complémentaires”

September 2009

Vía Campesina

Milk Crisis in Europe

“Les paysans et les mouvements sociaux disent non à l’accaparement des terres”

November 2009

Vía Campesina and GRAIN

Land Grabs

“Echec des marchands à Copenhague, Le futur

December 2009

Vía Campesina

UN Climate Change

Appendix 3: Key Food Sovereignty Statements in the 1996-2012 Period

Key Documents

Date

Type of Event

Key Actors or Networks

est entre les mains des mouvements sociaux”

351

Context

Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark

“Nyeleni Europe 2011”

August 2011

European Forum for Food Sovereignty

Vía Campesina

European Food Sovereignty movement meeting in Krems, Austria

“Peasants of the world mobilize against green capitalism in Rio”

June 2012

World Summit on Sustainable Development

Vía Campesina

World Summit on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in Rio, Brazil

“Conseil des Droits de l’Homme: Vers une meilleure protection des droits des paysannes et des paysans”

September 2012

Vía Campesina

Human Rights Council Resolution on the Rights of Peasants

Appendix 4: Recognition of the Right to Food Sovereignty at National Level Venezuela As early as 1999, Venezuela inserted articles in its new constitution which, without using the term, reflect aspects of the food sovereignty paradigm (art. 305, 306 and 307710 mostly). Article 305 reads: “The State shall promote sustainable agriculture as the strategic basis for overall rural development, and consequently shall guarantee the population a secure food supply, defined as the sufficient and stable availability of food within the national sphere and timely and uninterrupted access to the same for consumers. A secure food supply must be achieved by developing and prioritizing internal agricultural and livestock production, understood as production deriving from the activities of agriculture, livestock, fishing and aquiculture. Food production is in the national interest and is fundamental to the economic and social development of the Nation. To this end, the State shall promulgate such financial, commercial, technological transfer, land tenancy, infrastructure, manpower training and other measures as may be necessary to achieve strategic levels of self-sufficiency. In addition, it shall promote actions in the national and international economic context to compensate for the disadvantages inherent to agricultural activity (…)”. Article 306 emphasizes the need to guarantee an adequate standard of living to the peasantry: “The State shall promote conditions for overall rural development, for the 710

Article 307 deals with access to land: “The predominance of large land estates is contrary to the interests of society. Appropriate tax law provisions shall be enacted to tax fallow lands and establish the necessary measures to transform them into productive economic units, likewise recovering arable land. Farmers and other agricultural producers are entitled to own land, in the cases and forms specified under the pertinent law. The State shall protect and promote associative and private forms of property in such manner as to guarantee agricultural production. The State shall see to the sustainable ordering of arable land to guarantee its food producing potential. In exceptional cases, quasi-tax contributions shall be created to provide funds for financing, research, technical assistance, transfer of technology and other activities that promote the productivity and competitiveness of the agricultural sector. These matters shall be appropriately regulated by law”.

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purpose of generating employment and ensuring the rural population an adequate level of well-being, as well as their inclusion in national development. It shall likewise promote agricultural activity and optimum land use by providing infrastructure projects, supplies, loans, training services and technical assistance. The Bolivarian Constitution of Venezuela, approved by popular referendum, constitutes the reference for the following legislations which have been passed to support food sovereignty, such as, approved in 2008, the Law of Food Security and Food Sovereignty; the Law for Integrated Agricultural Health; the Law for the Development of the Popular Economy; and the Law for the Promotion and Development of Small and Medium Industry and Units of Social Production.

Senegal Senegal is the first country to have enacted food sovereignty inspired legislation on the African continent, which demonstrates the political influence of the Conseil National de Concertation et de Coopération des Ruraux (CNCR)711, the national peasant platform, which is also a Vía Campesina member. In 2004, Senegal’s National Assembly passed the Loi d’Orientation Agro-Silvo Pastorale (LOASP), which has food sovereignty has one of its main objectives712. Art. 36 of the law mentions the importance of border protection to reduce or eliminate the impacts of distorstions in Senegal’s external economic exchanges713. Although the proposed mesures to be adopted in case of dumping need to respect WTO rules, the text states that “in the framework of multilateral and bilateral trade negotiations, the state works towards the elimination of unfair practices in trade exchanges”.714 Agroexport is not excluded as part of the country’s national agriculture-based development plan, but possibilities to access external markets should be optimized, by adjusting agroexport crops to international demand715. 711

www.cncr.org In its “exposé des motifs”, the text states that “la nécessité d’assurer de fortes productions agricoles et pastorales, pour s’installer dans la durabilité et permettre d’atteindre les objectifs nationaux en matière de sécurité alimentaire, voire d’assurer la souveraineté alimentaire, doit aller de pair avec une bonne conservation des écosystèmes et des sols”. 713 “Chaque fois que nécessaire, l’Etat prend des mesures de protection ou accorde des subventions pour réduire ou supprimer les distorsions dans les échanges économiques extérieurs, au sein de l’UEMOA et de la CEDEAO, dans le respect des accords de l’Organization Mondiale du Commerce”. 714 “ Dans le cadre des négociations commerciales multilatérales et bilatérales, l’Etat oeuvre à la suppression des pratiques déloyales dans les échanges commerciaux”. 715 The “exposé des motifs” states: “En outre, une meilleure prise en compte de l’environnement du commerce international et de son évolution, s’avère indispensable afin d’optimiser les possibilités d’accès aux marchés extérieurs. A cet effet, l’option retenue sera de privilégier, dorénavant, le développement de filières d’exportations agricoles répondant à la demande internationale”. 712

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Mali The 2006 Loi d’orientation agricole (LOA) of Mali defines food sovereignty as the “right for a State to define and implement an autonomous food and agricultural policy which guarantees a sustainable agriculture based on local productions and the responsibilization of producers who have access, to this end, to appropriate means, among which land, water, credit, markets” (art. 7)716. The law aims at guaranteeing food sovereignty and at converting the agricultural sector into the motor of the national economy in order to ensure the well-being of the populations (art. 3)717. The right to food sovereignty, defined as a right of states, is the context in which everyone’s right to food security will be realized (art.8)718. Food security is a dimension of food sovereignty (art. 51). The Loi d’orientation agricole (LOA) of Mali was adopted at the demand of peasant organizations. Its elaboration followed a number of peasant consultations (“concertations”) organized by the Coordination nationale des organizations paysannes du Mali (CNOP)719 in order to collect the interests and concerns of the rural world. At the end of the process, the CNOP, a Vía Campesina member, expressed that most peasant proposals had been taken into account (Coordination nationale des organizations paysannes, CNOP 2008, 3). The 2005 Mémorandum paysan sur la loi d’orientation agricole au Mali – summary of the discussions that took place in the period leading to the drafting of the LOA – is a good synthesis of the positions defended by the CNOP. Food sovereignty is defined as “the right to produce what we eat and to take any appropriate measure to protect our products and agricultural and food processing markets inside our national borders”720 (Coordination nationale des organizations paysannes, CNOP 2005, 5). The lack of control and organization of imports and exports is identified as one of the constraints resulting from the weaknesses of the state and measures to protect farmers against imports are demanded (Coordination nationale des organizations paysannes, CNOP 2005, 11, 16). The objective of economic growth is not abandoned; the challenge rather is to have the agricultural sector play a key role in national economic growth (Coordination nationale des organizations paysannes, CNOP 2005, 43)721. 716

Article 7. “Souveraineté alimentaire : Droit pour un Etat de définir et de mettre en œuvre une politique agricole et alimentaire autonome garantissant une agriculture durable basée sur les productions locales et la responsabilisation des producteurs qui disposent, à cet effet, de moyens appropriés, notamment terre, eau, crédit, marchés.” 717 Article 3. “Elle vise à garantir la souveraineté alimentaire et à faire du secteur Agricole le moteur de l'économie nationale en vue d'assurer le bien-être des populations.” 718 Article 8. “Elle consacre le droit à la sécurité alimentaire pour tous dans le contexte recherché de souveraineté alimentaire.” 719 www.cnop-mali.org 720 “le droit de produire ce que nous mangeons et de prendre toute mesure appropriée de protection de nos produits et de nos marchés agricoles et agroalimentaires à l’intérieur de nos frontières nationales” (Coordination nationale des organisations paysannes, CNOP 2005). 721 Article 131. “Afin de garantir la souveraineté alimentaire, la rémunération équitable des exploitants agricoles et de faire jouer au secteur agricole un rôle d’entraînement pour la croissance économique nationale,

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The Loi d’orientation agricole (LOA) seeks to create employment and reduce rural exodus, improve life conditions in the rural sector, increase agricultural production and productivity, improve producers’ incomes, as well produce exportable products and conquer foreign markets (art. 10). In order to achieve these goals, the agricultural development strategy will respond to the principles of comparative advantages, competitiveness of products, satisfaction of national needs, regulation of imports and promotion of exports (art. 52) 722. Such a strategy should lead to the emergence of a structured and competitive agroindustrial sector integrated in the sub-regional economy; and promote a sustainable, modern and competitive agriculture which mostly relies on family farms (art. 3)723. The involvement of CNOP and small farmers in Mali was essential to the drafting of the Loi d’orientation agricole (LAO). CNOP was able to learn from the experience of farmers’ organizations in Senegal and their 2004 Loi d’Orientation Agro-Silvo Pastorale (LOASP). In Senegal, however, the farmers’ organization CNCR was given an existing draft law to analyze, while in Mali the CNOP was able to draft their own law from scratch. This resulted in a more favorable law for family farming. Overall, CNOP was able to learn from the experience of farmers’ organizations and legislation in Senegal. This emphasizes the importance of learning from the experiences and models of other countries (Beauregard 2009, 41).

West Africa At the regional level the Common Agricultural Policy of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAP), adopted in Accra by the heads of state of the 15 countries that composed it in January 2005, states that its first objective is “ensuring the food security of the West African rural and urban populations and the sanitary quality of the products within the framework of approaches that guarantee the food sovereignty of l’Etat, à chaque fois que de besoin et en concertation avec les organizations professionnelles agricoles et les autres acteurs du secteur privé, prend des mesures appropriées pour protéger les marchés nationaux de produits agricoles”. 722 Article 52. “La stratégie de développement des productions Agricoles est axée prioritairement sur les mesures de spatialisation, d'intensification, de diversification et de durabilité des productions selon les avantages comparatifs, de compétitivité des produits, satisfaction des besoins nationaux, de régulation des importations et de promotion des exportations”. 723 Article 3. “La politique de développement Agricole a pour but de promouvoir une agriculture durable, moderne et compétitive reposant, prioritairement sur les exploitations familiales Agricoles reconnues, sécurisées, à travers la valorisation maximale du potentiel agro-écologique et des savoir-faire Agricoles du pays et la création d'un environnement propice au développement d'un secteur Agricole structuré. (…) La politique de développement Agricole s'appuie sur la promotion volontariste de la modernisation de l'agriculture familiale et de l'entreprise Agricole, pour favoriser l'émergence d'un secteur agro-industriel structuré, compétitif et intégré dans l'économie sous-régionale”.

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the region”. The overall orientation of ECOWAP was heavily influenced by the farmer consultation process supervised by ROPPA724 at ECOWAS’ request (McKeon 2009, 85– 86). This development is worth noting since the regional level is a space that is an often unexploited by social movements, although there are indications that this is changing (McKeon and Kalafatic 2009, 34).

Ecuador The 2008 Constitution of Ecuador recognizes the right of “persons and collectivities” to “secure and permanent access to healthy, sufficient and nutritious food; preferably produced at the local level and according to the diverse identities and cultural traditions. The Ecuadorian State will promote food sovereignty” (art. 13)725. Food sovereignty is associated with the protection of ecosystems against genetically modified organisms (the development, production, marketing, import, storage or transportation of which are prohibited) and against the introduction of toxic or nuclear waste on the national territory. Alternative sources of energy will be promoted through the use of green technologies but energy sovereignty should not be achieved at the expense of food sovereignty nor of the right to water (art. 15)726. Food sovereignty is not recognized as a human or constitutional right but rather as a strategic objective and a State obligation to “guarantee that persons, communities, peoples and nationalities achieve permanent self-sufficiency in healthy and culturally appropriate foods” (art. 281). The following responsibilities fall on the State as a result – a list which is a clear expression of the food sovereignty paradigm (or model of rural development) – : to promote the production and transformation of food and fish coming from small and medium production units, communities or from the solidarity economy; 724

The Réseau des organizations paysannes et de producteurs de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (ROPPA) was formally established in 2000 and gathers organizations and peasant platforms from 10 West African countries (Bénin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambie, Guinée, Guinée-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Sénégal, Togo). At the initiative of ROPPA, a dialog concerning the food sovereignty of the sub-region took place in Niamey from 7 to 10 November 2006, among farmer organization leaders, members of parliament, officials of ministries agriculture and trade, and researchers from 13 countries of West Africa, together with the authorities of ECOWAS, UEMOA and CILSS, technical and financial partners, farmers’ organizations from the North and NGOs. 725 Art. 13. “Las personas y colectividades tienen derecho al acceso seguro y permanente a alimentos sanos, suficientes y nutritivos; preferentemente producidos a nivel local y en correspondencia con sus diversas identidades y tradiciones culturales. El Estado ecuatoriano promoverá la soberanía alimentaria”. 726 Art. 15. “El Estado promoverá, en el sector público y privado, el uso de tecnologías ambientalmente limpias y de energías alternativas no contaminantes y de bajo impacto. La soberanía energética no se alcanzará en detrimento de la soberanía alimentaria, ni afectará el derecho al agua. Se prohíbe el desarrollo, producción, tenencia, comercialización, importación, transporte, almacenamiento y uso de (…) organismos genéticamente modificados perjudiciales para la salud humana o que atenten contra la soberanía alimentaria o los ecosistemas, así como la introducción de residuos nucleares y desechos tóxicos al territorio nacional”.

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adopt fiscal policies and tariff measures that protect the agrofood/fish sector so as to avoid dependency on food imports; fortify the diversification and introduction of organic technologies in food production; promote redistributive policies to ensure the peasantry has access to land, water and other productive resources; assist small and medium producers in the acquisition of means of production through preferential financing mechanisms; promote the preservation and recuperation of agrobiodiversity and ancestral knowledge, in particular in the conservation and exchange of seeds; fortify the development of organizations and networks of food producers and consumers; generate fair systems of distribution and marketing of food products and prevent speculative and monopoly practices; provide populations affected by natural disasters with access to food and ensure that international food aid does not affect health nor the future of local production systems; procure food and primary products for social and food programs from networks of food producers; etc. Tariffs will be set at levels which enable the promotion of exports which are environmentally sustainable and which generate employment and value added (in particular exports from small and medium-scale producers); imports of goods which have a negative impact on the national production, population or nature will be discouraged (art. 306)727. Trade policy will focus on developing and strengthening the internal markets – national production, food and energy sovereignty —, encouraging fair trade and reducing internal inequalities. Yet, not departing from the neoliberal dogma, trade policy will also promote “the strategic insertion of the country in the world economy” and “the development of economies of scale”, and will “avoid monopolistic or oligopolistic practices, in particular in the private sector, which have a negative impact on the functioning of markets”728 (art. 304). The Organic Law on the Food Sovereignty Regime was passed by the National Assembly on February 17, 2009. The law provides for healthier food and farming through agroecology and organic production, and looked to avoid further monoculture. The new law’s framework also connects the agricultural, forest, and fishing sectors and promotes access to credit and technology for small farmers. On March 20, 2009 President Rafael Correa sent back a partial veto of the law. The veto was largely related to GMOs, land ownership, and biofuels, and made observations regarding these issues. Transgenic inputs were one point of contention, with the veto allowing for import of raw materials

727

Art. 306. “El Estado promoverá las exportaciones ambientalmente responsables, con preferencia de aquellas que generen mayor empleo y valor agregado, y en particular las exportaciones de los pequeños y medianos productores y del sector artesanal. El Estado propiciará las importaciones necesarias para los objetivos del desarrollo y desincentivará aquellas que afecten negativamente a la producción nacional, a la población y a la naturaleza”. 728 Art. 304. (6) “Evitar las prácticas monopólicas y oligopólicas, particularmente en el sector privado, y otras que afecten el funcionamiento de los mercados; (2) - Regular, promover y ejecutar las acciones correspondientes para impulsar la inserción estratégica del país en la economía mundial.”

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containing transgenic inputs. Both the legislature and CONAIE questioned the influence of agribusiness in these vetoes (Beauregard 2009, 51). On 13 October 2010, the national assembly discussed and finally approved the Amended Organic Law on the Food Sovereignty Regime (Ley Orgánica Reformatoria a la Ley Orgánica del Régimen de la Soberanía Alimentaria). The law establishes a Food sovereignty and nutritional system (Sistema de Soberanía Alimentaria y Nutricional (SISAN)) which gathers all actors (“personas, comunas, comunidades, pueblos y nacionalidades, actores sociales, institucionales y estatales”) involved in the participative elaboration of public policy proposals relating with food sovereignty. It is composed of the different relevant ministeries and of the “Conferencia Plurinacional e Intercultural de Soberanía Alimentaria” (art 34 b et c), which is a arena for debate when it comes to food sovereignty related issues, and which consists of 9 civil society representatives. In order to draft food sovereignty into the constitution, the National Federation of Campesino, Indigenous and Black Organizations (FENOCIN), La Federación Nacional de Trabajadores Agroindustriales, Campesinos e Indígenas Libres del Ecuador (FENACLE), and CNC-Eloy Alfaro formed an alliance focusing on food sovereignty. Their coalition, La Mesa Agraria (The Agrarian Roundtable), worked with Ecuador’s Constitutional Assembly and drafted food sovereignty proposals which were largely included in the constitution729. FENOCIN and La Mesa Agraria held public forums in order to inform farmers of their rights to self determination and to celebrate traditional farming (Beauregard 2009, 46). The key issue continues to be the need for democratic participation and continued support from producer organizations. An editorial by Francisco Hidalgo Flor of El Sistema de la Investigación de la Problemática Agraria del Ecuador (SIPAE), notes that there are limitations with the Food Sovereignty law proposed by the National Assembly. Although the law takes into account demands of peasant organizations, especially in areas of land, credit, and local markets it is limited by not fully confronting non-peasant agricultural interests (Beauregard 2009, 52).

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The inclusion of food sovereignty is also rooted in the election of Rafael Correa, a pro-Correa National Assembly, and the new constitution. The case of Ecuador offers lessons about the importance of grassroots organizing and participation in drafting food sovereignty language and legislation. Rafael Correa was elected president of Ecuador in 2006. He touted his opposition to a free trade agreement with the United States, attempted to appeal to indigenous communities and various social movements, and spoke of the need for a new constitution for the citizens of Ecuador. Although the new government has made some environmental, social and political gains, there has been a shift from Correa’s original anti neo-liberal rhetoric. With conflicts related to mining and oil exploitation, as well as negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement with the United States, rhetoric and reality have at times contradicted each other. In addition, the process of participation has not been as inclusionary as indigenous and social movements had hoped. Nevertheless, social movements played an important role to ensure that food sovereignty was included in Ecuador’s new constitution (Beauregard 2009, 46).

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Bolivia The 2009 Constitution of Bolivia describes sustainable integral rural development as a fundamental part of the economic policies of the State (art. 405), the objectives of which are, in coordination with the autonomous and decentralized territorial entities, to guarantee food sovereignty and security, by giving priority to production and consumption of food product produced on the territory of Bolivia, to establish mechanisms to protect the Bolivian agricultural and fish production, to promote the production and marketing of agroecological products (…) and to control the exit and entry in the country of biological and genetic resources (art. 407)730. Key aspects of Bolivia’s rural development are a sustainable increase in agricultural, agroindustrial and manufacturing productivity as well as in its commercial competitive capacity, the articulation and internal complementarity of agricultural and agroindustrial productive structures, the achievement of better economic exchange conditions between the rural productive sector and the rest of the economy, the respect of peasant original indigenous communities in all the dimensions of their life, the strengthening of the economy of small scale producers and of family and community economy (art 405)731. The negotiation and ratification of international treaties will respect the principles of (…) food security and sovereignty for the entire population; prohibition of the importation, production and marketing of genetically modified organisms and toxic elements which harm health and the environment (art. 255)732733. International treaties which imply

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Artículo 407. “Son objetivos de la política de desarrollo rural integral del Estado, en coordinación con las entidades territoriales autónomas y descentralizadas: 1. Garantizar la soberanía y seguridad alimentaria, priorizando la producción y el consumo de alimentos de origen agropecuario producidos en el territorio boliviano. 2. Establecer mecanismos de protección a la producción agropecuaria boliviana. 3. Promover la producción y comercialización de productos agro ecológicos”. 731 Artículo 405. “El desarrollo rural integral sustentable es parte fundamental de las políticas económicas del Estado, que priorizará sus acciones para el fomento de todos los emprendimientos económicos comunitarios y del conjunto de los actores rurales, con énfasis en la seguridad y en la soberanía alimentaria, a través de: 1. El incremento sostenido y sustentable de la productividad agrícola, pecuaria, manufacturera, agroindustrial y turística, así como su capacidad de competencia comercial. 2. La articulación y complementariedad interna de las estructuras de producción agropecuarias y agroindustriales. 3. El logro de mejores condiciones de intercambio económico del sector productivo rural en relación con el resto de la economía boliviana. 4. La significación y el respeto de las comunidades indígena originario campesinas en todas las dimensiones de su vida. 5. El fortalecimiento de la economía de los pequeños productores agropecuarios y de la economía familiar y comunitaria”. 732 Artículo 255. “La negociación, suscripción y ratificación de tratados internacionales se regirá por los principios de: (…) Seguridad y soberanía alimentaria para toda la población; prohibición de importación, producción y comercialización de organismos genéticamente modificados y elementos tóxicos que dañen la salud y el medio ambiente”.

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structural economic integration or transfer of institutional competences to international or supranational organisms in the framework of integration processes will require approval by means of a popular referendum (art. 257. II. 3 and 4)734. Efforts of peasant and indigenous organizations735 in Bolivia have influenced the inclusion of food sovereignty in the new constitution. President Evo Morales is also sympathetic to food sovereignty736 and Vía Campesina. Presented in 2006 at the beginning of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS)’s first mandate, the National Development Plan (NDP) is a five year plan that includes four components: development with social inclusion; decentralization and community-based social empowerment; transformation of the industrial and export system; and a change of focus for international relations. Food sovereignty is included as a fundamental aim of the PND. Bolivia’s 2008 Policy on Food Security and Sovereignty (PSSA) describes the transition towards a new model for national rural production based on the idea of a “plural rural economy” (state economy, mixed public-private economy, and mixed private-community economy) (Ministerio de Desarollo Rural, Agropecuario y Medio Ambiente 2008, 39). The food sovereignty objective implies “producing first for the internal market, then for export”. It will be achieved by reinforcing the role of the state and by investing more public resources in the production of food at the national level through alliances between the state and small to medium producers (Ministerio de Desarollo Rural, Agropecuario y Medio Ambiente 2008, 41). A Draft Bill on Food Sovereignty is currently under discussion. So far, much of Bolivia’s state and private economy is at odds with the PND objective of food sovereignty. State support appears to benefit medium to large producers who are well connected to agroindustrial supply chains (quinoa, milk), while there has been little efforts to incentive national production based on small scale agriculture (and in particular high-altitude poor indigenous campesino communities who essentially grow papa (potatoes) for self-consumption and barter). Over the course of interviews and site visits conducted during an international fact-finding mission organized by Rights & Democracy I took part in February 2011, “it became clear that support to small producers does not necessarily mean promoting food for local consumption but increasingly it refers to growing food for export” (Rights & Democracy 2011, 39). 733

The prohibition of GMOs is, however, not absolute since the production, importation and marketing of GMOs will be regulated by law (art. 409). Artículo 409. La producción, importación y comercialización de transgénicos será regulada por Ley. 734 Artículo 257. II. “Requerirán de aprobación mediante referendo popular vinculante previo a la ratificación los tratados internacionales que impliquen: 3. Integración económica estructural; 4. Cesión de competencias institucionales a organismos internacionales o supranacionales, en el marco de procesos de integración”. 735 Such as Vía Campesina member Confederación Nacional de Mujeres Campesinas Bartolina Sisa. 736 Bolivia has also begun to engage in “People’s Trade Agreements” with countries like Venezuela and Cuba. These agreements aim to protect the interests of smaller producers against imports, food dumping, patenting, and privatization of resources.

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Nicaragua In Nicaragua, food sovereignty is defined as “the right to define adequate and sustainable policies and strategies for food production, distribution and consumption, which guarantee the right to food for all the population, with a preference for the valorization and consumption of national products” (Dirección General de Política Agropecuaria y Forestal, Nicaragua 2009, 29)737. Food sovereignty is associated not only with selfsufficiency in basic foods but with recovering national, political, sovereignty: “Hay que utilizar el imaginario historico, proteger el espacio regional con aranceles, tomar en cuenta las asimetrias, garantizar la autosuficiencia alimentaria, asegurar la integración de la agricultura con la industria y los servicios”. Economic integration from within and from below (“integración desde adentro y desde abajo”) has to be chosen over integration from outside and from above (“inserción desde afuera y desde arriba”), which can only mean subordination (Amaru Barahona, Asesor Presidencial, Nicaragua, at conference at the EU Parliament on the EU-Central America free trade agreement negotiation process, Brussels, 28 January 2009). On 18 June 2009 the National Assembly adopted Law N°. 693 on Food and Nutrition Security and Sovereignty (Ley de Soberanía y Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutricional) which specifically calls for the creation of an inclusive and just market that favors national selfsufficiency and respect for cultural diversity in relation to food. The law recognizes a range of principles, such as availability, equity and access, adequate and safe food, biological utilization, participation, efficiency, non-discrimination, solidarity, transparency, sustainability and decentralization. One of the main features of the new law is the creation of a national system for food and nutritional security and sovereignty (SINASSAN) to ensure coordination across different ministries and between national, regional, departmental and municipal levels of government. The proposed system, to be composed of public and private institutions, as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and peasant organizations, will consist of a National Commission on Food and Nutrition Security and Sovereignty (CONASSAN), chaired by the President and responsible for coordination and decision-making at the national level. The 2009 Sectorial Food and Nutritional Security and Sovereignty Policy (Política Sectorial de Seguridad y Soberanía Alimentaria y Nutricional) seeks to achieve food and nutritional security and sovereignty of the population, by organizing the provision of adequate services throughout food processing value chains, which guarantee the 737

“Soberanía alimentaria como el derecho a definir las propias políticas y estrategias sustentables de producción, distribución y consumo de alimentos, que garanticen el derecho a la alimentación a toda la población, con preferencia hacia la valorización y el consumo de productos nacionales” (Dirección General de Política Agropecuaria y Forestal, Nicaragua 2009, 29)

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sustainable use of natural resources and respond to norms and regulations which boost food production and productivity, by prioritizing basic food products in an articulate effort to reinforce, in the rural sector, small and medium producers, in particular women (Dirección General de Política Agropecuaria y Forestal, Nicaragua 2009, 27) 738. The Zero Hunger Program (Hambre cero) is the banner-bearing project of Daniel Ortega’s Government for Reconciliation and National Unity. Due to the fact that Nicaragua is constantly producing less food and does import more each year, the main focus of the program, launched in 2007, is to promote the production of food in such a way that it is profitable, competitive, economically and ecologically sustainable and that it can also contribute to reducing food imports. The strategy put in place consists in assisting peasant families whose land holding is between 1 and 3 manzanas (1 manzana = 0.7 hectares), through the provision of a so-called productive voucher (bono productivo), in the production of food from animal and vegetable origin which they need to feed themselves, as well as products for livestock fodder, shade trees, medicines and ornamental plants. The long-term goal is that peasant families produce a surplus and will sell food to urban and foreign markets, thus contributing to improving the food situation of the nation on a whole.

Nepal The 2007 Interim Constitution of Nepal includes provisions that protect economic, social and cultural rights. Article 33 of the Constitution, under duties and directive principles, lists the following obligations, which are relevant for the right to food: Pursue the policy of establishing the rights of all citizens to education, health, housing, employment, and adequate food (h); adopt universally accepted fundamental human rights (c); effectively implement international treaties and agreements of which the Nepali State is a party (m); adopt a policy of providing economic and social security to the class that are socioeconomically backward such as the landless, bonded laborers, tillers and shepherds (i); pursue the policy of adopting scientific land reform programs by gradually ending capitalistic land ownership practices (f). In addition, Article 18 of the Interim Constitution protects the right to employment and social security and provides that “every citizen shall have the right to food sovereignty according to the provision made by the law.” The All Nepal Peasant’s Federation, a Vía 738

Política Sectorial de Seguridad y Soberanía Alimentaria y Nutricional: Objetivo General: Lograr la seguridad y soberanía alimentaria nutricional de la población, mediante el suministro de servicios adecuados a lo largo de las cadenas de valor agroalimentarias que garanticen el uso sostenible de los recursos naturales y se sometan procedimientos, normas y regulaciones que estimulen la producción y productividad de alimentos, priorizando los de consumo básico en un esfuerzo articulado que dinamice en el sector rural a los pequeños y medianos productores (as), particularmente a las mujeres (Dirección General de Política Agropecuaria y Forestal, Nicaragua 2009, 27).

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Campesina member, has campaigned for the inclusion of the right to food sovereignty as a fundamental right of the people (Samdup and Claeys 2007).

Appendix 5: Declaration of the Rights of Peasants (successive drafts) First draft:

The Peasants’ Rights Charter (1999). pp. 368-377

Source:

Fakih, Mansour, Toto Rahardjo, and Michel Pimbert. 2003. Community Integrated Pest Management in Indonesia. Institutionalising Participation and People Centred Approaches. International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and Institute for Development Studies (IDS)

Second draft: Declaration of Vía Campesina South East Asia and East Asia about the protection of the right of the peasant (2002). pp. 378-383 Source:

Vía Campesina Regional South East Asia and East Asia. 2002. Peasant Rights. Droits paysans. Derechos campesinos. Vía Campesina.

Third draft:

Declaration of Rights of Peasants (2008). pp. 384-394

Source:

Vía Campesina. 2008. Declaration of Rights of Peasants, Women and Men. June.

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