29 August 2025 – 23rd IUNS-ICN Closing Ceremony in Paris

STOP THE USE OF FOOD AS A WEAPON OF WAR

Almost 4000 members of the global nutrition community from 120 countries came together in Paris from August 24–29, 2025, to discuss how to achieve sustainable food for global health. The event facilitated dialogue and collaboration among academics and practitioners committed to achieving food security, eliminating hunger, preventing malnutrition, promoting health and transforming systems for resilience in the face of climate change and other threats to human health and well-being. These urgent global commitments cannot be achieved without upholding the principles of rule of law, democracy, and realisation of human rights, including the right to adequate food.​

As we meet, food is being weaponised in several countries leading to widespread human suffering, starvation and death, with lasting trauma and damage into the future for entire populations.​

We, the global nutrition community, strongly condemn the use of food as a weapon of war and call for a stop now to these overt violations of human rights.​

25 June 2024

Regarding Against Using Food, Hunger and Starvation as Weapons of War

In our Vision Statement, IUNS recognizes that ‘To live a life without malnutrition is a fundamental human right.‘
Aligned with this, international humanitarian law prohibits “attacking, destroying, removing, or rendering useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population” and the use of starvation as a method of warfare.

IUNS strongly condemns the use of food as a weapon of war.