The right to food in international law

The right to food is a human right. It protects the right of all human beings to live in dignity, free from hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition. The right to food is protected under international human rights and humanitarian law. With almost 870 million people chronically undernourished in 2010–12, the number of hungry people in the world remains unacceptably high. The vast majority live in developing countries, where about 15 percent of the population are estimated to be undernourished. The right to food approach to food insecurity is based on the premise that tackling world hunger requires improving not the availability of food, but access to food for the vulnerable and deprived. This entry presents internationally agreed definitions of the human right to adequate food, conceptual developments in the last decades, and an overview of the challenges facing the full realization of this fundamental human right globally.