The right to food, climate change, and global governance

Organised by

• Department of Economics
• Department of History
• Department of Law
• Max Weber Programme for Postdoctoral Studies
• Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies
• Department of Political and Social Sciences
• Florence School of Transnational Governance
• Central Coordination Unit
• Environmental Challenges and Climate Change Governance

Food systems are central to climate change policy since they emit approximately one-third of greenhouse gases. But food security and climate change cannot only be dealt by the international climate change regime only since climate change, biodiversity and trade are interconnected as a matter of policy. As a matter of global governance, however, the issues remain separated. In this talk, I discuss how the right to food can be used to weave together the different issues and regimes. I highlight the ambiguous and at times marginal role of the right to food in the respective climate change, biodiversity, and trade regimes, and put forward why I nevertheless think that that the right to food provides opportunities for global governance. Drawing from my work as UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, I provide a particular interpretation of the right to food as a tool given radical potential through social movements.