La acción internacional contra el hambre y la ayuda alimentaria al desarrollo de la Unión Europea

Resumo

The thesis constitutes an attempt of critical reflection on the most recent and controversial aspects of the international action against hunger and the role fulfilled by the development food aid of the European Union in the international legal context. The research is focused on development food aid since it is one of the instruments least dealt with by the scholars, and stresses its contribution to the development of the most needed countries of the international community. The study is organized into three parts. The first part tackles hunger as a problem that requires the provision of development food aid. It provides an overview of its causes and the current proposals presented to solve it, with special consideration to biotechnology and the controversies that it provokes due to its possible interference in the sovereignty of the recipient countries. Moreover, it goes over the approaches of international practice to cope with this problem, with an examination of the most recent developments of the strategy of food security and the right to have access to adequate food. The second part concerns itself with the general international regime on this sort of aid. It intends to clarify the concept and types of food aid, by distinguishing development food aid from humanitarian food aid, which has a limited scope in time. On the other hand, it examines the evolution of the principles and interests involved in the provision of the aid and their conjugation in the international multilateral texts, organisations and bodies. Finally, the third part analyzes the role assigned to development food aid in the European Union, specifically: the community¿ s organization and norms, the evolution of the community¿ s regime towards its present configuration, and lastly the examination of practice in this field in order to submit it to a critical analysis on its effectiveness. The doctoral thesis is closed with some conclusions, where it is emphasized the importance of International Law in the solution of the problem of hunger and the limitations of the current proposals to eradicate it. In spite of the difficulties pointed out throughout the work, international food aid constitutes an component of the fight against hunger both in the short and the long-term, and development food aid of the European Union a paradigmatic case to illustrate the criticisms and complexities of this instrument and the ways and difficulties of tempering them.