A Human Rights-Based Approach to Food Security : Enforcing the Right To Be Free From Hunger in Kenya

Since the promulgation of the Constitution of Kenya 2010, the right to be free from hunger has been explicitly recognized as a fundamental human right in Kenya. The Constitution at Article 43(1)(c) has formally recognized the right to be free from hunger. The marginal note to the foregoing constitutional edict is titled “Economic and Social Rights” and provides inter alia that every person has the right to be free from hunger. Having been so anchored in a transformative charter, it follows that the right to be free from hunger has finally come of age in Kenya. The right is also provided for in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Despite having been expressly provided for in those legal provisions, its full implementation is still far from reality. The right is still poorly implemented and seriously infringed. The rate at which a good number of Kenyans are suffering is seriously alarming. The study will analyze the existing laws appertaining to the right to freedom from hunger with a view to looking into the emergent decisions as far as its adjudication through the Kenyan courts is concerned. Similarly, the study will ascertain the extent to which the human rights-based approach to food security has been adopted in Kenya. Further the study will assess whether other jurisdictions like India and South Africa have implemented the three-fold typology of obligations with respect to socio-economic rights including the right to freedom from hunger. The study will suggest recommendations on how the right to be free from hunger can be progressively realized