NARRATIVES OF HUNGER IN INTERNATIONAL LAW: FEEDING THE WORLD IN TIMES OF CLIMATE CHANGE by Anne Saab

• Author: Margherita Melillo
• Date: 01 November 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/reel.12366
• Published date: 01 November 2020

    

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BOOK REVIE WS

DOI: 10 .1111/reel .12366

NARRATIVES OF HUNGER IN INTERNATIONAL

LAW: FEEDING THE WORLD IN TIMES OF CLIMATE

CHANGE by Anne Saab

Published by C ambridge Univer sity Press, 2019, 222 pp., €160.95, ha rdback.

To those who first he ar about them, climate-re ady seeds seem like a

technologic al miracle promised by the Pan glossian engineers of our

modernity. The se seeds are genetically modi fied to be more res ist-

ant to droughts an d other consequences of clim ate change, ostensi-

bly yielding mo re prosperity. Yet, climate-ready s eeds have sparked

strong contes tation. Civil society or ganizations have vigorously op-

posed the prod uction of such seeds, not leas t because big corpora-

tions like Monsant o are trying to patent them .

Anne Saab’s Narratives of Hunger in International Law zooms

into the debate on cli mate-ready seeds to show how inte rnational

law contributes to r einforcing a spec ific approach (or w hat she

calls ‘narrati ve’) to hunger. Chapter 1 de lves into the centr al te-

nets of the debat e and introduces the tw o main existing narrat ives

of hunger in internat ional law. The first is the neo liberal narrative,

which conceives h unger as a problem of scarcit y of resources, ex-

acerbated by the im pact of climate ch ange. The soluti on to this

problem is found in the promotion of technological innovations

that can increa se food produc tion (like climate-r eady seeds). The

second is the foo d sovereignty narrative , born in direct opposi tion

to the neoliber al one. It contends that hunger is not a pr oblem of

scarcity of re sources, but one of acces s and distribution of e xisting

resources (and therefore, climate-ready seeds would not resolve

the problem).

After setti ng the terms of the debate, Chapte rs 2–4 analyse, re-

spectively, how th ese two narratives are r eflected and used in thr ee

sub-fields of inter national law: climate change, int ellectual propert y

and human right s. These chapte rs demonstr ate that the neol iberal

narrative has ap propriated the first t wo sub-fields, and find s ground

for support in t he third sub-fiel d of human rights to o. Conversely,

the food sovereig nty narrative c oncentrates mu ch of its discour se

on the human right t o food.

Building on the se findings, C hapter 5 shows how inte rnational

law perpetuate s the assumption s embedded in th e neoliberal n ar-

rative. Saab use s the metaphor of a pyramid to ill ustrate how these

assumptions are b uilt on one another: si nce (i) climate change caus es

hunger; (ii) foo d production m ust increase; ( iii) to this end, tec h-

nology is nee ded; (iv) investme nts from the pr ivate sector ar e wel-

come to spur innovat ion and (iv) thes e investments a re ultimately

rewarded by gran ting patent right s. Saab contends t hat while the

food sovereignty narrative conte sts the patent of climate-ready

seeds (the tip of th e pyramid), it fails to chall enge all the assumption s

on which the nece ssity to produce the seeds re sts in the first place

(the base of the pyra mid). Against this ba ckdrop, the book conclud es

with an invitati on to challenge the a ssumptions that l egitimize the

neoliberal n arrative of hunger in internat ional law.

Saab’s work is a fanta stic and precious book, fo r at least two rea-

sons. First , it is a brilliant exa mple of how the exam ination of a very

technical and n iche topic can be made relevant fo r a broader reader-

ship. I take the fir st message of this book to be that we s hould never

set aside some topi cs just beca use they are too spe cialistic. Se cond,

this book offe rs a great illustratio n of critical work. Alt hough the book

does not formall y take a constructivist a pproach, it shares with it th e

conviction tha t the way we employ narrative s can shape internationa l

law and, accordin gly, our approach to glo bal problems. I r ead Saab’s

work as an invitati on to ‘deconstruct to r econstruct ’ international law.1

Premises aside , I would like to offer so me thoughts on t he way

Saab employs th e notion of ‘narrati ve’ in this book. In ternational

legal scholars seem increasingly inclined to resort to the identifi-

cation of ‘narrat ives’,2 or similar terms like discourse3 or framing.4

Yet, there is no common u nderstan ding of what is meant by su ch

frameworks . Saab’s thoughtf ul effort to co nceptualize the us e and

implications of ‘n arratives’ is, in this rega rd, another key asset of the

book. Never theless, being also one of the fi rst attempts of this na-

ture, it also rais es an important ques tion: does it serve it s purpose?

Saab justifi es the recourse to narrative s in international law as a

methodologi cal tool by ancho ring her work in th e theories that e s-

sentially see law a s a language. Narratives, i n this sense, are nothing

else than lawye rs’ everyday job, that is, to advance a rguments that

present a speci fic interpretation of the law ‘as a me ans to construct

a credible stor y that can be taken for the tr uth’ (at 33). If narratives

play a role similar to t hat of legal arguments, howe ver, why employ-

ing a different te rm? While the book d oes not direct ly answer this

question, it s eems to suggest that narrati ves are broader than legal

arguments, and deeply ideologically driven.

This underst anding of narratives le ads me to highlight what I con-

sider the key element of narratives: agency. Saab identifies the agents

that lie behind th e neoliberal a nd food sovereignt y narrative s: big

corporations like Monsanto on the one hand, and civil society organi-

zations on the oth er. However, the focus of t he book is not so much

about the agent s of the narratives, but r ather on the narrati ves them-

selves. The agents are presented as those who animate the debates—

the ‘storyt ellers’ (at 36)—but their ves ted interests and agen das play a

 1To echo the phrase u sed by Abram Chay es to scold David Ken nedy: ‘why woul d you

want to decons truct intern ational law, we’ve h ardly got it const ructed yet’. Cit ed in: D

Kennedy, ‘Tom Franc k and the Manhat tan School’ ( 2002) 35 New York Univ ersity

Journal of Int ernational L aw and Politics 397, 426.

 2See, e.g., MC P etersmann, ‘ Narcissus’ Refl ection in the L ake: Untold Narr atives in

Environmen tal Law Beyond t he Anthropoce ntric Frame’ (2018 ) 30 Journal of

Environmen tal Law 235; N Lamp , ‘How Should We Thi nk about the Win ners and Loser s

from Global ization? Three N arratives and T heir Implica tions for the Red esign of

Internatio nal Economic Ag reements’ (20 19) 30 European Jou rnal of Internat ional Law

1359.

 3See, e.g., T Sk outeris, The Not ion of Progress in I nternationa l Law Discourse ( TMC Asser

Press 2009) ; PS Morris, Russ ian Discourse s on Internatio nal Law: Sociol ogical and

Philosophical Phenomenon (Routledge 2018).

 4See, e.g., K T Litfin, ‘Fr aming Science: P recautiona ry Discours e and the Ozone Treati es’

(1995) 24 Millennium 251; DL D eLaet, ‘Fra ming Male Circum cision as a Human R ights

Issue? Contri butions to the De bate over the Univ ersality of Hu man Rights’ (20 09) 8

Journal of Human Rights 405.