The World Agreed to Stop Using Food as a Weapon. It Hasn’t.

Yet world powers no longer appear able, or willing, to end this threat. International humanitarian law has long recognized civilians’ right to food, water, and other essentials during wartime. In practice, however, these rules have often been repeatedly violated. The UN Security Council attempted to strengthen these norms in 2018, when it unanimously adopted Resolution 2417, which condemned the intentional starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. Despite this, parties to conflicts continue to cross this moral and legal red line with near impunity, and in some contexts, the weaponization of food appears to be growing in scale and impact.

Aid experts say the abrupt withdrawal of the United States from its traditional leadership role in the humanitarian sphere, as well as declining aid levels globally, appear to have compounded the severity of this issue.

HOW FOOD BECOMES A WEAPON

Food weaponization is the manipulation of food access, infrastructure, or supplies to achieve economic, military, or political objectives. Food security experts say in practice this weaponization can take many forms:

Experts say the issue lies within the global governance system itself. Efforts to enforce the resolution are often stymied by political deadlock in major power-wielding institutions, predominantly the UN Security Council, whose role is to maintain international peace and security.

“States among the permanent five members who have veto authority are often tight allies with countries using food as a weapon of war,” said Sam Vigersky, a CFR international affairs fellow and former senior humanitarian advisor to the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under the Biden administration. “And they’re using their position of power to obstruct any open debate about the circumstances driving food weaponization.”

Russia, one of the five Security Council members with veto power, has itself weaponized food amid its invasion of Ukraine, though in a different way from that seen in Gaza, Sudan, and Yemen.

But Swathi Veeravalli, former director for climate security and adaptation on the White House National Security Council, points to another layer of the problem: “Institutions are calibrated to respond to visible crises—overt famine declarations or gradual price increases. [But] food weaponization occurs in that space where it’s harder for institutions to respond to,” she said.

That ambiguity has had real consequences. In 2023, for example, Russia vetoed a resolution to renew the cross-border humanitarian aid mechanism for northwest Syria that was first established in 2014. The mechanism had allowed UN agencies to deliver food, water, medicine, and other aid into rebel-held regions without requiring approval from the Bashar al-Assad regime. Russia argued that the one-year extension was a violation of Syria’s sovereignty, and that aid should instead be delivered primarily from within the country rather than from Turkey. UN members said Russia’s veto jeopardized the lives of millions of Syrians in urgent need of humanitarian aid.

In other cases, permanent Security Council members have acted to shield allies from what they consider interference in conflict resolution. In September 2025, the United States vetoed a resolution supported by the fourteen other members of the Security Council calling for an immediate ceasefire and for Israel to lift all restrictions on aid delivery into Gaza, among other demands. It was the sixth time that the United States had blocked a Security Council resolution focused on the enclave since the Israel-Hamas war began in late 2023. Washington maintained that adopting such resolutions would embolden Hamas and hinder diplomatic efforts to reach a lasting end to the conflict.

A GLOBAL AID SYSTEM IN DECLINE

The surge in global conflicts comes as the world is undergoing drastic cuts in funding despite record levels of need [PDF]. Global humanitarian aid funding has declined since 2022, with funding gaps significantly widening in 2025 as donor contributions failed to keep pace with escalating crises.

“In a field accustomed to grim superlatives, 2025 earned a new one: the worst humanitarian year on record,” wrote CFR’s Vigersky. “Barring a dramatic and unforeseen financial intervention, conditions among those most in need of aid are likely to get worse.”

This pullback of aid is not limited to a single country. Canada has slashed its foreign aid funding, as have several major European governments—including France, Germany, and the United Kingdom—in the face of domestic political pressure, rising defense spending, or economic instability. Experts say these cuts undermine stabilization efforts in major conflict zones and threaten to exacerbate existing humanitarian crises.

Even the United States, which has traditionally led global aid efforts, has dramatically cut back on foreign aid spending. Shortly after taking office in January 2025, President Donald Trump dismantled the more than six-decade-old U.S. Agency for International Development, a pillar of U.S. soft power and a critical source of foreign assistance to struggling countries. 

By late 2025, his administration was warning that UN agencies will have to “adapt, shrink, or die” in an era of new financial strain, after already having reduced U.S. humanitarian aid funding by more than 70 percent that year. This was in agreement with Trump’s day-one executive order to ensure all future U.S. foreign aid aligns with national interests.

In February 2026, Trump signed a government spending bill that allocated $50 billion in discretionary funding for foreign affairs for the year—a 16 percent cut from 2025—of which $5.4 billion [PDF] is specifically for international humanitarian assistance. Bucking the trend of other European countries, Spain has boosted its foreign aid budget in recent years, as have Denmark, Ireland, and Italy.

Still, as global donor funding wanes more broadly and countries’ domestic priorities shift, the world’s capacity to deliver life-saving aid is falling short. UN humanitarian agencies, which rely almost exclusively on voluntary donations from member states, have faced similar constraints, forced to scale back their operations as funding declines.

While the overhaul of the United States’ aid system continues to take shape, experts agree there is currently no substitute for the scale, speed, and capacity of U.S. aid or leadership in addressing global hunger, particularly in conflict zones or areas of extreme instability.

REBUILDING HUMANITARIAN ORDER

Many longtime practitioners in the field say Security Council divisions and the fraying of the global aid system defy immediate remedies. They call for a combination of fresh approaches to both raise awareness of the issue of food weaponization and catalyze international action. Outside the major power forums, they say, these efforts could involve coalitions of states, community organizations, and the private sector.

Creating stronger accountability mechanisms. Perpetrators of food weaponization rarely, if ever, face repercussions for their actions, meaning enforcement remains a notable challenge. Sudan, where civil war has raged since April 2023, demonstrates how quickly the situation can deteriorate when parties are not held accountable to basic humanitarian law. There needs to be a “recommitment to a principle that I think people all over the world would be very comfortable with: which is that we don’t starve civilians as part of a military or political campaign,” said Michelle Gavin, CFR senior fellow for Africa policy studies.

Experts say strengthening accountability could look like:

Diversifying aid funding and delivery. In recent years, there have been growing calls to move beyond the traditional aid-driven model of humanitarian funding toward one that incentivizes the private sector to act and leverages its resources and innovation. While the United Nations frequently reaches out to the private sector to help with humanitarian affairs, governments still dominate when it comes to global humanitarian funding. Even if private funding cannot match overall aid levels, it could still meaningfully support specific areas like food assistance.

As part of a private sector-led approach, new coalitions of the willing could be formed that bring together the private sector and civil society organizations, including armed support where needed, to invest in resilient food systems. Johan Swinnen, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute, told CFR that humanitarian operations are increasingly moving in this direction as overseas development aid declines and there’s a push for greater localization—an approach that gives decision-making power and leadership to local and national actors that are closer to the crisis, making the delivery of aid faster and more cost-effective. However, money alone does not solve access constraints, and delivery still remains contingent on security, local governance, and actors’ willingness to allow aid to reach civilian populations.

While international, consensus-based organizations such as the United Nations are critical for setting norms and providing legitimacy, they are often slow to respond, especially amid intense geopolitical competition, said Veeravalli. In those instances, “regional and minilateral institutions are able to provide that operational tempo that the larger multilateral institutions sometimes lack,” she said.

Negotiating a new global treaty. Given Resolution 2417’s lack of accountability and enforcement, some experts propose creating a new international treaty that explicitly outlaws the weaponization of food. Such an agreement could define prohibited acts and establish clearer enforcement mechanisms to address violations, helping protect food production and distribution systems during periods of conflict. However, while treaties are difficult to negotiate and ratify given states’ often competing interests, experts say every country has a vested interest in banning food weaponization—including because it poses an economic and security threat to them.

Still, efforts to create a new treaty would likely face considerable opposition, including in the United States, where the Trump administration has largely favored unilateral action and expressed skepticism toward international institutions and treaty-based frameworks. Given this, it is unlikely the Trump administration would support such a treaty. Even so, consideration of a new treaty could still help raise awareness of the risks of food weaponization, and experts say legal agreements—even if not binding—will remain important going forward.

Integrating food security into national security planning. Most governments still treat food security solely as a humanitarian issue, but experts say it should also be incorporated into defense and strategic planning. To better address the problem, it “needs to be factored into strategic assessments and national security assessments,” said Michael Werz, a senior fellow at CFR who focuses on the nexus of food security, climate change, migration, and emerging countries. 

Treating food security as a national security concern would allow countries to integrate it into their broader planning, including by safeguarding aid corridors and allocating more funding and resources through their defense budgets. Doing so, Veeravalli said, would enable states to practice “forward defense” and be more proactive in addressing food crises before they escalate.

At its core, preventing food weaponization is a matter of both will and capacity. “Looking forward, there are really no easy answers,” said CFR’s Vigersky. “Hunger continues to grow year over year, and conflict continues to be the main driver. This problem is obviously not going away. What we need, more than just funding for humanitarian programs, is the political will to do something about this.”

Recommended Resources

Three CFR experts explore how food is being weaponized in conflicts around the world—and how that weaponization is evolving, shaped by technology, globalization, and the politics of power.

For Foreign Affairs, Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation Alex de Waal unpacks how starvation is again being wielded as a weapon, fueled by the collapse of global norms.

The Munich Security Conference’s Amadée Mudie-Mantz and CFR’s Michael Werz explain the three main methods of food weaponization and how they’re manifesting in global conflicts.

The UN Security Council announces the unanimous adoption of Resolution 2417, condemning the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.

CFR’s Center for Preventive Action’s Global Conflict Tracker takes stock of major armed conflicts globally, especially in places that pose the greatest risk to U.S. interests.

Data Sources

Video of the destroyed aid convoy is from the Darfur Victims Support Organization. 

Satellite imagery is from Planet Labs PBC and Vantor. Map satellite tiles are from Earthstar Geographics, Vantor, and the GIS User Community, powered by Esri.

Attacked communities near El Fasher, Sudan, were sourced from an analysis conducted by the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab. 

Days of Gaza crossing closures are based on the volume of incoming supplies from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA). 

Shipping traffic near Yemen is from GlobalMaritimeTraffic.org. 

Food insecurity data by country is from the Global Network Against Food Crises via Humanitarian Data Exchange.

UN Resolution 2417 white notes and papers were sourced from Security Council Report.

Damaged grain facility locations in Ukraine are from an analysis [PDF] conducted by the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab and have been slightly randomized for security reasons. 

Wheat price data is from the International Grains Council. 

Wheat export data is from UN Comtrade. 

U.S. humanitarian funding data is from UN OCHA.