News Archive

Professor George Edwards took part in a lecture on the cuisine of the Pacific, the right to food, and international law at the University of the South Pacific in Port Vila, Vanuatu, on June 28. Other presenters included New Zealand celebrity chef Robert Oliver, and Vanuatu native nutritionist and celebrity Votausi Reur-McKenzie. They were joined by Leonid Vusilai, who, with teammate Knox Taleo, was named the Grand Prize Winner in Season I of the reality TV cooking competition, Pacific Island Food Revolution, which Oliver created.

The lecture was titled: Climate Change, the Right to Food, Cuisine of the Pacific, and International Human Rights Law: Challenges and Remedies in Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu. Oliver noted that non-communicable diseases are decimating Pacific Island populations due to poor food choices encouraged by massive marketing campaigns of fast foods.

A lecture attendee stated it is difficult to eat healthy food – such as fruits and vegetables – because it is too expensive. She said that families in Vanuatu cannot afford to buy such healthful foods. Vusilai said that healthful food is affordable in Vanuatu, noting that good food is often sold in bulk. He added that people can buy in smaller portions, and purchase smaller amounts of different fruits and vegetables, with are healthy.

Oliver noted that even if non-nutritional foods are less expensive in the marketplaces, they would become more expensive later in a person’s life, because the inexpensive items consumed would lead to non-communicable diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and others. More money would need to be spent on medical treatment later for these preventable conditions.

Climate change in the region has caused decreased biodiversity, leaving fewer natural food options, lecturers said. An agricultural student in attendance remarked that climate change has affected crops. It is less expensive to grow some non-nutritious crops than it is to grow more nutritious cops, and that may contribute to the decrease in availability of more nutritious foods, and ultimately contribute to disease as people purchase more readily available, less healthful alternatives.

Edwards noted that international law requires countries to ensure that people have access to adequate, appropriate food. Obligations flow from “hard law” treaties that countries sign and ratify, and expressly acknowledge as binding, as well as from “soft law,” as incorporated into non-binding aspirational declarations. These instruments recognize the “right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food’ and also recognize the “fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger.”

“If a person eats cardboard, or dirt, their stomach may get full, and they may not be hungry, and it could be argued that their right to be free from hunger is satisfied," Professor Edwards said. "But the right to adequate food requires more than filling the stomach. The right to adequate food requires access to sufficient, nutritious food that will support a person as they seek a life of physical, psychological, social, and emotional well-being.”

Oliver’s antidote to nutrition deprivation problems in the Pacific is encapsulated in the Pacific Island Food Revolution, a 12-part reality TV cooking competition across the Pacific. The series is an agent for more healthful food consumption. Oliver is executive director and show host.

In the photo, seated from left are IU McKinney Professor George Edwards, Pacific Island Food Revolution Season 1 winner Leonid Vusilai, nutritionist Votausi Mackenzie-Reur, and chef Robert Oliver. Standing are guests at the lecture, which was attended by law faculty members, law university staff, and students.