13 October 2026
UN experts* today expressed dismay
at recent remarks by the Director-General of the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) that
appear to downplay the role of human rights in the
organisation’s work and raised serious concerns about the
treatment of FAO staff who have engaged on violations of the
right to food and of international humanitarian law in the
Gaza strip.
“Human rights principles are not
peripheral to the FAO’s mandate; they are central to it,”
the experts said. “The FAO and its management, as
international civil servants, are bound by the aims of the
UN Charter which enshrines human rights values in its very
preamble.”
Speaking at a high-level event at FAO
Headquarters in Rome on 29 September 2026, the
Director-General referred to the dismissal of senior FAO
officials in terms that appeared to link their departure to
their engagement with human rights issues. According to
information received, the FAO’s highest management did not
renew the contract of a highly respected Division Director,
who had served the UN for 26 years, stating grounds that he
had allegedly breached the standard of impartiality while
carrying out technical work on starvation and famine in
Gaza.
“FAO has an explicit mandate to protect
humanity’s freedom from hunger and must not shy away from
addressing conflict-related food insecurity, famine and
starvation,” the experts said.
They said this
includes technical work to document the use of starvation as
a method of warfare and to analyse its implications under
international humanitarian and human rights law.
“Documenting starvation in Gaza gives effect to the law as
stated by the International Court of Justice in its Advisory
Opinion of 22 October 2025, which affirmed Israel’s
obligations to ensure that the population has the essential
supplies of daily life, including food, and to facilitate
relief provided by the United Nations and its entities; it
is not a departure from impartiality.”
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“For the
FAO’s leadership to publicly disregard the value of human
rights, which are universal, indivisible and interdependent,
in guiding the organisation’s technical work would represent
a shocking inversion of institutional purpose,” the experts
said.
“There is a risk of creating a climate of fear
among staff,” the experts warned. “The required impartiality
of international civil servants does not oblige them to
remain silent when serious breaches of international law and
of the Charter’s values are at stake.”
“On the
contrary, silence or insufficient action in such
circumstances can cast doubt on the Organisation’s
independence and fuel perception of undue deference to donor
governments,” they said.
“All staff members across the
UN system must be able to carry out their work without fear
of adverse consequences,” the experts said. “Any measures
that could be perceived as reprisals and intimidation would
risk undermining the trust and integrity of the
organisation, and tarnish the reputation of the United
Nations as a whole.”
The experts called on the FAO to
uphold the values and principles of the UN Charter and
ensure the application of the Standards of
Conduct.
They urged Member States to raise the matter
within the FAO’s Governing Bodies and hold the
organisation’s leadership accountable to its values and to
universally recognised human rights principles.
“We
call on all UN entities to reaffirm that upholding human
rights, including the rights to life and to food, and
respect for human dignity, is an institutional mandate,” the
experts said. “An explicit commitment to these principles
must be at the core of the upcoming election of the next FAO
Director-General in 2027.”
The experts have written to
the FAO Director-General to convey these
concerns.
