Human Rights Indicators and Framing the Right to Food Sovereignty in Ecuador

• In Event: Rethinking Development from a Latin American Perspective

Abstract

Since 2009, a number of Ecuadorian government institutions work on the implementation of human rights indicators. The methodology of these indicators stems from the UN OHCHR and seeks to continuously assess all public policies of the country in the light of a gradual realization of human rights. Given the legal and political setup of the country, the right to food sovereignty (as it had been enshrined in the Constitution of 2008) appears as particularly crucial to both highlight and tackle the inherent contradictions and challenges related to technocratic projects for combining ethically charged projects, such as human rights indicators and Buen Vivir politics, as they are pursued by the national government. While Buen Vivir and food sovereignty were initially conceptualized as primarily decentralized, localized, contextual and plural responses to global market concentrations and industrialized food production, both discourses became increasingly co-opted and re-framed by the national government in terms of human development and food security. Human rights indicators in the hands of the government, that set out to assess the right to food sovereignty, therefore seem to largely miss out substantial imperatives as they have been uttered by main proponents of the food sovereignty movement. Partly, independently and partly in response, various indigenous, peasant and environmentalist movements have started to counter the governmental notion of food sovereignty by adopting diverging practices and discourses which, however, also frequently refer to human rights and Buen Vivir. Their accounts point toward novel and inspiring way to engage with human rights beyond anthropocentric limits.

Author

• Johannes M Waldmueller, New York University / Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Quito