When the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was drafted, childhood obesity was not at the forefront of the delegates’ minds. Indeed, child hunger and communicable diseases were the foremost concerns of the drafters of the provisions on the right to health and nutrition. However, in the years since, childhood obesity and its causal factors, such as unhealthy food, have become matters of deep concern.

The aim of this chapter is to establish a thorough account of states’ obligations in connection with unhealthy food marketing to children through interpreting the provisions of the CRC and evaluating guidance from the CRC Committee as well as other UN bodies. The scope of the rights and obligations under the CRC, in tandem with other UN human rights treaties, are interpreted from a children’s rights perspective. States’ obligations under the rights to health, nutrition, freedom from exploitation, play, information and privacy are studied in detail, given that Chapter 2 identified these rights as closely connected to HFSS marketing.

Firstly, it is argued that states have obligations to pursue public health measures and protect children from threats to their health by fostering an environment that enables the highest standard of attainable health. Secondly, the right to nutrition is analysed with a particular emphasis on the obligations to profile food, enable empowerment and protect the right to culturally adequate food. Thirdly, the rights to privacy and freedom from exploitation are presented as corollary rights that intensify states’ duties to protect children from harm. Finally, children’s participatory rights to play and information are reviewed in search of a coherent interpretation of the CRC.

The text of the treaty obligates states to take public health measures, which are formulated broadly, allowing modern health concerns to fall within their scope. Furthermore, expert human rights bodies have repeatedly called on states to regulate food marketing to protect children’s rights under the CRC. In this manner, the CRC has shown itself to be sufficiently adaptable to embrace emerging health concerns. As the CRC Committee states, the CRC is ‘a living instrument, whose interpretation develops over time’. However, as will be discussed, the CRC Committee struggles to provide specific, targeted recommendations that can be acted on by states parties.