Opening Remarks by Prof Thuli (Thulisile) Madonsela: Director of the Centre for Social Justice at the Expert Symposium on Social Justice, Hunger and The Constitution.
Greetings, esteemed colleagues, experts in multidisciplinary fields, and friends. Thank you for taking the time to participate in and offer your expertise as leaders in your field to the Expert Symposium on Social Justice, Hunger, and the Constitution. The Annual Symposium on Social Justice and the Constitution, formerly roundtable, is one of the premier events of the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) and Law Faculty Trust Chair in Social Justice at Stellenbosch University (SU).
I wish to extend a special word of welcome to the keynote speakers, my colleague Professor Jonathan Jansen, and Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, Andries Nel, our opening address presenter, Professor Linus Opara, our long-term partner on the matter of food security, Dr Scott Drimie. Our special welcome also goes to all our distinguished speakers and facilitators, among them Judge Sulett Potteril, the judge whose Equal Education judgment inspired the blurb for our forthcoming International Conference on Social Justice on 17 October later this year, to be followed by the Annual Social Justice Summit on the 18th.
Greetings and gratitude also go to our media colleagues who are covering our engagements as multidisciplinary experts on the nexus between social justice, hunger, and the constitutional right to food. Welcome Tamsin Meleterkamp, Naledi Sikhakhane (Daily Maverick, a consistent supporter) and Mike Loewe (Daily Dispatch)
Why Hunger? Why Focus on Food?
Nelson Mandela once said:
“The very right to be human is denied every day to hundreds of millions of people as a result of poverty, the unavailability of basic necessities such as food, jobs, water and shelter, education, health care and a healthy environment.”
That comes from the ubuntu way of life and related epistemology.
One of many lawyer jokes goes: “It was a very cold day today. I even saw a lawyer with his hands in his own pocket” Well, at the beginning of this year, Themba Seyisi and I, together with several colleagues, senior students, the broader Matie Alumni community, and the Thuma Foundation, found ourselves perpetually having our hands in our pockets. We had to step up physically and financially to help students who had no accommodation at the beginning of the registration period. When a storm hit the Stellenbosch area, we did the same in Kayamandi, helping with food, clothes, and materials to rebuild the shacks. Our ubuntu grounding, as reflected in the quote from Mandela, compelled us to jump in.
However, our efforts were not enough. It is worth noting that in 1995, the same year South Africa adopted the Copenhagen Declaration on social justice, human rights, and sustainable development, the Constitutional Court declared that the concept of ubuntu underpins the society envisioned by the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (“Constitution”). That was the death penalty abolition case referred to as S v Makwanyane.
That was not the beginning of our consciousness of the emergence of food as a pressing challenge. Our research in the last six years has continuously surfaced the issue of hunger as a national, continental, and global pressing challenge despite zero hunger being a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) – SDG 2 – and the right to food being a guaranteed constitutional right in our country and many others, in addition to it being an international human right guaranteed under article 25 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948), article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966), article 27 the Convention on the Right of the Child (CRC), article 28 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006), and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and article 16 right to health in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’s Rights (1979). The commitment to ensure or create enabling conditions for adequate nutrition for all is also among the commitments in the Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development (1995), among these, commitment 5(f).
The pressing challenge regarding food was particularly laid bare by student personal and eyewitness accounts during my presentation of the Mandela Day Lecture at SU in July 2023. We followed this with Social Justice Cafés, where more heart-wrenching accounts were provided by students on their personal experiences of learning hungry and having to choose between food and other necessities such as data, transport, stationary, and rent. Some of the students even said they attend events for food, not for the information and that they often cannot understand what’s being said in class while battling with empty stomachs. Moreover, even when they do eat, three meals and nutritious food is a luxury they cannot afford. That is not surprising, given that food is at the base of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The issue of hunger was featured strongly during the 2023 International Social Justice Conference and Summit, leading to a recommendation that this be the focus theme for 2024. The recommendation to focus on hunger and the right to food was accepted by the Council of Social Justice Champions, which oversees the Musa Plan for Social Justice (M-Plan) and by the Governing Board of the CSJ.
A striking concern that emerged in all these dialogues was whether having adequate food is a right for all, who is or are the duty bearer(s), and what is the nature of that duty? Furthermore, in the context of the constitutional commitment to advance social justice, what is the relationship between social justice and the right to equal access to adequate food or nutrition? Also, can the social justice lens help us answer the question regarding who the duty bearer(s) is or are? If so, has this been the approach in the first 30 years of democracy?
Purpose of the Symposium
The purpose of this Expert Symposium is to clarify the rights and responsibilities regarding the right to food and freedom from hunger while reviewing progress made toward eradicating hunger in fulfilment of the fundamental human right to food under section 27 of the Constitution.
The dialogue will reflect on the intersection between social justice, hunger, and the right to food as part of the broader 30 years of democracy assessment on the extent to which South Africa’s globally celebrated Constitution has delivered on its promises. Though the focus is on eradicating hunger as a constitutional matter forming part of the right to food in international law and the right to access to food in the Constitution, the expert symposium has been framed to incorporate South Africa’s commitments to the global SDGs. Appreciation of the interconnectedness of the SDGs, the goal of ending hunger by 2030, and the African Union’s (AU) Agenda 2063, which envisions a high standard of living and well-being for all citizens, are considered key to the constitutional right to food.
Background and Context
The Expert Symposium, previously billed as the Expert Round Table, is part of activities undertaken in pursuit of the CSJ’s mission of advancing social justice scholarship, consciousness, praxis, and collaboration. It particularly forms part of the M-Plan’s mission to catalyse progress in breaking the back of structural inequality while eradicating poverty, with a specific focus on SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) and SDG 10 (Reducing Inequality). The M-Plan is a Marshal-styled initiative that seeks to mobilise all hands on deck to end poverty while breaking the back of structural inequality by 2030 in support of the National Development Plan, relevant AU Agenda 2063 objectives and the global Sustainable Development Plans championed by the United Nations (UN).
The symposium is located on the Constitution’s commitment to establish a society based on democratic values, social justice, and fundamental human rights and its performance against this commitment in the first 30 years of democracy. The background, as indicated earlier, is that hunger remains a stark reality for millions of South Africans despite the country’s constitutional guarantees and significant efforts made in the last three decades. Source
We need to interrogate why the problem persists and, by some accounts, worsens.
This seems at odds with the constitutional commitment as sections 27(1)(b) and 28(1)(c) of the Constitution enshrines the right to access sufficient food and water.
You will agree that all rights and freedoms include the right to sufficient food and water and, by implication, freedom from hunger. Constitutional cases such as Khosa, Mahlangu and the TAC cases have stated that this imposes a positive obligation, particularly when read with section 7(2), which imposes a duty on the state to respect, protect, promote, and fulfil all human rights and freedoms and section 39 on international obligations. We further need to interrogate whether civil society bears and has fulfilled its proportionate duties, be they legal or moral, regarding the right to food and ensuring zero hunger.
The deliberations will also explore the impact of disaster management lapses on food and nutritional security, and in this regard, fresh lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown policy choices made to contain the pandemic will be scrutinised with a social justice lens. This will serve as one of the bridges between the right to food and related nutrition security with other rights such as children’s rights, the rights of persons with disabilities, refugee rights and the broader rights to equality, human dignity and social assistance.
Beyond reviewing progress on 30 years of delivery on the constitutional right to food, contextualised within international human rights and moral obligations, including SDG2 on Zero Hunger and social justice obligations in the Copenhagen Declaration, the symposium will also reflect on the value chain that is responsible for ensuring or blocking the realisation of the right to food and adequate nutrition.
This takes into account the relevant food systems, often referred to as “from farm to fork”, that cover the availability of food, accessibility, affordability of food, and utilisation, which includes responsiveness and sustainability.
Mindful of the fact that many go hungry despite vast amounts of food that is often wasted or discarded, the dialogue will dissect the systemic and structural barriers that continue to hinder the realisation of the right to food. As a social justice question, mindful of social justice requiring embracing humanity and ensuring fairness to all, we must ask difficult questions about the equity character of hunger—who is most affected, and why?
To the extent that some social groups seem overrepresented among the hungry, to what extent is that part of the shadow of the past mugging our present aspirations? Are laws and policies part of the solution or exacerbating the systemic and structural challenges regarding hunger? How does hunger influence the realisation of other human rights such as health, education, land and housing and vice versa?
The ultimate questions are: Whose right is it? Whose responsibility is it? These questions are particularly pertinent when dealing with groups such as students at higher education institutions and those not in employment, education and training (NEETS). In my paper later, I deal with the NEETS in relation to the right to social assistance and the nexus between such and the right to food.
Hunger and the CSJ’s Broader Vision and Praxis
This symposium is a critical part of the CSJ’s social juice research and praxis, focussing on four key areas: research, innovation, teaching and advocacy, captured in our strategic framework titled “Social Justice 2030”.
The CSJ’s quest stems from SU Vision 2020 and its strategic framework. It is about being a globally-leading research-intense university that is grounded in Africa’s uniqueness and collaborative approaches that break down the barrier between universities and society by ensuring that knowledge generation and innovation solve pressing challenges in society and the broader ecosystem. We see social justice, incorporating equality and poverty; climate change; corruption and the guaranteeing of peace as the most pressing challenges of our time, and that zero hunger ties these challenges together.
The CSJ, comprised of lawyers in the law faculty at SU, views the exchange of expert knowledge like we are doing today, as a way to leverage the transformative power of law. We understand that law is not isolated and does not encompass everything. That explains the interdisciplinary nature of our dialogue.
As you may note, we have among us experts in agriculture and availability, economists who look into the macroeconomic frameworks that impact availability, accessibility and sustainability, and the policy and lawmakers who fiddle with non-agriculture variables such as land justice, which impact availability, access and sustainability. We have experts focussing on food insecurity vulnerabilities relating to structural inequalities such as race, gender, disability, age, nationality, and sexual orientation. The expertise also includes leveraging data analytics for social justice impact-conscious policy reform, a science we focus on as the CSJ and have been propagating globally, leading to my appointment as one of seven external experts in the UN Secretary General’s Scientific Advisory Council. We also have judges who are the ultimate guardians of the Constitution and international human rights compliance, as well as lawyers looking at the impact of access to justice on the right to food and adequate nutrition with the goal of zero hunger.
Planned Outputs and Outcomes
The outcomes of this symposium are both ambitious and vital, taking into account the aspirations generated by the 30 years of democracy review and coming into being of the Government of National Unity (GNU).
We will publish the proceedings in a peer-reviewed publication on Social Justice, Hunger, and the Constitution, covering insights on the rights and duties, assessment of progress on delivery on the Constitution, including the extent to which the Constitution’s provisions are enablers or barriers, non-legal facilitators and barriers to achieving the right to food and adequate nutrition mindful of the SDG on zero hunger and Agenda 2063 commitment on adequate nutrition together with recommendations on law, policy and social action by civil society.
We will also prepare a much shorter occasional paper containing a policy brief to government, outlining the constitutional obligations related to the right to food, hits and misses in the first 30 years of democracy and suggesting ways to accelerate progress in the next six years so as to plug the gap on SDG2 lagging. This includes consideration of systematising the application of our Social Justice Assessment Matrix (SIAM) to anticipatory impact test all planned policies, laws and programmes to predict the likely impact on hunger and the right to food through a disparate impact on socio-economically disadvantaged groups.
The symposium’s comprehensive outputs and outcomes are spelt out in the distributed concept note. The programme spells out the thematic areas and engagement flow designed to reach the symposium’s objectives.
Conclusion and Next Steps
Esteemed colleagues and guests, today’s symposium is not just a meeting of minds but a call to action. The challenges we face in eradicating hunger are immense, but so too is our resolve. Together, through our collective expertise and commitment, we can forge a path towards a South Africa where social justice prevails and the right to food and adequate nutrition, and freedom from hunger are for every individual. In my view, that is required of us as part of ubuntu, which the Constitutional Court has said grounds the blueprint of the society our Constitution enjoins us to establish. Hopefully, by the end of this conference, we will have figured out whose responsibility it is to ensure everyone enjoys adequate nutrition with zero hunger among all, including students and NEETS.
I look forward to the insightful discussions that will unfold today and to the concrete steps we will collectively take to advance our shared goals on social justice and human rights. Let us remember that a right without a duty bearer and a remedy when violated is simply not a right.
Thank you.