Admission requirements
This course is part of Sustainability, Climate Change and Food and therefore only accessible to students enrolled in that Minor.
Description
The global production of food should be enough to feed the entire world; however no less that 828 million people still go hungry. There are numerous current examples of food insecurity. Extreme drought is once again putting Somalia at risk of severe famine. The war in Yemen has led to acute hunger at unpresented levels. And if things were not bad enough, the war in Ukraine is causing serious disruptions in global food supplies, with grave consequences for many developing countries. As pointed out by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) “Targeted Humanitarian action is urgently needed to save lives and livelihoods in several hunger hotspots”, however the provision of humanitarian assistance faces numerous obstacles”.
Poverty, conflict, natural disaster are all major causes of hunger. Climate change further exacerbates these causes. Taking SDG 2, which aims to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture”, as a starting point, this course will focus on the legal questions surrounding access to food and food security, both in peace and wartime. The legal questions that arise are diverse. What does the human right to food entail? How does international law try to mitigate the effects of war on food security? What happens if starvation is in and out of itself used as method of warfare? What are the rules regulating humanitarian assistance? Can there be accountability for jeopardizing food security?
Different relevant fields of international law, such as for example international human rights law, the laws regulating war as well as international criminal law, will be looked at to assess the different questions raised. Throughout the course, concrete examples will also be used to further illustrate the theoretical discourse.
Course Objectives
Content:
Assess the Sustainable Development Goals and reflect on their legal value.
Identify and interpret the legal rules relevant to food security, both in peace and wartime.
Analyse how the different relevant legal frameworks interact.
Analyse the relevant mechanisms in terms of accountability.
Skills:
Critically reflect on the limits of the relevant legal frameworks.
Capacity to clearly discern legal implications from broader ones.
Learn where to find legal sources and how to interpret and apply them.
Develop legal argumentation skills
Timetable
TBA; information will be published before May 2023.
Mode of instruction
The first session of each week will be a lecture; the second session will combine practical skills and learning from invited experts and practitioners through guest lectures.
Assessment Method
This course will be based on two assessments.
Newspaper article assignment
30 % of final grade
Re-sit not possible
Grade must be compensated
Final exam – combination of multiple choice and open questions
70% of final grade
Grade must be 5,5 or higher to pass the course
Resit of a fail is possible
Resit will take the same form
Reading list
Given that this course assesses different legal frameworks there is no single textbook that can be used and the course will hence rely on a variety of different readings (mainly book chapters, journal articles and blog posts). The links to the relevant readings will be provided on Brightspace.
Registration
Registration starts early May. Additional information TBA.
Contact
h.cuyckens@luc.leidenuniv.nl
Remarks
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