Dr Christophe Golay is Shortlisted for the Position of UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food

Olivier Chamard/Geneva Academy

17 February 2020

Our Senior Research Fellow and Strategic Adviser on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Dr Christophe Golay, is a candidate for the position of United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the right to food. Shortlisted along with two other candidates, he is, therefore, running to become the new UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and succeed to Hilal Ever in March 2020.

As an independent expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food is mandated to examine and report on the full realization of the right to food and on the adoption of measures thereof at the national, regional and international levels.

‘I am convinced that this position, created back in 2000, is key to ensure a human rights-based approach to fight hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition and achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2. As 80 percent of the world's hungry are peasants and other people working in rural areas, and 70 percent of them are women and girls, more emphasis should be put on the promotion and protection of their rights’ underlines Dr Golay.

Dr Golay brings to this position more than 20 years of expertise on the right to food via academic research, publications, teaching, support to the first UN Special Rapporteur, and advice to international organizations like the Food and Agriculture Organization, regional human rights bodies, states and National Human Rights Institutions on the implementation of this right.

In the last two decades, he notably travelled to Brazil, Guatemala, Bolivia, Cuba, Niger, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, India, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Laos, Cambodia, Ghana, Kenya, Haiti, Nepal, Tunisia, and Congo-Brazzaville, to support the work of those fighting hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition.

‘As a worldwide recognized expert on the right to food, Dr Golay would not only bring his huge expertise to the position, but also his commitment and knowledge of the broader multilateral agenda, of the linkages between human rights and the SDGs, and of related rights like the rights of peasants, issues of participation and gender equality’ explains Professor Marco Sassòli, Director of the Geneva Academy.