Skip to main content

Global Food Security

Professor(s)

Semester

2019 Summer - Term 2

About This Class

This course will examine how law shapes global food systems and their ongoing transformations, with a particular focus on the landscape of global hunger. The objective of the course is to understand the causes of hunger and malnutrition; how governments and international institutions have sought to combat hunger and malnutrition; why they have so dramatically failed; and how law and governance are relevant to what can be done about this. We will begin by addressing how "food security" and "hunger" are defined and measured for policy-making purposes – and how food systems are governed, including exploring the reform of the Committee on World Food Security, as well as national framework laws, the role of courts and constitutional protection. We will then explore the impact of international trade, investment in agriculture, transnational corporations in the agrifood sector, and intellectual property rights in agriculture on global food security. We will also examine the threat of climate change to food security and the debate on the shift to sustainable agriculture. Finally, we will address some of the dominant alternative models of food system governance (the right to food, the right to food sovereignty, the rights of the peasant etc.) and the growing social movements and civil society organizations that demand them.

Class Code

ENV 5385

Subject

Unspecified