(2022-05) Starved for Justice: International Complicity in Systematic Violations of the Right to Food in Haiti
Summary — Journal article by IJDH senior staff attorney Sandra Wisner arguing that decades of international economic assistance programs undermined Haitian agriculture, violated the right to food, and engage extraterritorial human rights obligations requiring remedy.
Key Findings
- International economic assistance programs, including IMF and World Bank loans and adjustment conditions from the 1980s onward, undermined Haiti's agricultural self-sufficiency and produced chronic food insecurity. In 2020 around 4.6 million people, over 40 percent of the population, required emergency food assistance, and approximately 50 percent of the population was undernourished. In 2021, 86,000 children under five faced acute malnutrition, more than double the 2020 figure. The article argues these outcomes violate the right to food and that foreign actors bear extraterritorial obligations that can be adjudicated through domestic, regional and international mechanisms.
Full Description
This article, published in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review Online by Sandra C. Wisner, Senior Staff Attorney at IJDH, argues that a series of international economic assistance programs, including loans and adjustment conditions from the IMF and World Bank beginning in the 1980s, dealt a crushing blow to Haiti's domestic agriculture, converting a formerly largely self-sustaining country into one dependent on the global marketplace and chronically food insecure. It cites figures including around 4.6 million people (over 40 percent of the population) requiring emergency food assistance in 2020, roughly 50 percent of the population undernourished, and 86,000 children under five facing acute malnutrition in 2021. The article frames this food insecurity as a violation of the right to food, outlines the emerging recognition of extraterritorial obligations (ETOs) of foreign states and international financial institutions, surveys domestic, regional and international mechanisms for adjudicating ETO-based claims, and proposes judicial remedies and policy measures to compensate affected Haitians and prevent further harm.
Notes
IJDH-affiliated journal article (Columbia Human Rights Law Review Online); English original of a catalog record titled in French; ayitistats wave B