Ana Gonzalez-Pelaez - Human Rights and World Trade: Hunger in International Society

This book provides an analysis of the political viability of basic rights and offers an in-depth investigation of the largest violation of human rights: world hunger.

Dr Gonzalez-Pelaez develops John Vincents theory of basic human rights within the context of the international political economy and demonstrates how the right to food has become an international norm enshrined within international law. She then assesses the international normative and practical dimensions of hunger in connection with international trade and poverty. Using the society of states as the framework of analysis, she explores the potential that the current system has to correct its own anomalies, and examines the measures that can move the hunger agenda forward in order to break through its current stagnation.

Demonstrating the interaction between international relations and international political economy, this book will be of significant interest to IR theorists as well as human rights scholars and practitioners concerned with basic rights and the problem of hunger.

Ana Gonzalez-Pelaez is an independent researcher of international affairs based in London. She has worked in broadcast media, published in various academic journals, and served as a consultant to several human rights projects.

Edited by Barry Buzan, London School of Economics and Richard Little, University of Bristol

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Human Rights and World Trade

Hunger in international society

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Hunger in international society

Ana Gonzalez-Pelaez

First published 2005

by Routledge

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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

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2005 Ana Gonzalez-Pelaez

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Gonzalez-Pelaez, Ana, 1974

Human rights and world trade : hunger in international society / Ana Gonzalez-Pelaez.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Food supply. 2. Hunger. 3. Human rights. 4. International trade-Social aspects. 5. International economic relations. 6. Vincent, R. J., 1943 I. Title.

HD9000.5.G65 2005

363.8dc22

2004018464

ISBN 0-203-32445-5 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0415349397 (Print Edition)

The persistence of mass starvation and chronic hunger is one of the most shocking and shameful features of the modern world. It is shocking because of the sheer volume of people who are every day either hungry or actually dying from starvation and it is shameful because it should be possible for the international society of states to make very substantial reductions in the number of people in the world who are hungry or starving. Although there are disagreements about how best to tackle the problem, it is beyond dispute that there is simply too little being done at this juncture to eliminate the hunger and starvation that exists around the world.

This book assesses the theory and practice of how international society has responded to the global problem of hunger. The focus is not on crisis or emergency situations caused, for example, by drought or civil war, when special circumstances make it difficult to feed people, but on situations where hunger is a routine problem that arises and persists primarily because of poverty. Ana Gonzalez-Pelaez investigates whether the international society of states considers that there is an international responsibility or duty to alleviate hunger and if so, what is being done to fulfil this duty and what can, in theory, be done to eliminate hunger.

This investigation into the problem of hunger builds on the work of John Vincent who is closely identified with the English school of international relations theorists who presuppose the existence of an international society of sovereign states where order is promoted by the existence of a complex set of international institutions. In his early work, Vincent focused on the problem of intervention and he strongly endorsed the norm of nonintervention that is intended to reinforce the sovereignty of the state. Vincent accepted the prevailing view within the English school, at that time, that the virtues of sovereignty and non-intervention are their capacity to preserve the distinctiveness or plurality of the states that constitute international society. Later, however, when Vincents research focus turned to human rights, he began to question an undiluted pluralist perspective. He argued that there are some basic human rights that every state has a duty to observe. The emerging international consensus about the existence of these rights reflects a growing solidarity within international society. Vincent, therefore, was intent on accommodating a solidarist conception of international society.