On current food consumption and future generations: Is there a moral need to change our food consumption in order to safeguard the human rights of future generations?

Abstract

The right to food is a genuine human right to nutrition, but also to make autonomous food choices. With respect to these choices, basic rights of future generations have three implications. First, there is the duty to consume less and waste less food. Furthermore, there is a general duty to assess individual consumption choices from the perspective of their impact on the potential of future generations. Finally, basic rights entail a duty to establish and maintain competent and committed institutions that are able to deal with the collective and global dimensions of the right to food in such a way that they guarantee that future generations will also have sufficient safe food and will be able to make autonomous food choices.