Journal Article

The Centrality of Human Dignity in the Understanding of International Legal Protections from Starvation

Seatzu, Francesco, Carrillo-Santarelli, Nicolás

2025

Overview

The deliberate starvation of populations remains a critical issue in numerous conflicts, highlighting the urgent need for this study. States have both positive obligations to protect individuals from starvation and negative obligations to refrain from actions that negatively impact access to life-sustaining supplies like food, water, and medicines. However, the evolution of international legal standards may sometimes be restricted by existing positive law formulations. It is necessary to examine whether existing international law (lex lata) already prohibits starvation or if further legal developments (de lege ferenda) are needed to fill protection gaps. A recognition of the interconnectedness of international humanitarian law (IHL), human rights law (IHRL), and international criminal law (ICL), and of the demands of protecting human dignity pervading much of international law, can help to identify the full scope of the prohibition of starvation and of the protection from it. Armed conflicts disrupt food security, and while IHL establishes norms to mitigate these impacts, it often allows exceptions that cause harm to human life. This paper advocates for a comprehensive interpretation of IHL norms, incorporating principles of human rights law and international food security law, to protect essential human needs. They can bring to light how some isolated readings of IHL would seem to permit the causation of hunger in ways that are actually forbidden by a systemic interpretation of international law. The safeguarding of food resources and access to adequate survival goods and services, both during and outside of armed conflicts, requires an integrated legal approach. This approach reinforces the importance of human dignity and the protection of fundamental rights, ensuring that legal interpretations do not regress but rather advance the protection of essential human needs.

• Publisher: Open Journals
• Subject: food security / human dignity / human rights / IHL / international criminal law / medicines / starvation / water