In November 2021, a stark division emerged in the hallowed halls of the United Nations. A draft resolution was brought before the General Assembly to reaffirm a seemingly unassailable principle: that access to food and the fundamental right to be free from hunger are basic human rights. The vote was nearly unanimous, but not quite. 186 nations voted in favour. Two nations voted against: the United States and Israel.
This was not a mere procedural disagreement. It was the crystallisation of a political philosophy that treats human life as a conditional privilege rather than an inherent right. This doctrine, which we might call the “Famine Doctrine,” has since unfolded from theoretical vote to catastrophic reality, revealing a global system where the value of a life is subordinate to political and economic calculations.
The Justification for Denial
The official U.S. justification for its “no” vote was that the resolution contained provisions it deemed “unbalanced, inaccurate, and unwise.” Underlying this diplomatic language was a fundamental ideological stance: the U.S. government expressed concern that recognising a “right to food” could be interpreted as a positive right. This would legally obligate governments to actively provide resources, a concept at odds with a worldview that prioritises market-based solutions and sees such obligations as a potential infringement on trade or an overreach of government power. In this framework, food security is a matter of economic policy, not a non-negotiable human entitlement.
From Theoretical Vote to Concrete Catastrophe
The implications of this vote have since been written in the starkest terms imaginable in Gaza. While the 2021 vote predates the current conflict, it can now be seen as a “tragedy foretold,” a philosophical green light for the weaponisation of hunger.
Reports confirm that extensive aid blockades have turned Gaza into one of the most food-insecure places on Earth, with the entire population facing famine. As of mid-2025, over 116,000 tonnes of food – enough to sustain one million people for months – were positioned at aid corridors but were not being allowed into the territory. The human cost is staggering: the UN children’s agency reported that 71,000 children and over 17,000 mothers in Gaza needed urgent treatment for acute malnutrition, with “tens of thousands” more cases expected. This is not a byproduct of war; it is a policy. As one investigative journalist stated, “Israel’s genocide in Gaza is essentially war crime, after war crime, after war crime,” with starvation being a primary tool.
The Domestic Toll and Global Echoes
This inhumane logic is not confined to conflict zones. It echoes within the borders of the very nations that voted against the right to food.
- In the United States: Despite its position on the world stage, domestic data from 2022 revealed that 44.2 million Americans lived in food-insecure households, with 49 million relying on assistance. The problem has been exacerbated by the termination of pandemic-era support, proving that a market-first approach fails its own citizens.
- The Global Picture: Even before the current crises, the UN reported in 2020 that the number of people lacking adequate food rose to 2.4 billion – nearly a third of the world’s population. This number continues to climb, fueled by conflict, climate disasters, and economic inequality.
The Architecture of Impunity
What allows this to continue? The Famine Doctrine thrives in an environment of eroded international law and corporate capture. There is a “real crisis in international law at the moment… There’s no mechanism, no body, no country, no army that is able to enforce international law,” noted Antony Loewenstein (a name familiar with most readers). This impunity empowers nations to act without consequence.
Furthermore, as UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food Michael Fakhri has highlighted, when food is not treated as a right, it is left to be “determined by… corporations or the status quo.” Government agencies often end up subsidising corporations and the production of “edible products” rather than ensuring people have access to healthy, culturally appropriate food. This system damages health, the environment, and local economies, all while generating profit.
Conclusion: A Choice of Civilisations
The 2021 vote was a choice. It was a choice to prioritise political ideology and economic theory over the biological imperative of a child to eat. The starvation in Gaza, the food insecurity in America, and the global hunger crisis are the direct outcomes of that choice.
The Famine Doctrine reveals a world order that has lost its moral compass, where life is valued only insofar as it contributes to economic output or political power. To counter this, we must reaffirm, in our laws, our policies, and our collective conscience, that food is not a commodity to be traded, but a fundamental right that belongs to every human being by virtue of their existence. The future of our humanity depends on it.
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Basic huan rights do not apply with Violent Brothers “USA&Israel”.
The should be dismissed from UN and all veto powers taken from every Nation.
Disgusting.
Hi Abbie,
too right, the veto powers were always worse than a liability, sadly to say they delegitimized the UN. Now that the US has interfered in who can attend the UN and apparently is defunding the UN, the rest of the world would do well to look to start anew with a truly representative UN that didn’t grant certain states supreme say – shift it away from the US, don’t rely too heavily on certain countries to fund it, and remove vetoes.
Israel and the US voting against food being a human right in 2021 is consistent with Israel wanting to dispossess and displace Palestinians from Palestine, as Israel had control over how much food was available to Palestinians; Israel has a history of destroying Palestinian projects to create their own food supplies, including poisoning crops and wells, and destroying water collection systems. I suspect that is a more likely explanation for that vote.
Once again, the five victorious senior powers of war in 1945 became veto holding powers in the UNO Council. Magnificent egotism there.., and they were ALL descendent regimes of violence, murder, slaughter, summary execution, rebellion, insolence, defiant fixation, and as such, remain a sickening farce as an example of LAW and authority. Perpetual criminality. Israel itself is the profit and product of murder, theft, superstition. Palestine was a clear legal entity in May 1948.
There are 193 countries in the UN General Assembly. 108 voted in favour and 2 voted against. Therefore, 83 countries abstained. The US and Israel have constantly proven that they are devoid of any civilised humamity.The real question must be where do those 83 countries who abstained stand for fundamental basic human right and humanity itself.
I cannot understand why this Australian Government continues to support the current Government of Israel. Australians, like many Americans, are asking “…what is the benefit of regarding Israel as a loyal ally?” What common values does this Australian Government believe in that align with those that are portrayed by the current activities of the Government of Israel? The link to a recent broadcast by Tucker Carlson dissects the discussion to reveal the shocking home truths that occur when propaganda corrupts democratic processes. Australians are not unaffected by the global influencers that have infiltrated our governance under the guise of virtue. The Australian Government is apparently sympathetic with the false and unsubstantiated values of such influencers to the extent that our taxpayer dollars have been assigned to further promote their heinous point of view. We are better than this!
https://rumble.com/v72vakq-why-are-we-defending-mass-murder-in-gaza-because-our-greatest-ally-demands-.html?e9s=src_v1_eh_cs&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Tucker%20Carlson
Is democracy doomed in Israel & USA? It has certainly been set aside by Trump & Netanyahu and their preposterous philistine govts which have become captured by mega-corporations (esp MICs), and clearly peddle authoritarian hatred and division.
As usual in the era of the western imperia, Britain under Balfour & the Mandate gave rise to intense division & hatred in the Levant, as it also did in India & the Pakistans, and everywhere else it ventured in the colonial era.
That was pumped by Pope Alexander VI (an evil Borgia) and his bulls (Doctrine of Discovery) and before that the Greko-Roman conflicts with the Scythians, which gave rise to Terra Nullius and the Doctrine of Reception. All making their way into western European law, the Magna Carta and British law, and thereafter American law which became more punitive and hysterical.
And therein lays the roots in law of racism, othering, brutality, supremacy and coercion that persist to today’s reinvention of them. Govts of Britain, America & Israel are almost singularly responsible (along with the accumulated cowardice of their flunky European MPs) for today’s increasing plague and crisis of inequity, cultural bias, fear, hatred and fascism, demise of diplomacy, rise of terrorism and threat of war.
Meanwhile the mega-corporations hog all the food, toxify the environment, declaim circular ecomonics, and feed back to their selected world putrid, poison-ridden, ultra-processed quasi-food, and leave mountains of waste.