Food Security Assessments and International Law
Food security remains an urgent and widespread global issue, with an estimated 281.6 million people in 59 countries or territories facing acute food insecurity in 2023. For nearly half of those people, conflict was the primary driver of their food insecurity.
To attorneys, the law around conflict as it pertains to food insecurity and humanitarian assistance might (arguably) be clear. What might be less clear is who determines food insecurity and how they do it, how international lawyers use food security assessments, and what that could mean for humanitarians.
Who Determines Food Security, and How?
No one entity is mandated to conduct food security assessments for the humanitarian and development communities; individual organizations can (and sometimes do) conduct their own. However, the bulk of the assessments are carried out by three organizations: the Integrated Phase Classification (IPC), the Cadre Harmonisé (CH), and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET).
Since its development in 2004, the IPC has become the most widely used and accepted food security assessment process in the humanitarian and development communities. It is a global scale that can be used to classify food insecurity and malnutrition that is comparable across time and countries. It can measure acute food insecurity, acute malnutrition, and chronic food insecurity. This post focuses on acute food insecurity, i.e., any manifestation of food insecurity at a specific point in time that is of a severity that threatens lives, livelihoods, or both, regardless of causes, context, or duration.
Most IPC processes are conducted by in-country working groups, which are generally established upon a government’s request and ideally hosted by it. Multi-sectoral technical experts from the government, UN agencies, NGOs, and civil society evaluate a broad range of data according to a set protocol. This ensures that the data is as comprehensive and objective as possible. The process is consensus-based and requires that minimum evidence is available to make a determination.
The outcome of this analysis process is a determination of food insecurity along a scale from 1 to 5. IPC Phase 1 corresponds to No or Minimal acute food insecurity; IPC Phase 2 to Stressed; IPC Phase 3 to Crisis; IPC Phase 4 to Emergency; and IPC Phase 5 to Catastrophe or Famine. Results are usually provided for a current period and a projection period, which is based on additional assumptions of the most likely scenario for that period.
Both Catastrophe and Famine are the most extreme forms of food insecurity; the difference lies in the unit level of classification. Catastrophe is applicable when, at the household level, people are experiencing an extreme lack of food, have exhausted their coping capacities, and are facing starvation as well as an increased risk of acute malnutrition and death. By contrast, Famine is applicable when at least 20% of households in a given area have an extreme lack of food, have exhausted their coping capacities, and are facing starvation as well as an increased risk of acute malnutrition and death. Additionally, the prevalence of acute malnutrition in children under five years of age must exceed 30 per cent, households must have reached destitution, and the crude death rate must reach at least two deaths per day, per 10,000 people. A population may be classified as experiencing Catastrophe if the malnutrition or death rates relevant to Famine have not or not yet been reached. Additionally, a Risk of Famine statement can be made if there is a reasonable probability of an area going into Famine (IPC Phase 5) in the projected period, but Famine is not the most likely scenario.
Reviews are mandatory if the available evidence indicates a Famine classification, for IPC or IPC-compatible analyses, to assess the plausibility of the classification. Members of the IPC Global Support Unit first conduct a preliminary screening to verify that the IPC protocols were followed and prepare recommendations for the Famine Review Committee (FRC). Then, the FRC—composed of independent experts—considers the evidence and recommendations and either validates or disproves the classification. FRC reports are communicated back to the country working group and made publicly available. Famine declarations issued by the IPC FRC carry significant weight and can influence government and donor behavior.
The IPC approach is not without its detractors. Criticisms include that the process is consensus-based (conversely, many see this as a strength), as this could result in food insecurity estimates that are more conservative than warranted. Similarly, the central role of governments in the analyses has led to concerns that the results can be watered down or even blocked. Beyond this, there are concerns that because analyses can be based upon minimally adequate evidence, a fully accurate assessment of how severe a situation might be is elusive.
Criticisms notwithstanding, the IPC has become the global standard for the humanitarian and development communities. IPC analyses help donors and organizations determine where to allocate resources, and how they should be programmed. For example, IPC analyses help inform the annual UN Global Humanitarian Overview, the Global Report on Food Crises, and the WFP-FAO Hunger Hotspots Report.
Two other food security assessment methodologies warrant mention. The first is the CH, used by the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS) and key stakeholders to assess food security in West Africa and the Sahel since 1999. The CH is similar to the IPC, in that it follows a rigorous protocol and is consensus based. The CH and IPC work closely together, and their analyses are considered equivalent.
The second is FEWS NET, which was established by the U.S. Agency for International Development in 1985 and focuses on monitoring and providing early warning of acute food insecurity. It is a member of the IPC Global Partnership and is IPC “compatible,” meaning that it uses the IPC scale and the same technical manual. One of the primary differences is that its analyses are not necessarily consensus-based.
Comparability and Famine Review in Practice: the Gaza Example
In April 2024, FEWS NET independently conducted an IPC-compatible analysis of food insecurity in the Gaza Strip’s northern governorates. The analysis indicated the plausibility of Famine in the northern governorates for the then-current period of 1–30 April 2024, and for the projection period of 1 May–31 July. In line with IPC protocols, the FRC reviewed the findings.
In its report, the FRC began by emphasizing that regardless of whether Famine was declared or not, “extreme human suffering” in Gaza was certainly taking place. It also noted that a lack of up-to-date data—largely due to extremely restricted humanitarian access—meant that FEWS NET had had to make a number of assumptions and inferences, wherein lay the differences in opinion between FEWS NET and the FRC. Many of the differences were related to FEWS NET’s food security analysis, with the FRC noting imprecisions in how FEWS NET calculated food availability (for example, failing to account for the amount of food brought into Gaza via commercial or privately contracted deliveries) and that it had an incomplete understanding of Gazans’ financial, social, and physical access to food. The FRC found that there was insufficient data available to confirm the malnutrition and crude and under-five death rates required for a Famine classification. Consequently, the FRC did not find the FEWS NET analysis plausible for the current or projection periods.
In July, the IPC published an updated analysis for the Gaza Strip. It found that a very high Risk of Famine persisted and would do so as long as the conflict continued. It estimated that 343,000 people were in Catastrophe during the current period of 1 May-15 June, projected to rise to 495,000 people in Catastrophe during the period of 16 June-30 September. Per protocol, the FRC convened again, and found the Risk of Famine plausible for all areas.
How IPC Analyses Have Been Used in International Law
International attorneys and legal organizations are increasingly using food security assessments to help make the case that international crimes have been committed. For example, in 2021, Mwatana for Human Rights and Global Rights Compliance (GRC) released “Starvation Makers: The Use of Starvation by Warring Parties in Yemen as a Method of Warfare.” The report used food security assessments, including the IPC, to compare food security before and after the start of the 2014 conflict and to demonstrate how it deteriorated during periods coinciding with the use of particular tactics by parties to the conflict, such as blockades and denials of humanitarian assistance. Mwatana and GRC concluded that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia-led Coalition and Ansar Allah likely violated international humanitarian law and international human rights law and that their forces may have committed the war crime of using starvation as a method of warfare.
The UN Human Rights Council used food security assessments in the same way (i.e., to compare food security before the conflict escalated in 2014 with later periods) in their 2020 report, “‘There Is Nothing Left for Us’: Starvation as a Method of Warfare in South Sudan.” They concluded that the government of South Sudan and opposition forces had used starvation as a method of warfare.
More recently, South Africa relied on the IPC’s December Gaza analysis in its application instituting proceedings under the Genocide Convention before the International Court of Justice and in its oral observations before the Court. In response to South Africa’s second request for additional provisional measures, the Court itself used the IPC to demonstrate that living conditions in Gaza had deteriorated since it ordered provisional measures in January and to order additional measures. South Africa again relied on the IPC in its May oral observations when requesting additional measures, and Palestine also used them in its request for and declaration of intervention.
Conclusion
Food security assessments are an invaluable tool for the humanitarian and development communities, so they may be wary of how others use them. Assessments are designed to be objective, and humanitarian organizations, in particular, take care to conduct and use them in line with the humanitarian principles. Yet food security—especially declarations of Famine—are already politically charged, and the growing use of such declarations in international law could exacerbate this concern, particularly if the governments of countries being analyzed are skeptical of the international rule of law. The more that food security assessments are used as evidence in legal arguments, the greater the chance that humanitarians’ ability to conduct IPC analyses could be interrupted or blocked, that the validity of the assessment may be questioned, or that the results would be further politicized. This could have real effects on humanitarian operations and, consequently, on the ability of people in need of assistance to reach it.
Ultimately, humanitarians and international lawyers must strive to respect, and not impede, each other’s interests. Humanitarians must meet the imperative of providing principled assistance, while attorneys must uphold the law without keeping people from receiving the assistance they need. And both must keep the voices, needs, and desires of the people they aim to serve at the center of their work.
The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author.
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Photo credit: Stephen Morrison/Africa Practice
