A/HRC/43/44 Agriculture and Food Systems of the Committee on Food Security and the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, have no binding legal authority. Failure to adhere to these principles carries no adverse legal consequences for investors. 68. Ongoing efforts to convert the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights into a binding international treaty that establishes the legal liability of big business are supported by some countries, but remain controversial.60 The draft treaty includes neither direct corporate human rights obligations, nor corporate criminal responsibility under international law. Instead, it covers only the international obligations of States previously established in general comment No. 12 (1999) of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on the right to adequate food. 69. The emergence of public-private partnerships has also reinforced power asymmetries, exacerbated conflicts between public and private interests and otherwise unduly influenced decision-making and policies in the global food system. As the Special Rapporteur has previously explained, these partnerships are less likely to transform extraterritorial corporate practices if there are no monitoring mechanisms and corporations enter partnerships mainly to reaffirm their underlying economic interests (A/74/164, para. 69). D. Finance human rights institutions and remove the silos separating international organizations 70. In recent years, human rights have been under attack due to emerging nationalism, populism and predatory global capitalism. Unfortunately, world powers are retreating in their historical commitment to human rights and United Nations institutions are consequently experiencing extreme financial shortfalls, especially OHCHR and regional human rights mechanisms such as the inter-American human rights system. Those shortfalls need to be addressed immediately. 71. There is no shortage of international organizations committed to promoting a world of zero hunger and malnutrition in their mandates, such as FAO, WFP, the Committee on World Food Security, IFAD, the World Bank, the International Food Policy Research Institute, UNICEF, WHO, UNEP, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and, of course, OHCHR. However, there is generally a disconnect and lack of coordination between them. 72. Institutional fragmentation and silos within and between the Rome-based organizations and the Geneva-based human rights mechanisms, in particular, have further weakened efforts to mainstream human rights into food policy agendas (A/74/164, para. 52).61 More cohesive, coordinated action between New York, Rome and Geneva that builds upon the findings of the Human Rights Council, the special procedures, the treaty bodies and the universal periodic review is vital for the effective promotion of the right to food. Those organizations cannot adequately address the right to food in isolation, and doing so is not only contrary to the prevailing consensus in the United Nations system, but diminishes their organizational impact. Such influential, expert-rich organizations can much better address the root causes and consequences of food insecurity if they adopt a human rightsbased approach to assessing food insecurity, taking into account socioeconomic, gender and ethnic discrimination and inequalities. 62 That will also lead to greater policy coherence throughout the United Nations institutions. 60 61 62 16 See, for example, Human Rights Council resolution 26/9. See also Carolin Anthes, Institutional Roadblocks to Human Rights Mainstreaming in the FAO. A Tale of Silo Culture in the United Nations System (Wiesbaden, Germany, Springer, 2020). See Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition, “People’s monitoring for the right to food and nutrition: political manifesto” (2017).