A/HRC/13/32 I. Introduction 1. In its resolution 10/12, the Human Rights Council requested the Advisory Committee to undertake a study on discrimination in the context of the right to food, including identification of good practices of anti-discriminatory policies and strategies, and to report on it to the thirteenth session of the Council. 2. At its first session, the Advisory Committee established a drafting group on the right to food, consisting of José Bengoa Cabello, Chinsung Chung, Latif Hüseynov, Jean Ziegler and Mona Zulficar. Two preliminary background papers entitled “The tragedy of Noma” (A/HRC/AC/3/CRP.3) and “Peasant farmers and the right to food: a history of discrimination and exploitation” (A/HRC/AC/3/CRP.5) were presented during the third session of the Committee. Taking into account the discussion during the Committee’s session, the drafting group decided upon a conceptual framework of the study, which was presented in the plenary. In its recommendation 3/4, the Advisory Committee assigned the preparation of the study to the drafting group and requested that a preliminary report be presented to the Committee at its fourth session. The present study on discrimination in the context of the right to food is the outcome of that process. 3. In this introduction, it is necessary to present the international legal framework concerning the right to food and non-discrimination. 4. The right to food is a human right that protects the right of all human beings to live in dignity, free from hunger. It is protected under international humanitarian law and human rights, including in the ICESCR (art. 11), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) (art. 12) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) (arts. 24 and 27). As defined by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in its general comment No.12 (1999), the right to adequate food is realized when every man, woman and child, alone or in community with others, has physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement. Inspired by this definition, the right to food has been defined as: the right to have regular, permanent and unrestricted access, either directly or by means of financial purchases, to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and which ensures a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear (A/HRC/7/5, par. 17). 5. The right to food is, above all, the right to be able to feed oneself in dignity. It includes the rights of vulnerable and discriminated groups to have access to land, smallscale irrigation and seeds, credit, technology and local and regional markets in rural areas, to traditional fishing areas, to a sufficient income and to social security and social assistance to enable a person to live in dignity. 6. Under international law, Governments are bound to respect, protect and fulfil the right to food. These three levels of obligations were defined by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in its general comment No.12, and endorsed by consensus by the States, when the Council of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) adopted the Right to Food Guidelines in November 2004. 7. The principle of non-discrimination is a cardinal principle of international law. It has been enshrined in identical provisions in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. According to article 2, paragraph 2, of the latter covenant, each State party is obliged to guarantee that the rights enunciated in the present Covenant are exercised without discrimination of any 3