Collaboration with the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food

March 2017: The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Professor Hilal Elver, met with Professor Elisa Morgera of the Strathclyde Centre for Environmental Law and Governance (SCELG), other SCELG members, and Dr Elaine Webster of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights Law, during a visit to Scotland to discuss opportunities to better integrate human rights standards into laws and policies on food.

The informal get-together with Strathclyde Law staff served to discuss the Rapporteur’s current work programme and explore opportunities for collaboration, based on ongoing research at Strathclyde that may support the implementation of Prof Elver’s mandate. In particular, opportunities were identified for SCELG to  draw on its areas of environmental law expertise that are relevant to the right to food, including biodiversity, oceans, traditional knowledge, corporate accountability and land, food & agriculture. Ongoing projects regarding biosafety mainstreaming, biodiversity mainstreaming in the agricultural sector and benefit sharing within environmental law, and within the marine realm also emerged as sources of potential collaboration to support an integrated approach to Food and Human Rights. With regard to human rights law research, attention focused on socio-economic rights and human rights values.

Collaborations with external partners to enhance the impact of our research is at the heart of our work, as is practice-led teaching and student engagement with research. Prof Elisa Morgera and Co-Director, with Dr Daniela Diz. Dr Elaine Webster is Director of the LLM in Human Rights Law.