UN Special Rapporteur Hilal Elver Discues Global Food and Human Rights Iues

Hilal Elver || Photo by: UN Women/Flickr/Creative Commons License

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Governments have a role to play to help hasten agricultural reforms as appropriate to the conditions of each particular society. Global food policy is increasingly organically interconnected. Any broad policy decision made in the developed world will affect the whole world. For this reason, a global approach is essential to ensure that unintended consequences of decisions taken in the developed world will not do great harm elsewhere, especially in relation to the most food vulnerable societies. - Dr. Hilal Elver

In May 2014, Dr. Elver was appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council as the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. The Special Rapporteur is an independent expert who is tasked with examining food and human rights issues across the globe.

Dr. Elver is also a Global Distinguished Fellow at the UCLA Resnick Program for Food Law and Policy. To learn more about the Resnick Program, read our Q & A with Michael Roberts. Dr. Elver's work at UCLA is part of the University of California's Global Food Initiative, which seeks to address one of the most compelling issues of our time: how to sustainably and nutritiously feed the world's growing population.

Elver has been a visiting professor at the University of California Santa Barbara since 2002; she is the co-director of the Project on Climate Change, Human Security, and Democracy housed at the Orfalea Center. She began her teaching career at the University of Ankara and was appointed by the Turkish government to be the founding legal advisor of the Ministry of Environment. Dr. Elver later became the General Director of Women's Status in the Office of the Prime Minister. In 1994, she was appointed to the United Nations Environment Programme Chair in Environmental Diplomacy.

Elver has held fellowships and visiting professorships at several universities, including the University of Michigan Law School; Rutgers Law School (Newark); Princeton University; McGill University, Faculty of Law; Chapman Law School; and most recently Dickson Poon School of Law At King's College London. She is a 2011-12 Fulbright Scholar. Her op-eds have been published in various media outlets, including The Guardian, Al Jazeera International and America.

Elver is a 2009 graduate of the S.J.D. program at UCLA School of Law, and holds a J.D., as well as a Ph.D. in Law from the University of Ankara. She is the author of three books, including The Headscarf Controversy: Secularism and Freedom of Religion (2012).

I recently caught up with her at a Global Food Summit hosted by the Blum Center for Poverty Alleviation at UC Irvine. I've followed her work for several years and continue to be struck by the breadth of her perspective and how her work demonstrates the interconnectedness of the food system.

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What lessons from the past are influencing your work right now? What can we learn from?

My previous work on women's rights, environmental protection, water scarcity and climate change made me think more widely and to make connections between policy concerns that are generally treated as separated from one another. I learned to see larger pictures, rather than give attention to silo type of policy making processes.

Your professional background, which includes international aspects of environmental law, human rights and woman's rights, seems to echo many of the concerns in the food movement. Can you comment?

Precisely. These areas are very relevant for advancing the goals of the global food movement. Women's access to resources such as land, seed, water, finance and market is vitally important in the food production chain, as well as enhancing food security and nutrition for all, taking account of women's role as care giver, as consumer, as producer and as mother.

Moreover, agricultural production, especially livestock, is one of the major obstacles in all efforts to reduce green house gas emissions, while at the same time food systems are impacted negatively by climate change. It is a doubly negative interaction.

Kate Holt, AUS Aid. Somalia.

The right to food, the right to clean water, and the right to a healthy environment seem like a given to many, but that's not the case with everyone. How do you hope to positively influence the global situation in your position?

Countries that accept those rights and provide internalized remedies in their domestic legal systems for their implementation make our job one of monitoring, and investigating the fulfillment of such rights, as well as suggesting how best to deal with major obstacles. If countries do not have an appropriate legal structure, then our job is to encourage them to reform their legal order, and establish a workable and responsible system.

Besides suggesting and advising on legal and institutional systemic policies to enhance food security and eliminate hunger, we also recommend, encourage and help governments make the right policy choices in their efforts to deal with hunger and food insecurity. In developing countries, these policies and laws are very important as it is where 95% of food insecure people in the world live.

Editor's Note: For more information about global food insecurity, review The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2015 materials prepared by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Another great resource is the 2015 report presented by Dr. Elver to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

What do you think are the most acute crises the global community is facing? What is most concerning to you?

We still are not able to eliminate hunger entirely. Almost 1

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