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5 - How International Law Upholds Fundamental Assumptions about Hunger

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2019

Anne Saab
Affiliation:
Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva
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Summary

The two narratives of hunger that run through this book are on the surface contradictory, but both operate within the same meta-narrative, which I call the pyramid of assumptions. Each of the assumptions contained in the pyramid is contested, and yet in discussions about hunger in the face of climate change little attention is given to each individual assumption, let alone to the set of assumptions taken together. As the preceding chapters show, international law – understood as a language that plays a key role in narratives of hunger – fails to expressly question and challenge the pyramid of assumptions. This book uses the example of so-called climate-ready seeds to study narratives of hunger, and Chapters 2, 3, and 4 each explored one area of international law in relation to these narratives. This chapter argues that these different areas of law work together to reinforce the shared assumptions that underlie both narratives of hunger. Further, it will show that the role of law here has broader implications beyond the specific example of so-called climate-ready seeds. The pyramid of assumptions and the role of international law in keeping this pyramid in place reveal the challenges of moving away from the dominant neoliberal food regime. Without recognizing and questioning the fundamental assumptions that undergird narratives of hunger – and addressing the role that international law plays in upholding them – it will be difficult to articulate a means to feed to world in times of climate change that goes beyond the prevailing neoliberal approach.
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Narratives of Hunger in International Law
Feeding the World in Times of Climate Change
, pp. 136 - 161
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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