Michael Fakhri

Michael Fakhri took up his post as UN Special Rapporteur in May 2020, just as a global pandemic turned into a hunger crisis and three months before wildfires ripped through his home state of Oregon, US. ‘We didn’t see the sun for six days,’ he recalls.

Between evacuations and juggling childcare during lockdown, the Canadian-Lebanese law professor has worked to root himself in peoples’ movements – talking to growers, labourers, and shopkeepers – while articulating a plan for how to reform the international trade regime to ensure access to food for all.

Fakhri is warm and effusive and wears his badge of UN food expert carefully. ‘I’m trying to hold myself accountable,’ he says. ‘For me, change doesn’t come from a good idea and having all