Everyone should be able to access nutritious, safe, affordable and culturally appropriate food. Yet around 14 million people in the UK experience food insecurity. This is not simply a problem of food supply: for many, incomes are too low to afford food alongside other essentials.
The new United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food recently stated that the realisation of the right to food “remains an urgent and unfinished challenge” and that human dignity is the foundational lens through it must be understood and advanced.
At Just Fair we agree and are working to address this by working alongside people, communities and partners to put human rights into practice, build the evidence for change and advocate for stronger legal and policy protections. These approaches reinforce one another, helping us move from charitable addressing of immediate needs to tackling the structural causes of food insecurity and rooting solutions in rights.
Food is a human right, not a privilege
The UK has recognised the right to food under international human rights law by ratifying the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) in 1976. 50 years on the Covenant has not been incorporated into UK law, leaving significant gaps in domestic legal protection.
Making the right to food a reality
Despite this, recent developments have created important opportunities to advance the right to food in the UK.
This month, the Right to Food UK Commission launched its Roadmap to Delivering Food Security for All in the UK Parliament, setting out recommendations to tackle food insecurity and realise the right to food.
Just Fair contributed extensively to the Commission’s work:
- giving oral evidence to the Commission in Belfast
- submitting our own evidence
- supporting our Lived Experience Advisory Board to submit evidence
- collaborating on, and editing a literature review examining the right to food and its implementation in the UK, with author Dr Clare James from the University of Leeds and Amnesty International UK
- publishing a companion guide to the literature review
- coordinating a joint statement and convening a special meeting of the UK Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Network on the right to food
The literature review focused on the legal and institutional changes needed to move beyond crisis response towards prevention and accountability. This includes stronger statutory duties, human rights impact assessments, transparent reporting, and mechanisms to hold decision-makers to account. It explores the international legal framework, the gaps in existing UK law and policy, and the consequences of fragmented approaches to food provision. It also highlights how responsibility for different aspects of food provision is spread across areas including social security, planning, competition and food safety, with no overarching framework ensuring that everyone’s right to food is realised.
The review makes the case for incorporating ICESCR into domestic law, establishing framework legislation and a national food plan, so everyone has an adequate income to afford suitable and nutritious food.
Putting human rights into practice in our communities
Through our Human Rights in the Community programme, Just Fair has also been working alongside people and communities to develop and embed human rights-based approaches to addressing food insecurity.
One example is our partnership with Quaker Social Action’s Cook Up project, which provides free access to kitchen spaces for people who need them. Together, we are co-developing a human rights-based toolkit that draws on practical lessons from Cook Up about responding to food insecurity with dignity. The toolkit aims to help other organisations develop community food projects that meet immediate needs while promoting people’s rights and challenging the systems that drive food insecurity.
We believe partnerships such as these – where we are working alongside communities to turn human rights principles into practical action – create opportunities for people to respond to immediate needs, share skills, experiences and learning, while building approaches rooted in dignity, participation and accountability.
We will host a joint online event with Quaker Social Action in the new year to launch the toolkit. Keep an eye on our events page for further details.
From managing hunger to realising rights
The Right to Food Commission’s Roadmap makes clear that tackling hunger requires action on its underlying causes.
Across all our work, our message is clear: food insecurity is not inevitable, and charity alone cannot solve it. Realising the right to food requires coordinated action, adequate incomes, stronger legal protections and meaningful accountability.
The UK must incorporate the right to food into domestic law, creating enforceable protections to enable decision-makers to be held to account so that everyone can access adequate food with dignity. As the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food has emphasised, the lived experiences and agency of rights holders must be at the heart of efforts to make this right a reality.
It is time to move beyond managing hunger to building a system that respects, protects and fulfils the right to food for everyone.
Lived Experience Advisory Group submission
Right to food literature review
Background image by Daniele Morganti
