By Prof. Bharat H. Desai
In the third decade of the 21st century, the growing use of food as a weapon to starve civilians and others presents great challenge. It is used by the armed groups as ‘scorched earth’ strategy that works as a double-edge sword.
The UN Security Council (UNSC) held an unprecedented ministerial level open debate on 19 May 2022 on conflict and food security. The widening of the ambit of the UNSC’s primary remit of maintenance of international peace and security underscores that the world is facing a different nature of the security threat. It took place amidst reports that conflicts have been the primary driver of hunger for 139 million people in 24 countries and territories. It grew from 99 million in 2020. The situation is expected to worsen in 2022 due the conflict in Ukraine. Both Russia and Ukraine are major exporters of agricultural commodities. The concept notes by the US Presidency of the UNSC (May) ominously stated: “a sharp increase in global food insecurity threatens to destabilize fragile societies and exacerbate armed conflicts and regional instability.”
On 12 April 2021, the UN Secretary-General (UNSG) reported to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on Implementation of the United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition (2016–2025). The report, highlighted the underlying drivers of all forms of malnutrition. It called upon the states to act with urgency for elimination of “all forms of malnutrition and achieving the SDGs by 2030”. Similarly, the 2021 report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition by the five agencies (FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO) also graphically noted that “The world has not been generally progressing either towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 2.1, of ensuring access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food for all people all year round, or towards SDG Target 2.2, of eradicating all forms of malnutrition”. It ominously reported that “between 720 and 811 million people in the world faced hunger in 2020 (161 million more than in 2019)” and nearly “2.37 billion people did not have access to adequate food in 2020 (320 million more than 2019).
Hunger as a Global Problematique
The large part of the problematique on hunger, inadequacy of food and nutrition has been contributed by various kinds of armed conflicts that rage across the world. This is a harsh global reality notwithstanding the UN Charter [Article 2 (4) ‘blueprint’] prohibition (refrain) of “threat or use of force”. Similarly, another facet of global concern, as per 2021 Global Gender Gap report, shows the huge gender disparity that widened by a “generation from 99.5 years to 135.6 years” since there is no letup in the persistence of global inequality, discrimination and violence against women. Maybe it is now high time we need to work on measuring the Global Misery Index (instead of happiness or hunger) to assess as to how much of the 7.9 billion (2022) population on planet earth lives in misery in spite of all the riches, scientific and technical prowess and the advent of the Digital and Internet Age. It seems, the words of late Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, expressed poetically in Hindi, have come true that the “human being has reached the moon but does not know how to live on the earth”!
Hunger as a Tool of Warfare
It was the UNSC resolution 2417 of 24 May 2018 that expressed grave concern about the direct impact of armed conflicts on food security due to the “threat of famine presently facing millions of people in armed conflicts, as well as about the number of undernourished people in the world”. In the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic (2020-2022), the global food insecurity has only worsened. The Indian humanitarian supplies of wheat to save starvation in post-Taliban Afghanistan and rice for the Sri Lankan people are vivid reminder of the world we live in.
According to FAO, vicious cycle of hunger is largely fueled by extreme climatic events, economic slowdowns and crises (such as Covid-19 pandemic). In the cocktail, the violent conflicts and wars exacerbate hunger, poverty and sexual violence against women around the world. Poverty and hunger are closely correlated. FAO estimates show 842 million people suffer from ‘chronic hunger’.
With the world population expected to reach the staggering figure of 10 billion in 2050, it presents a monumental challenge to sustainably feed the population explosion. It will necessitate fundamental changes in the global food system even as there is very slow move towards attaining ‘zero hunger’ goal under the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 2021 Global Hunger Index forecast shows 47 countries with alarming levels of hunger and 47 others will fail to reach ‘zero hunger’ by 2030. India was placed at 101, just above Afghanistan.
2020 Nobel Prize for WFP
The award of the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for the World Food Program (WFP) became a landmark. The citation made the rationale for WFP choice amply clear: “for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict." The recognition of WFP for “combating use of hunger as a weapon of war” came close on the heels of the 2019 Nobel Economics Prize on “alleviating poverty” (Abhijit Banerjee et al.) as well as the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize on “use of sexual violence as a weapon of war” (Danis Mukwege and Nadia Muard). Ironically, hunger, poverty and sexual violence against women all three have become endemic in the global armed conflicts and accentuate the human misery.
“Until the day we have a medical vaccine, food is the best vaccine against chaos”, the WFP has strongly contended. The humanitarian task of WFP has been aptly termed as the “modern version of peace congresses” that the Nobel Peace Prize is intended to promote. The Norwegian Nobel Committee felt that it is this noble task of providing assistance to increase food security prevents hunger and in turn helps in improving prospects for stability and peace. “WFP gives significant contribution to combat hunger as such and to combat hunger used as a weapon in war and armed conflicts”, Berit Reiss-Andersen, Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee said on 9 October 2020.
A Challenge for International Law
In the third decade of the 21st century, the growing use of food as a weapon to starve civilians and others presents great challenge. It is used by the armed groups as ‘scorched earth’ strategy that works as a double-edge sword. It affects the rival armed groups, causes an exodus of refugees and starves the civilians trapped therein. Such aggressive method of warfare has been prohibited by International Humanitarian Law (IHL). All parties to an armed conflict have an obligation to comply with IHL, in particular their obligations under the 1949 Geneva Conventions as well as the 1977 Additional Protocols thereto. It also presents a challenge to the edifice of rules and principles of International Human Rights and Refugee Laws. However, with rising human greed, arrogance of power and primitive streak to subjugate others results in brutalities, death and destruction.
It calls for empowering the only neutral humanitarian organ on the ground, the ICRC as the custodian of the IHL, to grapple with the challenge. One needs to admire the concern and courage of the ICRC President, Peter Maurer, as he moves to supervise work from one conflict zone to another (from Haiti to Syria to Ukraine). His prophetic words, shared in conversation with this author, provide us a beacon of hope: “These destructive forces are not invincible”. Still, the growing use of hunger (food) as a weapon of war presents a challenge to the global scholarship in the fields of International Law and International Relations.
Prof. Bharat H. Desai is Jawaharlal Nehru Chair and Professor of International Law at the Centre for International Legal Studies of SIS, JNU. He coordinated the Making SIS Visible initiative during 2008-2013 (Making SIS Visible | Welcome to Jawaharlal Nehru University (jnu.ac.in) as well as Inter-University Consortium (Partner Universities: JNU, Jammu, Kashmir and Sikkim) during 2012-2020 (www.iucccc.in/Contact us.htm).