[New video] ‘The right to food, violence, and food systems’ by Michael Fakhri

Watch the full video of the 8th Annual T.M.C. Asser Lecture by Michael Fakhri, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. In his lecture, Michael Fakhri examined forms of violence in food systems, to allow for a better understanding of how food systems operate and to reframe how the right to food is addressed in international law. 

Professor Michael Fakhr, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, addressed a hall packed with guests at the 8th Annual T.M.C. Asser Lecture on April 20 at the Peace Palace in The Hague. Drawing on his work as Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food and his report to the Human Rights Council, Fakhri vividly described how food systems not only produce food but also amplify and produce forms of violence that make people more poor, vulnerable, and marginalised. He also talked about how food systems rely on a global economy of dependency and extractivism, which causes widespread human rights violations. The UN Rapporteur further addressed the war in Ukraine to highlight how international markets amplify rather than abate violence, creating global shocks from a regional war. 

The 8th Annual T.M.C. Asser Lecture was introduced by Liesbeth Lijnzaad (Chairperson of the Supervisory Board of the Asser Institute) and Wim Jansen (The Hague Municipality’s Director of International Affairs). Moderator of the Q&A session was León Castellanos-Jankiewicz (researcher Asser Institute) 

Watch the full lecture.  

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Prior to the Annual T.M.C. Asser Lecture, Dutch newspaper NRC published an interview with Michael Fakhri, written by Caroline de Gruyter, in which Fakhri explained how we have increasingly come to see food as an investment. (In Dutch).

Photo impression of the 8th Annual T.M.C. Asser Lecture by @ Hilko Visser.