Special Rapporteur on the right to food

Purpose of the mandate

Hunger and food insecurity are global problems. According to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (2019)¹, more than 820 million people in the world were still hungry in 2018. This problem is likely to get worse given the expected increase in the world’s population and the stress on natural resources.

This mandate was created to address the need for an integrated and coordinated approach to promoting and protecting people’s right to food.

Learn what the right to food means, and how it intersects with other human rights

About the mandate

The mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food was originally established by the Commission on Human Rights in April 2000 by resolution 2000/10. Following the replacement of the Commission by the Human Rights Council in June 2006, the mandate was endorsed and extended by the Human Rights Council by its resolution 6/2 of 27 September 2007.

Learn more about the mandate and the resolutions that established it

Current mandate holder

Mr. Fakhri is a professor at the University of Oregon School of Law where he teaches courses on human rights, food law, development, and commercial law. He is also the director of the Food Resiliency Project in the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Center. He was appointed Special Rapporteur on the right to food by the Human Rights Council in March 2020 and assumed his functions on 1 May 2020.

Read Mr. Michael Fakhri’s full biography