[asia-apec 1328] Food First Releases "America Needs Human Rights"

[Anuradha Mittal]

For Immediate Release

Contact: Ms. Anuradha Mittal
         October 19, 1999						 Tel: (510) 654-4400
				  		
New Book Offers a Fresh View of the State of Our Union, Based on Human 
Rights: Does Deepening Poverty Amid the Plenty of a Booming Economy 
Violate Human Rights?


Food First/The Institute for Food and Development Policy releases:
America Needs Human Rights
Edited by Anuradha Mittal and Peter Rosset


"America Needs Human Rights provides a cogent analysis of fundamental 
problems that disfigure our society, along with guidelines for 
addressing them in a constructive way. It is accessible, informative, 
and compelling."   				
- Noam Chomsky, Nobel Laureate

 "I have seen hunger and starvation emerge as primary weapons used to 
rob entire populations of their will, their dignity, their health, and 
their freedom. All persons of good will and democratic ideals must 
recognize the right to food as one of the great challenges of the next 
millennium. America Needs Human Rights places economic justice at the 
forefront of the struggle for universal human rights." 		
- John Conyers, Jr., Member of Congress, Michigan

Oakland, CA-The Oakland-based policy think tank, Food First/The 
Institute for Food and Development Policy, today released a book that 
takes a fresh look at hunger and poverty in America, this time through 
the lens of human rights.  The editors of the book conclude that current 
social policy in the United States violates universally recognized human 
rights standards, and call for a human rights-based movement to change 
these policies.

America may be in the midst of an economic boom, but millions of 
Americans are not sharing the benefits. While the wealthy grow richer, 
millions of poor working Americans grope for their infinitesimal share 
of the boom.  The gap between rich and poor in America is approaching 
its worst point in fifty years and is the largest such gap among 
eighteen industrialized countries. Despite glowing media reports on our 
economy, hunger affects an estimated thirty-six million Americans, at 
least fourteen million of whom are children. One in five children under 
the age of five lives in poverty-the highest rate among industrialized 
countries. The number of uninsured Americans has increased to over 44.3 
million. It doesn't have to be that way in a nation like ours. America 
Needs Human Rights is a call to reverse those priorities. 

In America needs Human Rights, editors, Anuradha Mittal and Peter Rosset 
argue that the wealth and resources clearly exist in the U.S. for every 
man, woman and child to have a roof over their heads, food in their 
bellies, and access to decent education, health care, and a job that 
pays a living wage. Ms. Mittal, Policy Director at the Institute, 
explains that, "the very survival of our democratic system depends on 
breaking out of the narrow confines of conventional political views. We 
need to focus on public policy issues affecting hunger and poverty in 
America as social and economic human rights issues. Organizing and 
creating new alliances, and shifting basic terms on which America's 
public debate takes place, using the framework of human rights, is the 
hope that guides us into the new century," said Mittal.

America Needs Human Rights argues that it is a systematic and widespread 
violation of the most basic of human rights for so many to go without, 
amid so much plenty. In the past, the U.S. government has applied the 
framework of human rights selectively to mostly Third World countries. 
"The time has come," said co-editor Rosset, who is the Executive 
Director of the Institute, "to take a hard look at our human rights 
record right here at home. 

"It matters to Americans whether or not our nation lives up to the 
international human rights standards to which we subscribe," he said.  
"Americans do believe in fairness and justice. Whether our nation live 
up to its beliefs matters morally, in terms of right and wrong, and also 
in terms of the spirit and quality of life that a nation and its people 
enjoy." America Needs Human Rights lays out the depth of the crisis 
being faced by so many Americans, and clearly explains the causes of 
this crisis, and issues a powerful and moving call for change.

Food First/The Institute for Food and Development Policy-founded in 1975 
by Frances Moore Lappé and Joseph Collins after the success of Diet for 
a Small Planet, is an 'outside the beltway' policy think tank that 
carries out research and education-for-action. Food First works to 
identify the root causes of hunger and poverty in the United States and 
around the world, and to educate the public as well as policymakers 
about these problems and alternative solutions to them.

About the Editors
Anuradha Mittal is Policy Director at Food First/The Institute for Food 
and Development Policy.  She is also the coordinator of the national 
campaign "Economic Human Rights: The Time Has Come!"

Peter Rosset is the Executive Director of Food First/Institute for Food 
and Development Policy, and teaches at Stanford University.  He 
co-authored the recent book, "World Hunger: Twelve Myths."

###

America Needs Human Rights
Anuradha Mittal and Peter Rosset, editors.
ISBN 0-935028-72-2 (paperback)
1999, Food First Books, 237 pp., $13.95
Individual orders may be placed at http://www.foodfirst.org
Distributed by LPC Group 1-800-243-0138

Join the fight against hunger. For more information contact foodfirst at foodfirst.org.

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