So at the end of November, just as most Americans were preparing the gargantuan feasts they have every year on “Thanksgiving”, the US representative in the UN’s Third Committee was the only representative there to vote against a resolution on the “Right to Food” under which the UN General Assembly,
- would “consider it intolerable” that more than 6 million children still died every year from hunger-related illness before their fifth birthday, and that the number of undernourished people had grown to about 923 million worldwide, at the same time that the planet could produce enough food to feed 12 billion people, or twice the world’s present population.
The vote on that resolution was 180 to 1. Only the US voted against it. (HT: B of Moon of Alabama.)
As a US citizen, I consider that vote a disgrace.
The UN record of the vote and discussion, linked to above, tells us that,
- After the vote, the representative of the United States said he was unable to support the text because he believed the attainment of the right to adequate food was a goal that should be realized progressively. In his view, the draft contained inaccurate textual descriptions of underlying rights…
So according to this representative of the Bush administration (and still, tragically, of all of us who are US citizens), it is quite alright that “more than 6 million children still died every year from hunger-related illness before their fifth birthday”… because his, completely over-lawyered “reading” of the international declarations on this subject somehow make it okay?
This is a travesty of humanity.
It is also yet another international political disaster for the US.
It’s not enough that the US has felt in recent years that it has the “right” to invade other countries unilaterally, and quite in contravention of the UN’s norms on resolution of international differences?
It’s not enough that the US has felt it has the “right” to export a major destruction of agricultural livelihoods worldwide through its maintenance of of hefty subsidies to US Big Ag, while using the IMF to ensure that poor countries don’t subsidize their farming systems at all?
It’s not enough that the US has felt it had the “right” to export its completely toxic financial flim-flam “products” to other countries, forcing them to open their financial systems to receive said products??
… But now, the Bush administration– alone of all the other governments around the world– tells us it’s quite okay that six million children die each year from hunger-related illnesses… And this at a time when, yes, there is still enough basic food in the international system to feed everyone quite adequately, if it were distributed more fairly…
Why does the figure “six million” seem familiar?
That was the number of Jewish people who– along with smaller numbers of Romas and gay and disabled people– ended up dead because of the deliberate policy of the Third Reich to exterminate them.
But that was during the entirety of the European Holocaust.
What the UN Third Committee is talking about six million children being condemned to death each year by an international “system” in which the US is still by far the most powerful actor.
How can this be, for a single moment, acceptable?
Back on December 10, I noted the gross anomaly that the US government, which has presented itself as a strong “advocate” for human rights around the world, has still not ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, in which the right to “adequate food, clothing and housing” is explicitly spelled out.
I also spelled out that this language has strong relevance to the current situation inside the US, as well as in other countries.
Our country’s longstanding refusal to join the ICESCR makes it something of a “rogue state” on these issues, since 159 other nations have all signed and ratified it.
It is in the ICESCR, which entered into force in 1976, that the reference to the “progressive realization” of the listed rights can be found.
But since the US government hasn’t even fully joined the ICESCR, it is quite hypocritical that the US representative on the Third Committee was using that language about “progressive realization” to try to justify his vote that, essentially, allowed the killing of six million innocents each year to go ahead into the future, as heretofore.
Anyway, back in 1976, maybe some people thought it would take a few more years to get to the stage where it would, indeed, be possible to feed all of the world’s people.
That was 32 years ago. Nowadays, there is plenty of food to go around… if it is properly distributed.
But Washington now tells the world No, that needn’t happen.
And people in other countries are supposed to like and admire our country???
Here’s a strong plea to President-elect Obama and the incoming US Congress: Please have our country rejoin the world by ratifying the ICESCR as speedily as possible. And then do everything possible to ensure that everyone in the US and around the world can have access to healthy, assured food supplies, including by the restoration of agricultural systems inb low-income countries that have been wiped out by US food subsidies.
And let’s embed the rights spelled out in the ICESCR into all of the programs designed to save our own country’s economy and society from the ravages of the current crisis.
So according to this representative of the Bush administration . . . it is quite alright that “more than 6 million children still died every year from hunger-related illness before their fifth birthday”… because his, completely over-lawyered “reading” of the international declarations on this subject somehow make it okay?
That’s not what Ambassador T. Vance McMahan said:
“While the United States agrees with the sentiment in this resolution that the world food situation is a problem of profound significance and while we agree with much of what is stated in this resolution, we once again cannot support the text as it is drafted and thus was forced to request a recorded vote on this draft resolution.
“Moving beyond concept to action to address this issue, the United States has demonstrated its profound commitment to promoting food security around the world. By a large margin, the United States is the largest food donor in the world of humanitarian food aid. We will continue and intensify our work both bilaterally and in many different multilateral fora to help combat poverty and hunger and to help bring food security to all. We recognize that there is much more work to be done.”
Helena,
Have you lost most of your objectivity?…. The U.S. is the single largest donor of food to the world. To compare our efforts to the Nazi extermination of the Jews during the Holocaust is ludicrous!
One large barrier to food distribution outside the large subsidies you correctly mention, are the European protectionist that block Bioengineered crops from the US as dangerous and harmful. This has been demonstrated and very effective in stopping the gift and aid of crops from the US to uneducated peoples in Africa for the purposes of protecting European farmers. The EU countries were very assertive in this tactic, protecting the EU ban on these crops into Africa and expanding the EU presence at the expense of many lives.
Please note I have no direct knowledge: I have been told many French grapes have a bioengineered resistance, I believe this is conveniently exempted from the EU disclosure rules.
Helena,
Bravo for pointing out the hypocracy of the United States position in this matter. Contrary to what Ambassador McMahan would have us believe by his lofty statement, to base the decision to vote against such a resolution on a semantic technicality is pure balderdash. It is nothing more than the US government continuing to protect its economic interests with no regard at all for the poorer nations that are affected by such policies. The former UN special rapporteur on food issues in the world, Jean Ziegler, has pointed out in various reports and publications the disastrous effects of the US and IMF sponsored free trade rules that are imposed on developping nations with respect to their ability to produce enough food for their own populations. Ziegler’s replacement as special rapporteur, Olivier De Shutter, has just submitted a report to WHO confirming Ziegler’s stand: the rules for international commerce that are in place have a huge and deleterious impact on hunger throughout the developping and under-developped world.
And as for GM crops, there is little evidence that they can provide the kind of increased crop yields that their proponents claim. In fact, in some cases, the opposite has been true. A great documentary by the French journalist Marie-Monique Robin shown at last year’s Geneva Human Rights Film Festival and screened later on Arte TV, “Le monde selon Monsanto” (The World According to Monsanto)traced the overall effects on poor farmers, including many in the US, who are suckered into using Monsanto’s seeds. They then become totally dependent on the huge multinational for their seeds AND the pesticides that go along with using them. While it is not a food crop, over 450 cotton farmers in India have committed suicide because of the economic burden of adopting the Monsanto system: they were driven to despair because of the huge debts they incurred from buying their seeds and pesticides from Monsanto. Monsanto, on the other hand, would have us all believe that cotton yields have increased because of their GM seeds, which the Indian farmers themselves now refer to as “killer seeds”. For John R to claim that a major barrier to a more equal system of food distribution is the European Union’s stance against GM crops is totally uninformed. Opposition to GM food, especially in France where I live, is based on serious concerns by the people themselves about their safety and the effect they can have on organic farming and on biodiversity. As for the French using GM techniques on their vineyards, there has been one experiment carried out in the Alsace region, but no wine was produced from those vines and resistance to GM grapes by French wine makers is fierce. No, the biggest culprit in the six million children starving to death is, as Helena points out, the economic free trade policies of the developped world, principally the United States.
A follow-up article in the Independent on the looming food crisis, especially for developing countries. Those who have cut back on growing food locally, as the IMF and World Bank required them to do, so they could produce exportable crops, which were supposed to provide the income to be able to buy imported food for their populations, are now caught in the bind of not even being able to afford to buy food from abroad. As the same time, their own production capacity has been diminished because of the shift in what they grow. It’s totally insane, but that system has filled the coffers of the multinational giants while leaving increasing numbers of people to starve.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/year-of-the-hungry-1000000000-afflicted-1213843.html