Man Made Famines: an International Crime. A Critique to the Current Gaps in the International Legal Framework

Simone Antonio  Luciano

doi:10.21697/priel.2021.10.2.01

Opublikowane: 2021-12-18

Tom 10 Nr 2 (2021)

Man Made Famines: an International Crime. A Critique to the Current Gaps in the International Legal Framework

Simone Antonio Luciano

Polish Review of International and European Law

Dział: Artykuły

https://doi.org/10.21697/priel.2021.10.2.01

Abstrakt

There is a gap in the current legal framework that might result in the infringement of the human right to food and it is given by the lack of criminalisation of intentionally caused famines. Man-made famines should be recognised as crimes against humanity because after analysing the APs and the Rome Statute, we observe that they only mention starvation episodes, and several other behaviours and situations that would end with a famine are not considered at all. We are referring here to cases when a state has the capacity to predict a famine-related disaster and the resources to minimize its impact but it fails to mitigate the effects and to mobilize a response.
Compared with starvation, famines are events that have much more severe repercussions for larger areas, larger social groups or even whole countries. Furthermore, they usually cover a much longer period of time such as seasons or even years. Moreover, the perpetrators have to be major players such as governments, organisations or groups with sufficient economic or military power.
Finally, famines may be achieved through military actions, policies and other political actions influencing and altering the normal social processes connected to the production of food.

Pobierz pliki

PDF (English)

Zasady cytowania

Luciano, S. A. . (2021). Man Made Famines: an International Crime. A Critique to the Current Gaps in the International Legal Framework. Polish Review of International and European Law, 10(2), 9–36. https://doi.org/10.21697/priel.2021.10.2.01

Cited by / Share

Bibliografia

Becker, Jasper. Hungry Ghosts: Mao’s Secret Famine. New York: Holt Paperback, 1998.
Google Scholar

Black, Maggie. The Children and the Nations: The story of UNICEF. Hong Kong: 1986.
Google Scholar

Buckingham, Donald. ‘A Recipe for Change: Towards an Integrated Approach to Food Under International Law.’ Pace International Law Review 53 (1994).
Google Scholar

D’Alessandra, Federica, and Matthew Gillett. ‘The War Crime of Starvation in Non-International Armed Conflict.’ Journal of International Criminal Justice 22 (2019). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jicj/mqz042
Google Scholar

De Falco, Randle. ‘Justice and Starvation in Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge Famine.’ The Cambodia Law and Policy Journal (2014).
Google Scholar

De Waal, Alexander. Famine Crimes: Politics and the Disaster Relief Industry in Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.
Google Scholar

De Waal, Alexander. Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018.
Google Scholar

De Waal, Alexander. ‘On Famine Crimes and Tragedies’. The Lancet 372, no 9649, (2008). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(08)61641-4
Google Scholar

Dianda, Bas. Political Routes to Starvation: Why Does Famine Kill?. Wilmington, Delaware: Vernon Press, 2018.
Google Scholar

Dijkman, Jessica, and Bas Van Leeuwen. An Economic History of Famine Resilience. London: Routledge, 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429200632
Google Scholar

Edkins, Jenny. ‘Whose hunger? Concepts of Famine, Practices of Aid’. University of Minnesota Press (2000).
Google Scholar

Fein, Helen. Human Rights and Wrongs: Slavery, Terror and Genocide. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2007.
Google Scholar

Gilley, Bruce. China’s Democratic Future: How It Will Happen and Where It Will Lead. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.
Google Scholar

Haggard, Stephan, and Marcus Noland. Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid and Reform. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.
Google Scholar

Howe, Paul, and Stephen Devereux, ‘Famine Intensity and Magnitude Scales: A Proposal for an Instrumental Definition of Famine’. Disasters 28 no. 4 (2004). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0361-3666.2004.00263.x
Google Scholar

Jappah, Jlateh Vincent, and Danielle Taana Smith. ‘State Sponsored Famine: Conceptualizing Politically Induced Famine as a Crime against Humanity’. Journal of International and Global Studies 4 (2012).
Google Scholar

Khalif, Mohamud, and Martin Doornbos, ‘The Somali Region in Ethiopia: A Neglected Human Rights Tragedy.’ Review of African Political Economy 20 no. 91 (2002). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03056240208704585
Google Scholar

Keenan, Jeremy. ‘Famine in Niger Is not All that It Appears.’ Review of African Political Economy 32 (2005).
Google Scholar

Kearns, Paul Anthony. ‘The Right to Food Exists Via Customary International Law’. Suffolk Transnat’l Law Review 22 (1998).
Google Scholar

Marcus, David. ‘Famine Crimes in International Law’. American Journal of International Law 97 , no. 2 (2003). DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3100102
Google Scholar

Narula, Smita. ‘The Right To Food: Holding Global Actors Accountable Under International Law’. Center for Human Rights and Global Justice Working Paper 7 (2006).
Google Scholar

Pilloud, Claude, Yves Sandoz, Jean De Preux and Bruno Zimmermann. Commentary on the Additional Protocols of 8 June 1977 to the Geneva Conventions. Geneva: 1987.
Google Scholar

Rubin, Olivier. Contemporary Famine Analysis. Springer, 2016. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27306-8
Google Scholar

Scandlyn, Jean, Carrie Simon, Deborah Thomas and John Brett. Theoretical Framing of World Views, Values, and Structural Dimensions of Disasters. 2010.
Google Scholar

Schaller, Dominik, and Dirk Moses. From Conquest to Genocide: Colonial Rule in German Southwest Africa and German East Africa, Empire, Colony Genocide: Conquest, Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World History. New York: 2008.
Google Scholar

Sohn, Louis. ‘The Human Rights Law of the Charter’. International Law Journal 12 (1977).
Google Scholar

Thaxton, Ralph. Catastrophe and Contention in Rural China: Mao’s Great Leap Forward Famine Famine and the Origins of Righteous Resistance in Da Fo Village. New York: 2008. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511756085
Google Scholar

Uppal, J.N. Bengal Famine of 1943: A Man-Made Tragedy. Delhi : Atma Ram, 1984.
Google Scholar