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2 - Tackling Hunger through International Climate Change Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2019

Anne Saab
Affiliation:
Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva
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Summary

Climate change has come to be viewed as an urgent global problem, and international law is increasingly put forth as a means to solve this problem. The international legal framework on climate change includes the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol, and, most recently, the Paris Agreement, as well as a host of supporting documents and initiatives taken under the auspices of these agreements. This body of international law also deals with the relationship between climate change and hunger, contributing to formulating ways to tackle climate change-induced hunger and food insecurity. International law on climate change thus plays a part in constructing narratives about feeding the world in times of climate change. International climate change law is informed predominantly by scientific facts and evidence and, thus, foregrounds the measurable impacts of climate change and technical solutions. Even though it is widely recognized that the relationship between climate change and hunger is extremely complex, international climate change law emphasizes crop yield losses and the consequent need to increase production. Moreover, this body of international law promotes the use of technologies – including climate-ready seeds – to deal with the impacts of climate change. It also actively invites and enables private-sector involvement in climate change mitigation and adaptation. International climate change law, in short, principally promotes the neoliberal narrative of hunger. The food sovereignty narrative does not take notice of international climate change law and how it supports the prevailing narrative that climate-ready seeds are desirable and necessary to feed the world in times of climate change. While international climate change law contributes to quietly setting up norms and expectations in favour of biotech corporations, food sovereignty advocates fail to contest the neoliberal narrative through this area of law. This chapter shows how international climate change law plays a fundamental role in constructing the neoliberal narrative of hunger and in reinforcing the first four assumptions in the pyramid.
Type
Chapter
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Narratives of Hunger in International Law
Feeding the World in Times of Climate Change
, pp. 57 - 83
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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