Academic literature on the topic 'Partial food deprivation'

The typology classifies poverty (P) measurement methods (PMM) into normative (N), semi-normative (SN) and non-normative (NN), as well as direct/indirect and one-dimensional/multidimensional. Combined PMM use both direct and indirect indicators. Direct PMM are based on reported household (HH)/individual living conditions. Indirect PMM identify if HH resources are enough to meet needs (N). My typology is compared with Ringen’s and with PMM described by Gordon et al. Five groups of PMM were consolidated: non-normative, indirect one-dimensional, indirect bi-dimensional, direct, and combined. The chapter describes/criticises non-normative methods which are all indirect one-dimensional and don’t base their P line (PL) on N. I don’t consider them as proper PMM, as P is a normative concept. The chapter describes/assesses indirect and direct, N/SN PMM included individually. As all are partial, the critique of not considering all well-being sources (WBS) is applicable to all of them. Five are PL-PMM, but they differ on how they define PL. Two are food-P-only PMM, one is an overall income PMM, one is subjective PL, and the last, objective PL. Three bi-dimensional income–time PMM are included. They assume time as a WBS. All directPMM are normative-multidimensional. Two are Latin American: the original variant (OV) and the improved (IV) of unsatisfied basic needs (UBN). Both deprivation index variants are British. Enforced Lack of Socially Perceived Necessities (ELSPN), based on a survey of perceptions, presents a step forward but has problems. The Acute Poverty Index (UNDP) is ultra-minimalist; its thresholds do not respect the dignity principle. The Individual Deprivation Measure (IDM) replaces usual HH measures with an individual one; it is based on participatory research. Revealed/objective UBN thresholds PMM identifies UBN profiles of the income-poor/non-poor and classifies a HH as poor/non-poor according to how close their UBN-profile is to those profiles.

Abstract This chapter addresses the causes of the protracted food security crisis in Yemen. Pre-war Yemen was the poorest and most food-insecure country in the Arab world but had not experienced famine or mass starvation. Conditions of extreme deprivation and perhaps even famine have arisen from the combination of economic policies and military policies pursued by all the belligerents to the conflict (although there has been no ‘official’ declaration of famine by the United Nations). The strategies used by the Internationally Recognized Government and its regional backers (the Saudi-led coalition (SLC)) and the Houthis have included blockades and siege warfare, a destructive aerial bombing campaign (waged by the SLC), artillery and mortar attacks as well as the indiscriminate use of landmines near food and water points, the destruction of essential infrastructure (including water and power infrastructure), agricultural facilities as well as attacks on healthcare facilities. Humanitarian access has been restricted by all parties. At the outset of the conflict, the warring parties—especially the SLC—might have pleaded ignorance of the devastating consequences of their chosen means of pursuing their military and political goals, but as the conflict war on and those calamitous humanitarian outcomes became clear, no such pleas are credible. Yemen is the largest and most protracted case of man-made famine of our times.

Abstract This chapter presents four cases where starvation crimes featured in a conflict and were investigated in the course of subsequent transitional justice efforts, but were not prosecuted as such: Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge (1975–79), Ethiopia under Mengistu Haile Mariam (1974–91), the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992–95), and the conflict and atrocities in Darfur, Sudan (2003–08). In both Cambodia and Ethiopia, famine conditions resulted from policies directed against entire civilian populations. In Bosnia, through concerted international humanitarian intervention, only discrete pockets of extreme deprivation occurred, despite the fact that throughout the conflict access to food, water, and other life-supporting supplies was manipulated to serve war aims. Only prosecutions related to Cambodia addressed starvation, and even there, only partially. In Darfur, the humanitarian crisis claimed at least 200,000 lives and the ICC prosecutor framed charges against President Omar al-Bashir that included the destruction of objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population and obstructing humanitarian assistance, with genocidal intent. Although al-Bashir was overthrown and at the time of writing is in custody in Sudan, no prosecutions on this basis have yet been commenced. Together, the case studies reveal the prosecutorial caution and evidential complexities of prosecuting starvation.

The Brundtland Commission in its report Our Common Future (United Nations, 1987) is widely credited with setting down the first policy definition of sustainable development. In 2017 this report will be thirty years old yet it seems we are still a long way from living sustainably: If, as of 2017, there is not a start of a major wave of new and clean investments, the door to 2 degrees [global temperature increase] will be closed. (Birol, 2011) Green policies have been ‘adapted and adopted’ by mainstream parties across Europe, despite Green parties being a relatively small political force (Carter, 2013). The European Commission has become a worldwide driver of green policy (Judge, 1992) and market-based innovations such as the Emissions Trading System 1 , despite being celebrated and criticised in seemingly equal measure. Media coverage of ‘outsider’ party growth in the UK has swung towards the libertarian and anti-Europe UKIP recently, despite comparable and longer term growth in support for the Greens (Goodwin & Ford, 2013). Efforts have been made to disassociate Green voices from older clichés of self-deprivation: The Green party has changed: partly the personalities within it, partly in response to the changing world outside it....At the same time, ideas that were mainly theoretical 25 years ago – solar and wind technology – have been demonstrably workable...The Greens have become the party of possibilities, not catastrophes. (Williams, 2014). One attempt to imagine a sustainable future can be found in The World We Made, written by Johnathon Porritt from the perspective of a school teacher in the year 2050. The positives of huge renewable investments, progressive economic policies and a panoply of exciting new technologies are matched with equally plausible negatives of stubborn inequality, famines and riots. In the postscript, Porritt states: ‘If we can’t deliver the necessarily limited vision of a better world mapped out in The World We Made, then the hard truth is that no other vision will be available to us anyway, on any terms.’ (Porritt, 2013: 276)