Right to Food:

The Case of South Africa

A seminar Organised by the South Africa Programme and the Food First Information and Action Network (FIAN-Norway)

Speakers: Sibonile Khoza, Community Law Centre (CLC, University of the Western Cape), Ida-Eline Engh, NCHR and FIAN-Norway

Date: 17 June 2004 (Thursday), 10 am – 12 pm

Venue:NCHR, Universitetsgt. 22-24 (entrance by Norli Bookstore), 4^th floor

The Bill of Rights of the 1996 Constitution of South Africa contains not only civil and political rights but also a catalogue of socio-economic rights including the right to have access to sufficient food. There has been a growing jurisprudence on socio-economic rights in South Africa, with the Constitutional Court passing judgments on three leading cases concerning the rights to housing and health. Against this backdrop, Sibonile Khoza, who is the Co-ordinator and Researcher at the Socio-Economic Rights Project at the CLC, will examine the justiciability of the right to food in South Africa, and the role of legislation and the courts in the realization of the right to food. In addition, he will also give an update on current government policies and programmes to address the issue of poverty and people’s access to food.

The second part of the seminar will focus on developing capacity to realize socio-economic rights using as an example the right to food in the context of HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Ida- Eline Engh, who is a Research Fellow at the NCHR and member of FIAN-Norway, will briefly introduce the theoretical concept of capacity development and then give concrete examples from South Africa of how capacity (or lack of capacity) to realize the right to food can be defined in a specific socio-economic context.

Contact: Lalaine Sadiwa Stormorken, Programme Director, South Africa Programme, NCHR, phone: 22842031, fax 22 842002, email:l.s.stormorken at nchr.uio.no