GRC Partner Catriona Murdoch was invited as an expert witness to testify before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the US Congress during a hearing titled ‘Armed Conflict, Starvation and International Humanitarian Law’, held virtually on 12 April 2022.
The hearing was also attended by other expert witnesses including Jocelyn Brown Hall (Director, Liaison Office for North America, FAO) and Tom Dannenbaum (Assistant Professor of International Law, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University). The testimonies reflect upon conflict-induced hunger, including in Yemen, South Sudan, Myanmar, Ethiopia, and Ukraine.
Jocelyn Brown Hall’s testimony included accounts on the impact of the war in Ukraine on food systems globally, including information on Ukraine’s agricultural land being scattered with unexploded ordnances, highlighting how the “conflict stretches past Ukraine, plunging Yemen and Somalia further into food crises” given their reliance on Ukraine and Russia’s agricultural outputs. Hall noted that while recognizing the critical need for direct food and humanitarian assistance during crises, there is a need to work, and allocate resources, towards efficient and resilient food systems and domestic agricultural production.
Tom Dannenbaum addressed how international law frameworks, in particular international humanitarian law (IHL) can protect civilians from starvation and conflict-induced hunger, concluding with a set of recommendations, including for the existing framework under UN Security Council Resolution 2417 (UNSC 2417) to be kept high on the Security Council’s agenda, the need for domestic implementation of the prohibition on the crime of starvation and support and assistance to war crimes investigators.
GRC’s Catriona Murdoch contextualized conflict-induced hunger and the efforts of the international community to address it, or rather, the lack thereof. A stand-alone starvation prosecution has not been pursued to date, and that is why it is all the more critical to recognise starvation crimes and their victims, overcoming a long-standing oversight. Catriona’s testimony further reflected upon a number of conflict-specific situations, including Yemen, Ethiopia and Ukraine, and how GRC is currently seeking accountability for starvation violations in these contexts.
She highlighted three immediate options for action addressed to the relevant stakeholders:
- support investigations into starvation-related conduct;
- increase literacy on deliberate starvation; and
- support efforts to hold perpetrators of starvation crimes accountable.
As highlighted in the speakers’ remarks, both agricultural resilience and accountability for starvation crimes have been often marginalised in emergency responses to conflict-induced hunger situations. It is time to think about long-term solutions, in addition to temporary band aids.
These calls echo and reinforce UNSC 2417 and its norm-setting impact, providing the international community with the tools to act preventatively while also furthering prohibitive and accountability efforts. While barriers to the effective implementation of UNSC 2417 exist, the foremost hindrance is the lack of concerted political will. The United States’ recent Resolution 922, which condemns the use of hunger as weapon of war and recognises the effect of conflict on global food security and famine, calling for the use of sanctions against those responsible, is a step in the right direction. Examples such as this hearing and the aforementioned US resolution demonstrate willingness to keep critical issues surrounding conflict-induced hunger and starvation on the agenda.
As stated by Catriona Murdoch while concluding her address,
“it is time for our tacit tolerance of weaponized starvation to end, the evidence is in our faces, the law is in our hands, but what is lacking as has already been discussed today is the public clamour and political leadership. Starvation crimes should be put in their rightful place at the head of the list of acts of inhumanity so reprehensible that they are prohibited without question.”
To see the full hearing and read all witnesses’ written remarks, see here.