MPs gathered in Rome committed to promoting the right to food

Parliamentary meeting in Rome. From left to right: Mrs. Mary Robinson, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; Mr. Antonio Martino, President of the Italian Inter-Parliamentary Group and Italian Minister of Defense; Mr. Marcello Pera, President of the Italian Senate; Mr. Pier Ferdinando Casini, President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies and Mr. Anders B. Johnsson, IPU Secretary General. Photo : Luxardo/Italian Chamber of Deputies

The Speaker of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, Mr. Pier Ferdinando Casini, addressed the FAO World Summit on behalf of the Inter-Parliamentary Union to convey the message from nearly 200 MPs from 80 countries that they are firmly committed to fighting hunger more effectively.

"The Inter-Parliamentary Union, which I have the honour of representing today, is firmly convinced that the commitment undertaken by States during the 1996 World Food Summit, to significantly reduce hunger and poverty by 2015, should necessarily involve national legislative institutions", said Mr. Casini. He explained that the participants at the parliamentary meeting held on Tuesday 11 June in Rome, and organized by the Italian Inter-Parliamentary Group and the IPU, expressed their preoccupation that, "five years after the Summit, the declared goal of halving the number of undernourished people in the world by 2015 appears even more distant than ever. Only a few nations have taken purposeful measures on the scale required to meet the goal. The number of undernourished people remains unacceptably high and the rate at which their numbers are being reduced is unacceptably low", insisted Mr. Casini.

"At its recent session in Marrakech, the Inter-Parliamentary Union approved a special message to the Summit", added Mr. Casini, pointing out that IPU member parliaments consider it particularly important to reaffirm the right of every person to adequate food and to be free from hunger; to take urgent action, nationally and internationally, to ensure that the target of halving the number of undernourished people by 2015 is attained; to pursue, in the context of multilateral trade negotiations on agriculture, the establishment of terms and conditions which are conducive to improving food security.

Finally, Mr. Casini mentioned that "Paragraph 10 of the Declaration of the World Food Summit: Five years later calls on States to establish a set of guidelines for the progressive realisation of the right to adequate food for all. We are convinced that the guidelines should stress the right to food as being binding and suggest concrete modalities for their implementation. They should also specify which obligations must be assumed by States, at national and international level, without overlooking the responsibility and the contribution of other intervening parties to make their contribution, including the international organisations and - possibly - the private sector". He concluded by saying that there was a need for all to show enthusiastic commitment to the ambitious and compelling objectives of the World Food Summit. Parliaments and the IPU would do their utmost in order to offer the most wretched of the earth the prospect of a life of hope and dignity.

Mr Antonio Martino, President of the Italian Inter-Parliamentary Group and Minister of Defence states:
"We need to deal with the underlying causes of hunger in the world"

How do you see the outcome of the parliamentary meeting in Rome?
Antonio Martino: The outcome is positive. It is also positive that world hunger is being discussed at all. The problem has very precise causes and concerns specific parts of the world. If we tackle those causes, we can hope for good results. On the other hand, if we work from the hypothesis that hunger is a global problem, we won't get anywhere.

Q: Should parliaments be associated with the decisions taken at the major summits and in particular at the G8 Summit?
A.M.: My answer to that is a personal one which others may not share. The G8 is not the government of the world. On that understanding, the positions of those that contest the G8 and those that support it are only of relative importance. The G8 provides an opportunity for the leaders of eight powerful countries to meet for talks on subjects of general interest. It is more a forum for discussion than for taking decisions. That being the case, parliaments do not need to be associated with it. On the other hand, if the G8 were to become a forum for specific decisions, parliaments would have a rightful place in it.

Q: As President of the Italian Inter-Parliamentary Group, what are your feelings about the reform of the Inter-Parliamentary Union?
A.M.:To my mind, one thing is important: at IPU conferences, we should try to be very specific in selecting subjects for debate so that we can take on concrete problems and discuss practical solutions. Because when the debates have no specific theme, everybody addresses their own interests and the meeting loses its focus. This is especially true of the general debate on the political, economic and social situation in the world, which is of little interest to anybody. To make the debates more lively, we could circulate a document prepared by an expert in advance of each session, which would provide a frame of reference for the debate. The meetings would thus become more trenchant.

Two experts also participated in the parliamentary meeting organized by the Italian Inter-Parliamentary Group and the IPU and attended by 10 Speakers of Parliament: Mr. Jean Ziegler, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, and Mr. Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University. Mr Jean Ziegler, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food "Parliaments - the cornerstone of the right to food" Q: What must be done to support the right to food? Jean Ziegle To make the right to food enforceable in the courts, we need a framework law, as suggested by Mrs. Robinson, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. The question is a complex one, for merely adopting a law enshrining the right to food is not enough. With a framework law, you have to start by drawing up a list of all existing laws in a given country, in order to arrive at an overall picture of laws that are negative and can infringe upon the right to land and water, in violation of the right to food. We need to take a number of positive steps which have yielded immediate benefits in practice, even in the poorest countries. Q: What can parliaments do to combat hunger in the world? J.Z: I am optimistic. It is parliaments that will supply the support, assistance and solidarity we need to safeguard this new right. The right to food exists henceforth. On the international level, it is recognised as a human right, on a par with civil and political rights. Now, the real battle is to make this right legally enforceable, i.e. to ensure that the groups of men and women affected by this scourge or individual persons may turn to national and international legal bodies to secure effective access to land - via land reform - and access to an income that enables them to purchase the foodstuffs they need to live. There is also a need for protection against multinationals, which privatise water and sell drinking water at far too high a price, as is the case at present in several cities in Brazil. The right to food comprises a wealth of aspects as far as enforceability is concerned. Enforceability means law. And it is parliaments which make the laws. Here in Rome, the forum of parliamentarians is perhaps more important than the FAO meeting because it is parliamentarians who will now have to take adequate legislative measures to make the right to food enforceable in court. Q: Are parliaments prepared to do this? J.Z.: Most of the MPs here today come from large democracies based, according to Montesquieu, on the system of separation of powers. We know that international negotiation on a State-to-State level is a matter for the Executive, which implies that parliaments are shut out of international negotiations. A new round of negotiations is due to start at the World Trade Organization (WTO). It will last for several years and is intended to complete the trade liberalization process and ensure universal acceptance of patents. The ensuing decisions will have a very tangible impact on the fate of hundreds of millions of people throughout the world. What will happen if MPs are shut out of these negotiations and if the WTO fails to recognise the right to food? Some European and developing countries feel that market liberalization is a must, provided that food sovereignty is guaranteed. This implies that markets can only be liberalized if food self-sufficiency is complete and guaranteed. Yet the only way to meet this food security condition, for which the non-governmental organisations and the social movements present here in Rome are pushing, is for parliaments to force their governments to include it in their negotiations with the WTO. Accordingly, parliaments are the cornerstone of the fight for the right to food. Mr Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University "True partnership from rich to poor countries" Q: What would you recommend that parliaments do in order to fight hunger? Jeffrey Sachs: I think that Parliament, as the legislative force in all of the countries of the world, has an enormous role in making sure that the governments in each of the countries adopt the international goals - the Millennium goals, the development goals, the goals of this World Food Summit - and put in place the national policies that can make them real. For example, in the rich countries, parliamentarians have to help increase international financial support for the poorest countries of the world. In the poorer countries, parliamentarians have a major role in ensuring that the domestic policy framework supports openness, transparency, democracy, human rights and the commitment to the social challenges of health, education, agricultural productivity and elimination of hunger. This is a partnership that must involve all countries of the world and therefore - almost by definition - all parliaments of the world. Q: How do you explain the lack of political will? J.S.: I think that there is a misperception in many rich countries that the problems either are unsolvable or will eventually just go away. Neither is true. These problems are solvable but they won't solve themselves without action and they cannot solve themselves just within the poor countries. It requires true partnership from rich to poor beyond words, because words are cheap, words are easy. I am talking about dollars, euros, real financing to help solve these problems. And I think that when it is better understood in the rich countries that more money tied to better policies are both necessary, and that the amounts of financial help that are needed are larger than what we have now but not so large as to cripple any rich economy (because I am talking about very small amounts of money relative to the great incomes of the rich countries), then we will get more international support. Q: Is food a right? J.S.: Of course, food is a right in the sense that when people don't have enough food, they die. And the right to life is the most basic right. In this sense, when we see famine or the risk of mass famine as we do right now in southern Africa, the world has to respond, not as a matter of right and wrong but as a matter of international human rights standards. It should react fast because bringing food support when it is too late does not do any good, the people are already dead. And when we face multiple crises as we do in Africa where there is drought and hunger and massive disease problems, then the need for adequate help and attention is of course even more urgent.

What can parliaments do to combat hunger in the world?
The views of three MPs present at the Rome meeting

Ms Marthe Amon Ago , First Vice-President of the National Assembly of Côte d'Ivoire
"Parliamentarians must be empowered to help the people"

Marthe Amon Ago: Parliaments can do a great deal, as the people's elected representatives are persons well suited to taking the people in hand. As they travel to the most remote villages, MPs are aware of everything that is going on. MPs can be educated; they must be given the means to follow things up, to create associations, to inform women's and children's cooperatives as well as people out of work.

Q: In practical terms, are you asking them to be more active, for example by trying to convince governments to take action?
M.A.A. You know, in our country, for example, MPs do not have much chance, institutionally speaking, of influencing the government, because they cannot overthrow the government. We live in a presidential system, so MPs are not able to act on governments. What we are asking is for international organisations to channel funding directly to Parliament, for example, to enable MPs to monitor the use of certain credits. Let's say that a group of young people wish to set up a small agricultural cooperative. Even if the operation only costs a thousand euros, they are unable to get under way for lack of funds. They turn to parliamentarians because they see the latter as being close to the people. Yet parliamentarians do not have the means to assist them. If aid could be provided in this respect, it would be very useful indeed.

Mr. Rafael Moreno, Chilean MP
"Parliaments must reflect what citizens feel"

They must reflect what the citizens we represent feel, the truth of those who elect us, rather than passing on the rhetoric of governments. What are our voters looking for? Work and markets for their products. They want us to understand the consequences of globalisation and the displacement of populations from their place of origin. For there is a real gap between what governments say and reality. The bulk of those suffering from hunger come from rural areas, and those who go hungry in the cities go hungry because they have abandoned the rural sector. So we need a more practical policy. For example, how can we come to an agreement with the US Government when it grants more than US$ 125 billion worth of subsidies to its farmers over a five-year period? What does such an agreement mean for Chilean producers? Nothing. It merely means that we must lower our customs duties, open up our borders and depopulate our agriculture, all this to depend on the surplus-generating agriculture of other countries which are not poor countries.

Ms. Julia Valenzuela Cuellar, Member of the Congress of the Republic of Peru
"Parliamentarians must pass laws which benefit the public";

Parliamentarians have a very important mission, a very serious commitment towards our voters, in the light of the realities in our respective countries. We must take legislative initiatives which reflect the people's needs and legislate accordingly. We must do so in cooperation with the European Union and the rich countries. One hears much talk of combating violence and protecting human rights, but this has become mere rhetoric. Citizens no longer believe in such fine-sounding words. What the people and families need is for their leaders and their representatives in parliament to act to represent them, to adopt laws that benefit the general public. It is pointless to adopt too many laws that do not serve the interests of all citizens. We parliamentarians must check corruption, combat drug trafficking, narco-terrorism, prostitution and trafficking in the girl child, domestic violence, and child abuse, which is constantly growing within the home itself. We are taking remedial action, e.g. by setting up reception centres in an attempt to resolve this problem. Of course, we have NGOs and other institutions that are active in this field, but they operate on an isolated basis. What we need is access to the instruments and means to work together to face this new form of corruption, which is unwholesome for the public.