Statement on Agenda Item 3: Interactive Dialogue with Special Rapporteur on Right to Health and Working Group on Business and Human Rights Statement on Agenda Item 3: Interactive Dialogue with Special Rapporteur on Right to Health and Work..

Statement on Agenda Item 3: Interactive Dialogue with Special Rapporteur on Right to Health and Working Group on Business and Human Rights

PERMANENT MISSION OF INDIA TO THE UN, GENEVA

HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL

26th SESSION (9 June – 28 JUNE 2014)

AGENDA ITEM 3: CLUSTERED ID WITH SR ON RIGHT TO HEALTH AND WG ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND BUSINESS

11 June 2014 (Wednesday)

Statement by India

 

Mr. President,

 

1. We thank the Working Group on Business and Human Rights for its report.  We align ourselves with the statement delivered by Norway on behalf of the Core Group on this issue.  We also thank the members of the Working Group for their dedication and commitment in the last three years of their mandate. 

 

 2.We thank the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health for his report.  The report is timely and brings the attention of the international community to the global epidemic of unhealthy food consumption and its link to the growing burden of diet-related Non communicable diseases and the right to health. Access to adequate, safe and nutritious food is an integral component of the right to health and its realization is closely linked to the fulfillment of the right to food. It is important that States take action to ensure that globalization of food production and consumption patterns, skewed FDI flows and aggressive marketing by TNCs does not undermine the access to healthy foods.

 

3. We share the view that States need to formulate multi-sectoral policies that positively affect the availability and accessibility of healthy foods including through adoption of evidenced based nutritional guidelines, enforcement of consumer friendly labelling of foods, creating fiscal disincentives and strengthening regulatory standards for marketing and promotion of unhealthy foods and raising awareness about healthy alternatives. However, as pointed by the Special Rapporteur, while doing so it is important to ensure that regulations and remedial mechanisms do not unduly burden small-scale industries or discourage flow of foreign investments to developing countries. In this regard, we need to emphasize the importance of international assistance and cooperation in the prevention and reduction of the increasing burden of diet-related NCDs.

 

4. We agree with the Special Rapporteur’s assertion that while States have the primary responsibility to respect, protect and fulfill the right to health, transnational corporations, that have increasingly come to define the global food environment, also have a distinct responsibility to take steps to realize the right to health. In this regard we welcome the Special Rapporteur’s recommendations that calls for concrete measures from TNCs and the food industry to refrain from advertising unhealthy products, especially to children, to adopt internationally acceptable nutritional labelling standards and invest in improving the nutritional content of unhealthy foods.

I thank you.

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