The right to food and the world trade organization’s rules on agriculture: conflicting, compatible, or complementary?

Abstract

This dissertation explores the relationship between the right to food and the agriculture rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO). It examines whether or not States’ obligations (as well as rights, permissions and exemptions) under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Agreement on Agriculture genuinely conflict with each other, according to prevailing theories of norm conflict in international law. Numerous authors point to the apparent friction between international human rights law and the WTO and suggest that the two regimes are fundamentally incompatible. In addition to their observations, the former Special Rapporteurs on the Right to Food, Olivier De Shutter and Jean Zeigler, have suggested the WTO rules conflict with the right to food, and that a more detailed compatibility review is needed. Their concerns are the impetuses for the present research. The development of the right to food in international law, the approaches to norm conflict in theory and practice, and the rules on agricultural trade are given considerable attention. The topic of norm conflict is situated within the broader context of the debate surrounding the fragmentation of international law.