The Right to Food Sovereignty in International Law

With the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) in 2018, the right to food sovereignty was officially included in an international legal document for the first time. The concept of food sovereignty has been widely analyzed in sociology and politics, whilst it is rarely described in the legal context. This article aims to clarify the relationship among existing norms of international law such as the right to self-determination, the right to development and the right to adequate food with the right to food sovereignty. In order to clarify this relationship the article compares them with food sovereignty as described in the UNDROP and it highlights the similarities and the differences among each of these norms. The article also includes an analysis of the concept of food sovereignty as included in national legal systems.