Right to Food Guidelines
The Voluntary Guidelines to support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security, also known as the Right to Food Guidelines, is a document adopted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 2004, with the aim of guiding states to implement the right to food. It is not legally binding, but directed to states' obligations to the right to food under international law. In specific, it is directed towards States Parties to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and to  States that still have to ratify it. History. In 1945, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is founded. In 1996, the FAO organises the 1996 World Food Summit, in Rome. It requested that the right to food be given a more concrete and operational content. This resulted in the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and the World Food Summit Plan of Action. "We pledge our political will and our common and national commitment to achieving food security for all and to an ongoing effort to eradicate hunger in all countries, with an immediate view to  reducing the number of undernourished people to half their present level no later than 2015." In 1999, Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights adopted General Comment No.12 ‘The Right to Adequate Food’ and described the various State obligations derived from the ICESCR regarding the right to food. It places three types of obligation on States Parties: the obligation to respect, to protect and to fulfil the right to food (which includes the obligations to facilitate and to provide). In 2002, at the World Food Summit in June, the FAO adopted the calling for the establishment of an intergovernmental working  group to prepare a set of guidelines on the implementation of the right to food. In November, the FAO Council set up an Intergovernmental Working Group which drafts the Right to Food Guidelines. In 2004 the Right to Food Guidelines are adopted by 187 Member States of the General Council of the FAO. The Guidelines build on international law and are a set of recommendations States have chosen on how to implement their obligations under Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Overview. The Food and Agriculture Organization summarised the Right to Food guidelines in  six phases or aspects to realizing the right to food: