Abstract

The fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger or the international human right to food has been interpreted as the right to availability, accessibility, and adequacy of food. Each of these aspects of the right to food have strong connections with and are shaped by domestic and international market forces particularly as the food sector comes to be dominated by large agribusiness and food processing companies whose operations span borders and legal systems.

However, the regulatory framework governing these operations are often focused on nation states and seem oblivious to the impact of their actions on markets overseas, perhaps in the expectation that the authorities operating in overseas markets will have the necessary tools to combat the effects of the operations of these large companies.

This paper aims to understand the impact of large transnational corporations working in the food sector on the right to food not only of the end consumer but also of the small farmer supplier and argues that a narrow focus on prices as the true hallmark of a competitive economy has placed a pressure on supply chains which in several instances has adversely impacted not only the adequacy of the food provided to the end consumer but also the accessibility and availability of food for the small farmers and other upstream persons. This paper proposes that the structure and import of the food sector is such that it cannot be made subject to the ordinary rules of competition and where it cannot be exempted, its rules must be adapted to address the specialised concerns of the food sector so that competition may become an aid rather than a hindrance in the realisation of the right to food.

Speaker

Dr. Amber Darr is a Lecturer in Competition Law at University of Manchester and a Senior Research Fellow at the UCL Centre for Law, Economics and Society. She completed her a PhD from UCL Laws in 2018 in which she compared the adoption and implementation of competition laws in India and Pakistan.

Dr. Darr is also a Barrister of Lincoln’s Inn and an Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. She has extensive experience of practising law in Pakistan and has also served as the Head of the Legal Department of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan.

Dr. Darr has also published on competition law issues in leading international publications and has contributed op-ed pieces on a range of legal issues in leading newspapers in Pakistan. Her monograph on Competition Law in South Asia has recently been published by Cambridge University Press.