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Abstract
For 30 years, U.S. food and nutrition scientists and policymakers concerned with food and nutrition have
explored the possibility of making the human right to food (HRF) the moral and legal cornerstone of U.S.
domestic and international initiatives in this area. The U.S. government has consistently opposed formal
right-to-food legislation, labeling it as overly burdensome and inconsistent with constitutional law. In
contrast, anti-hunger advocates have favored a rights-based framework as a way to hold government
accountable for improving the nutritional situation of its poorest citizens and for saving lives and
preventing malnutrition in developing countries. The U.S. government has continually expanded food and
nutrition assistance at home and abroad, but not within a human rights framework. What might a human
rights perspective add, and what are the continuing rationales of the opposition? Using as touchstones
U.S. government and nongovernmental organization (NGO) testimonies from the 1976 Right to Food
Resolution congressional debate and the 1996 World Food Summit, which featured U.S. opposition to
HRF language, the U.S. government and NGO HRF positions are traced from 1976 to 2006. Qualitative
analyses of historical policy position papers, testimonies, research reports, and the popular nutrition
literature are used to evaluate how human rights and the HRF—as framing and rhetoric—have influenced
nutrition policy, public and official understanding, and outreach. In this documentation process, we also
integrate information from the wider “human rights” positions of the food-and-nutrition advocacy
community, including Food First, Bread for the World, the Food Research and Action Center, the
community food security movement, and charitable food assistance agencies, to demonstrate where these
different advocacy agents, organizations, and agendas fit in this process of advancing a HRF sensibility.