McGill University’s research emphasizes the pivotal role of international food assistance in addressing the global hunger crisis. In 2022, the World Food Programme helped a record 158 million people ().

With no global treaty in place, food aid is guided by a patchwork of international agreements and institutions. Using the concept of a “regime complex,” a study published in the Journal of International Trade Law and Policy examines those rules and the systems that shape them.

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Approximately, 9% of the world’s population still suffers from chronic hunger and malnutrition?

Feeding Hope, Nourishing Change

Rather than create a new entity to solve the problem, the findings point to a paradigm shift in the existing systems.

Rethinking the dominant discourse among institutions is crucial to working towards zero hunger, posits author Clarisse Delaville, a second-year doctoral student at McGill’s Faculty of Law. 

“There are two main regimes that govern global food assistance—the trade regime and the food security regime. I encourage a stronger commitment from both regimes to implement a human-rights-based approach, to question the prominent discourse on food trade regimes, which paints food assistance as a distortion in trade that ought to be minimized,” says Delaville.

Reference:

1. A regime complex for food assistance: international law regulating international food assistance
   – (https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JITLP-06-2023-0032/full/html)

Source-Eurekalert