Governing food security. Law, politics and the right to food

With only five years left until the 2015 deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, food security still is a dream rather than reality: 'a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life'. Political commitments at world summits on food security, market-based agricultural policies, science-based food safety regulation and voluntary guidelines on the right to food have not ended hunger, malnourishment or food safety crises in our world. The question arises whether food insecurity is a situation that exists in spite of these commitments and legal measures, or rather due to them? This book has three purposes. Firstly, it offers insights in how law, politics and the right to food contribute to food security in both positive and negative ways. For this purpose, different theories, concepts and methodologies from legal, political, anthropological and sociological sciences are used and developed. Secondly, the book explains that food security and food policies cannot be treated as given, at one level or in one domain only. This is done in different ways: by pointing out the emergence of new paradigms on food security, human rights and science that shape food policies; by showing how law and policies at one level affect food security at another level; and by treating food security and food policies as linked to governance regimes of agriculture, food, feed, water or property. Finally, the book offers scholarly analysis of paradigms and practices but also presents social science-based ways to indirectly contribute to food security, varying from improving justiciability to building trust, from seeking ways to address non-scientific concerns to creating room for plurality of lifestyles and norms, from unmasking dominant discourse to understanding or strengthening abilities or arrangements to cope with vulnerability.