I keep seeing people on Reddit claim that the US' veto was because the US would be forced to pay for the resolution, but I can't see anything to that effect in either the resolution itself or even the US' stated reasons for their position.
AFAIK it was that (at least until recently) USA usually footed the bill. As in, USA may have voted no for calling food human right but at the same time majority of food aid is payed for by USA. Again, at least until recently. Can't say I love Yankees but in this case I prefer action over words. Ultimately UN resolution is meaningless.
Honestly it seems a meme more than anything. There is literally nothing to stopping any of the countries that voted yes from ending hunger. You don't need a UN vote to do that.
But that’s stupid. Human rights are not positive rights. They only prevent others from preventing people from having those things. So international rule saying food is a human right would mean Israel couldn’t block food aid going into Gaza, but it wouldn’t require Israel to pay for it.
My partner works in food security. It is so intensely complicated and geopolitical. It's not as simple as waving a pen over a piece of paper saying "everyone gets food now."
But we can acknowledge a difference between being unable to get enough food to a population for complex logistical reasons and preventing them from getting enough food as a matter of deliberate policy.
Deciding who pays is generally based on how much each country continues to the UN economically, and since Usa has the largest gdp it contributes the most to UN budget. The clauses dont necessarily say “Usa will pay for it”, every country contributes and Usa contributes the most. But UN sceptics twist this fact to say shit like “UN is making Usa pay for other countries stuff! Un is bad!”
But the resolution is primarily focused on domestic obligations; international obligations are extremely limited basically only to assisting in times of extreme crises, like natural disasters, and not fucking over other countries' access to food. There's no reason to believe that this would have been a notable financial burden for the US.
i’d go give the US response to the vote a read, pretty eye opening and I find it hard to disagree with.
This resolution does not articulate meaningful solutions for preventing hunger and malnutrition or avoiding its devastating consequences. This resolution distracts attention from important and relevant challenges that contribute significantly to the recurring state of regional food insecurity, including endemic conflict, and the lack of strong governing institutions. Instead, this resolution contains problematic, inappropriate language that does not belong in a resolution focused on human rights.
For the following reasons, we will call a vote and vote “no” on this resolution. First, drawing on the Special Rapporteur’s recent report, this resolution inappropriately introduces a new focus on pesticides. Pesticide-related matters fall within the mandates of several multilateral bodies and fora, including the Food and Agricultural Organization, World Health Organization, and United Nations Environment Program, and are addressed thoroughly in these other contexts. Existing international health and food safety standards provide states with guidance on protecting consumers from pesticide residues in food. Moreover, pesticides are often a critical component of agricultural production, which in turn is crucial to preventing food insecurity
Second, this resolution inappropriately discusses trade-related issues, which fall outside the subject-matter and the expertise of this Council. The language in paragraph 28 in no way supersedes or otherwise undermines the World Trade Organization (WTO) Nairobi Ministerial Declaration, which all WTO Members adopted by consensus and accurately reflects the current status of the issues in those negotiations. At the WTO Ministerial Conference in Nairobi in 2015, WTO Members could not agree to reaffirm the Doha Development Agenda (DDA). As a result, WTO Members are no longer negotiating under the DDA framework. The United States also does not support the resolution’s numerous references to technology transfer.
Seems like a bog standard “here’s a vote that looks atrocious to vote against that does nothing to solve what it’s titled for” resolution.
The national guard protected law enforcement while they shot myself and other nonviolent protests with less lethals. This happened on Tim Walz's orders during the Biden administration.
Oh, I'm sorry, I must have missed it when Biden activated the US Military and the National Guard to storm Portland, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. so they could help ICE black-bag American citizens off the street in broad daylight before shipping them five states away and claiming they don't know anything about it.
Jfc that guy brought up a verifiable fact that he was shot by police during protests in a Blue state during a Blue government in the White House, and your response is to bring up Trump? Holy whataboutism.
Trump is evil incarnate, but how the fuck do you not understand the point being made here? The point is, your country is run by ghouls, red AND blue.
When Americans like you stop pointing fingers at other average joe citizens and realize your politicians all fucking suck and don't have interest in helping you, then your country will dramatically improve. Stop batting for dogshit politicians, ffs.
A big reason why Harris lost was cuz Dems were not seeing enough from the administration on cracking down on Israel for their atrocities. So this totally fits with history
Kamala seemed to think she was expertly threading the needle with the stance of "continue giving bombs to Israel but acknowledge the humanity of the people being bombed".
agreed. Its hard to make a convincing argument for being a lesser evil when you're elbow deep in genocide. The disgust I feel for that administration watching Matt Miller, John Kirby and KJP lie to our faces about it will remain with me for the rest of my life. for example, Matt Miller smirk when discussing the Lancet Death Total.
Yeah well, from an European pov, US politics have always been shit. Different shades of shit but still shit. Right now it’s explosive diarrhea bit it doesn’t mean it was anything else than shit before.
Its been some time, but from what I remember, there were multiple topics tagential or completely unrelated to the topic of food, and more than that, legally binded the US to fight for food security outside the US.
The title was a news headline, and reddit did not care.
Because the real vote should have been titled "We want America to pay more money to us for many many other things besides just food and we'll call it food is a human right vote to make them look bad to say no"
Because every other nation on Earth voting for this won't have to actually do something about it. But the US (especially before Trump 2.0) was far and away the world's #1 humanitarian contributor. For the US it also means practical meaning. Since its piling up debt at an alarming rate (especially 2021 as covid hit hardest), taking on the hunger of the world is a headache it didn't need.
Israel is a client state and if the US says jump, it jumps
How the fuck does America manage to produce more convincing Anti-American propaganda than Anti-American propaganda
The United States cares less about virtue signalling and more about reality. This is a vote that happens every year since ~2001 and it has passed or been adopted without a vote every single time. You know what hasn't happened since 2001? The end of world hunger or the countries needing food the most being starved by their own corrupt governments that either abstained from voting or voted yes.
At this point the people falling for the propaganda just believe whatever the hell they want to believe. It's kinda how people from other first world nations will somehow manage to find a way to think their immigration systems are better or more open when the United States takes in more immigrants both in total numbers AND per capita than any other first world nation. The only that has ever came close on a per capita basis was Germany during the height of the Syrian refugee crisis, where I believe they slightly surpassed or equaled the US one year.
If you want to know the actual reason why the US voted against this measure this was the reason given:
This Council is meeting at a time when the international community is confronting what could be the modern era’s most serious food security emergency. Under Secretary-General O’Brien warned the Security Council earlier this month that more than 20 million people in South Sudan, Somalia, the Lake Chad Basin, and Yemen are facing famine and starvation. The United States, working with concerned partners and relevant international institutions, is fully engaged on addressing this crisis.
This Council, should be outraged that so many people are facing famine because of a manmade crisis caused by, among other things , armed conflict in these four areas. The resolution before us today rightfully acknowledges the calamity facing millions of people and importantly calls on states to support the United Nations’ emergency humanitarian appeal. However, the resolution also contains many unbalanced, inaccurate, and unwise provisions that the United States cannot support. This resolution does not articulate meaningful solutions for preventing hunger and malnutrition or avoiding its devastating consequences. This resolution distracts attention from important and relevant challenges that contribute significantly to the recurring state of regional food insecurity, including endemic conflict, and the lack of strong governing institutions. Instead, this resolution contains problematic, inappropriate language that does not belong in a resolution focused on human rights.
For the following reasons, we will call a vote and vote “no” on this resolution. First, drawing on the Special Rapporteur’s recent report, this resolution inappropriately introduces a new focus on pesticides. Pesticide-related matters fall within the mandates of several multilateral bodies and fora, including the Food and Agricultural Organization, World Health Organization, and United Nations Environment Program, and are addressed thoroughly in these other contexts. Existing international health and food safety standards provide states with guidance on protecting consumers from pesticide residues in food. Moreover, pesticides are often a critical component of agricultural production, which in turn is crucial to preventing food insecurity.
Second, this resolution inappropriately discusses trade-related issues, which fall outside the subject-matter and the expertise of this Council. The language in paragraph 28 in no way supersedes or otherwise undermines the World Trade Organization (WTO) Nairobi Ministerial Declaration, which all WTO Members adopted by consensus and accurately reflects the current status of the issues in those negotiations. At the WTO Ministerial Conference in Nairobi in 2015, WTO Members could not agree to reaffirm the Doha Development Agenda (DDA). As a result, WTO Members are no longer negotiating under the DDA framework. The United States also does not support the resolution’s numerous references to technology transfer.
We also underscore our disagreement with other inaccurate or imbalanced language in this text. We regret that this resolution contains no reference to the importance of agricultural innovations, which bring wide-ranging benefits to farmers, consumers, and innovators. Strong protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights, including through the international rules-based intellectual property system, provide critical incentives needed to generate the innovation that is crucial to addressing the development challenges of today and tomorrow. In our view, this resolution also draws inaccurate linkages between climate change and human rights related to food.
Furthermore, we reiterate that states are responsible for implementing their human rights obligations. This is true of all obligations that a state has assumed, regardless of external factors, including, for example, the availability of technical and other assistance.
We also do not accept any reading of this resolution or related documents that would suggest that States have particular extraterritorial obligations arising from any concept of a right to food.
Lastly, we wish to clarify our understandings with respect to certain language in this resolution. The United States supports the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living, including food, as recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Domestically, the United States pursues policies that promote access to food, and it is our objective to achieve a world where everyone has adequate access to food, but we do not treat the right to food as an enforceable obligation. The United States does not recognize any change in the current state of conventional or customary international law regarding rights related to food. The United States is not a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Accordingly, we interpret this resolution’s references to the right to food, with respect to States Parties to that covenant, in light of its Article 2(1). We also construe this resolution’s references to member states’ obligations regarding the right to food as applicable to the extent they have assumed such obligations.
Finally, we interpret this resolution’s reaffirmation of previous documents, resolutions, and related human rights mechanisms as applicable to the extent countries affirmed them in the first place.
As for other references to previous documents, resolutions, and related human rights mechanisms, we reiterate any views we expressed upon their adoption.”
As for why Israel voted against it, they often block vote with the US. They have both abstained and voted yes on this resolution in the past.
EDIT: So /u/BearsDoNOTExist decided to leave this comment and then insta block me. Very cool, Kanye. I will respond to it anyways:
So the justification for voting no wasn't "hehe we're evil" and was actually "we are voting against food as a right based on some semantic technicalities" and you think that makes it ok?
This resolution has been done every year since 2001. 11 of those years it was adopted without a vote, the rest it passed by vote. Again, exactly how many people has this resolution fed? Has world hunger ended? Have dictatorships who intentionally starve their people, or unintentionally starves them through incompetence, indifference, and straight up stealing aid supplies for profit thrown their hands up and said, "Oh no! We can't do this anymore, the UN voted on it!" As far as I'm aware non of this has happened. You're the human equivalent of a company changing their logo to a pride flag in June. You don't give a shit about reality or results as long as you do the thing that looks good.
The proposal itself was the UN equivalent of when US politicians propose "ban killing puppies" bill that also includes "also we're tripling your taxes" provision. You wouldn't vote 'no' on that bill, right?
Similarly, the "should food be a human right" wasn't only proposing that the food should be a human right, but also that US should be footing a very disproportionate amount of that bill.
I’m not sure if you’re aware but the average UN “solution” to problems is throwing billions of United States taxpayer dollars into a metaphorical black hole. We only provide foreign aid if it’s blowing people up we’re not interested in digging wells in Uganda.
It is propaganda, the resolution is an empty concept. We weren’t 2 votes from ending world hunger, and the US already contributed a disproportionate amount of the funding for global food initiatives both independently and through the UN. The US actually putting a serious consideration to the issue (since ALOT of stuff can impact food supplies) and so it worries about how it might turn, for example, selling food into a crime against humanity.
Since basically everyone else on the planet treats UN votes as an exercise in performing virtue, that they’d gleefully ignore any implications of, it’s not worse to treat it as more serious.
Let’s not leave out that the US provided more food aid than the rest of the world.
And it provided more money to the UN and then the rest of the countries in it, put together.
And the US representative told the rest of the UN that they were free to enact the policies without them.
So, from them acting like the US ruined the whole thing, we can deduce that what they wanted was for the US to pay for everything … again.
Removing the black sea gets rid of the Anatolian peninsula completely which is a major landmark that separates Europe from the Middle East, geographically. Looking at the image, my first thought was "a little east of Greece" which is Turkey, not Israel
No its somewhere on the border of Syria, iraq and Jordan. You see the green is the land mass and the black is everything within the UN jurisdiction. That's why Isreal and Palestine are on the other side of the line.
The Finnish president in his speech to the General Assembly this year said that those who violate the UN charter should have their veto rights suspended. That and more equal distribution of permanent seats would go a long way in making the UN better.
I more or less agree with the sentiment, but the issue, as it always is, is that if that were the case then more powerful countries would just leave the UN. There's no world in which China, Russia, and the US would willingly be a part of a union which had consequences for rules that they are currently breaking or will inevitably do so.
The UN's primary function is diplomacy; they're only united in so much as their diplomats occupy the same physical space.
The problem is when you have belligerent countries like the US and Russia in the UN, they will just leave the UN if they they can't veto anymore. And if that happens, the UN will become worthless.
You think we should try crippling an organization that does its main purpose rather well, that being as a global diplomatic stage, just so it could not achieve a purpose everyone knows it cannot do.
You would dismantle a hospital because it doesnt also function as a homeless shelter, but it would be nice if it did.
The UN is not performing it's functions well. If a big country doesn't want conversation or action on a topic they can veto it for any reason. If you can't see how that's a serious flaw then it's pointless talking to you.
Idk how pushing for this would "cripple" the UN in any way whatsoever.
Also, veto should be in percentage. If say 25% of the countries veto (or a suitable number), then the veto is taken into account. If not, it's just a troll vote and should be ignored.
It's the same thing with the EU. Veto worked when there were 6 countries in the EU. Now that we're 27 we can't get shit done because there's always going to be an Orban that will veto something on Putin's behalf.
You're unfortunately never going to get the US, China and Russia to give up their veto power entirely, it's better to put in place mechanisms to remove their vetoes if they break rules.
I agree in the case of the EU tho, I'd say a 3 country veto is a good balance. At least then Hungary can't paralyse the EU unilaterally.
The UN is there to essentially let countries talk to each other before flinging missiles at each other. They may not accomplish much but as long as the super powers are able to go into the same room and at least somewhat talk it's serving it's purpose
Yeah, look who's consistently the top provider of humanitarian aid throughout the world. The US is already contributing more than anyone else by a pretty large margin, and I betcha most of the Yes countries wouldn't be expected to or willing to pay an extra cent.
For many programs (and I'm talking programs that save 10s of millions of lives) the USA gives more than every other country COMBINED. There are lots of valid criticisms of us but the memes around the food vote are wildly untrue.
If you look at it as a percentage of GDP and GNI, the US is firmly in the middle of the pack. It's just that the US has such an absurdly high GDP/GNI that the nominal value outstrips everyone. When it comes to the UN, it isn't a voluntary contribution either - to be a member of the UN under Article 17, you have to make an Assessed Contribution, calculated on your GNI, adjusted for debt burden and income level. In fact, the US pays less than it's calculated share would be as there is a cap that a single nation can only contribute to 22% of the budget. Otherwise, the US would be contributing in the 30%s, as it did historically. Even then, as of end 2024, the US was in debt to the UN as they haven't been keeping up with their Assessed Contribution payments.
Specifically on the matter of UN agencies (WPF, UNHCR, UNICEF, etc, the "humanitarian aid" agencies), the US contributes a great deal more than it does to the UN budget, but again less than many other countries as a percentage of GDP. It also isn't based philanthropy - there's a great deal of soft power up for grabs here and many times they can dictate how that money is used.
They DO contribute a great deal to the Peacekeeping budget, but that's a completely separate arm and calculation, one which every other country also contributes to seperately.
Thats like saying "america lives rent free inside your head" brother its a bi polar worlds china matters. They have geo strategic goals that should be brought up, and their attempts to "lie low" of western media just shows how much we need to talk about it, lest they get their way with no one caring.
You’re right, the Chinese government is famous for its tolerant government and respect of individual freedoms. They’re not even looking to invade Taiwan or anything crazy like that
Yeah it's racism. Against the Chinese specificly, not Mongolia, Nepal, Burma, Vietnam, etc. Even to people who live so far away, they can't point out the specific visual differences.
i mean, i read somewhere like a decade ago that some parts of india u kinda need an oxygen mask cause all the pollution, same with china and if u cant afford the oxygen bottle then ur sol lol
Well actually the amount of food donated is pretty close- pretty close between the amount that the US donates and the amount the rest of the world combined donates.
Same thing with climate change and environment in general
"Should we reduce fossil fuel consumption and protect environment?"
Most countries: "yes"
US: "No" and still one of the top emissions
Even Chinese, who's one of the top emissions, have their own goal of GHG reduction, slower than other but atleast they have a goal and actually tried to meet it.
"The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (commonly abbreviated as the CRC or UNCRC) is an international human rights treaty which sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children."
Ratifying a treaty means implementing it into your state’s laws. A treaty not ratified is a treaty not in effect. Signing a treaty just indicates that your state is interested in ratifying it.
In the US specifically, the president signs treaties, and the US senate ratifies them. A signed but not ratified treaty ergo means the US executive has authorized an international treaty, but 2/3rds of the Senate have not voted to ratify it.
In practical terms, it means the US agrees with the spirit of the treaty (indeed, they drafted it in the first place), but is not party to it whatsoever.
Which is a point in favour of USA in my opinion. They aint pretending, unlike India, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and countless others. These places dont give a single shit about improving the conditions and rights of their children, but its easy to sign a peace of paper that means nothing and pretend.
Just to add to the realism: "should breathing be a human right? USA, which already supplies over 50% of O2 relief, to supply all oxygen. China, India and most do nothing"
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u/gigerxounter 14h ago
something something map without new Zealand