Nutrition and the convention on the rights of the child

Nutrition is not a recognized right in any of the major international human rights instruments. Access to food, basic health services and adequate caring practices, however, are explicitly recognized as rights in the International Bill of Human Rights and other important human rights instruments, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). As food, health and care are all necessary, and in combination will ensure good nutrition, nutrition in this sense becomes a right. This paper describes the evolution of children's rights and how nutrition has become neglected. The CRC, which encompasses both civil and political rights and social, economic and cultural rights and thereby underlines the indivisibility of the international human rights system, provides a fun base for the promotion of nutrition as a right. The paper further emphasizes that development should ensure both a desirable outcome and an adequate process. Outcomes can be specified by goals, such as improved nutritional status of children. A high-quality process is characterized by a high degree of participation, community ownership, sustainability and empowerment. Outcome-focused strategies emphasize the achievement of goals; they are relatively easy to monitor, but often unsustainable. Process-focused strategies, on the other hand, emphasize participation and empowerment; they are difficult to monitor, and they often do not result in any significant outcome. Both outcome-focused and process-focused nutrition strategies alone should be avoided. A rights-based strategy combines the two positive extremes. Rights require the fulfilment of deontological criteria, inter alia a high quality process. Implementation, therefore, requires a holistic approach, which recognizes both the scientific and the ethical aspects of the problem at the theoretical as well as the practical level. A rights-based strategy goes beyond the fulfilment of needs because the state has obligations to respect, protect and fulfil these rights. A rights-based strategy for nutrition aims at the progressive achievement of nutritional goals and the progressive establishment of a high quality process in fulfilling these obligations.