Negotiating Food Security

In the United States and worldwide, nutrition and food emerge as both high-profile public policy targets and as fundamental aspects of the right to self-determination. This Article examines how national security impacts food security in the United States. It explores conflicts and synergies between municipal, state, and federal law developments related to the right to food and investigates recent developments in how those commitments have been negotiated. The challenge and nebulous justiciability of the right to food can be in part attributed to existing global and national systems, which include supply chains, welfare programs, and foreign investment in the U.S. In lieu of the current critique of the status quo, U.S. lawmakers will soon be confronted with the need to reexamine and renegotiate existing national and international commitments, including those relative to food system restructuring, which will require collaboration between private and governmental actors. Such collaborations will be dictated by legal norms, soft laws, customary law, business practices, and the geopolitical makeup of the world. This Article makes the unique contribution of addressing how federal, state, and local decision-making processes factor into increasing food security and sustainable development. It also considers how these factors will determine whether the United States will have a competitive advantage in the global agro-economy, successfully securing food production for its citizens.