Trade, Food Security, and Human Rights: The Rules for International Trade in Agricultural Products and the Evolving World Food Crisis

Abstract

Food crises have frequently occurred throughout history and are said to be as old as history itself. The phenomenon of hunger and concerns with crop failures have been recorded by ancient Chinese, Greek, and many medieval scholars.1 Along with the development of society generally, new agricultural technologies have been widely introduced and effectively applied to agricultural cultivation.2 Under these circumstances, agricultural productive capacity has greatly improved, and one would think that the problem of food insecurity should now be solved or at least mitigated.3 Yet it continues to be a critical issue in the modern world. Based on a recent report by the United Nations (UN), there are 1.2 billion vulnerable people in the world-about one fifth of the total population-who continue to live on less than one dollar per day.4 The estimates of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) also show that more than 923 million people are suffering from chronic hunger, malnutrition, or related diseases, and this number grows with continually rising food prices.5