1 February 2023

Registration is open for the 2023 Annual T.M.C. Asser Lecture by Professor Michael Fakhri, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food and an internationally recognised expert on food systems and human rights.

The T.M.C. Asser Annual Lecture will take place in the Academy Hall of the Peace Palace, The Hague, the Netherlands on Thursday 20 April 20‌23 from 16‌.00 – 17‌.30 hrs., followed by a reception. Registration opens at 15‌.00 hrs.

Seats for this event will be assigned on a first come, first-served basis, so we kindly ask you to secure your seat in the Peace Palace now.

 

The title of Professor Fakhri’s lecture is: ‘The right to food, violence, and food systems’.

Prof. Fakhri will examine forms of violence in food systems, to allow a better understanding of how food systems operate and to reframe how the right to food is addressed in international law:
“One of the main causes of hunger and famine is violence and armed conflict. In turn, armed conflict leads to more food insecurity. How then to get out of this vicious cycle?
Drawing on my work as Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food and my upcoming report to the Human Rights Council, I outline a way out. I will explain how systems not only produce food but also amplify and produce forms of violence that make people more poor, vulnerable, and marginalized. I also describe how food systems rely on a global economy of dependency and extractivism. In sum, food systems are part of a cycle between structural inequality and systemic violence causing wide-spread human rights violations. I will address the war in Ukraine to highlight how international markets amplify rather than abate violence, creating global shocks from a regional war.” Michael Fakhri