Trade-related International Food Security and the Developing World

Abstract

Taking a historical narrative as a departure point, this article begins by telling the story of how food security has traditionally been understood in the international community and has become intertwined with the rise and fall of agricultural trade under GATT/WTO rules. The different approaches towards food security over the past six decades have ranged from the supply- side to the entitlements-based approach, through the human security and rights-based approaches. It is further argued in this article that trade-related food security operates on two distinct and sometimes unrelated levels. Externally, despite a prevailing view among some Member governments that food security is outside the scope of the WTO and should be kept that way, the Secretariat has pursued food security-related trade links on behalf of the WTO in various international fora. Increasingly, food security is conceived of by the broader international community as a global public good, which calls for a more comprehensive, multi-stakeholder approach towards its regulation and governance, which is a view that is not unanimously held in the WTO. Internally, the WTO legal and policy framework for trade-related food security remains fragmented, inchoate and subject to regulatory capture by Member governments. The current state of trade-related international food security in the multilateral trading system is explored through the incomplete agricultural reform programme, the resort by some key WTO developing and transitional economy Members to public stockholding for food security purposes and domestic food aid, and the disjuncture between some Members’ policy on domestic support measures/export restrictions and their participation in global agricultural trade.