(ANSA) - Milan, July 28 - Milan should become the world's capital of right to food and a legal reference point for food rights after it hosts the food-themed Expo 2015 world's fair, according to the former president of the city's tribunal, Livia Pomodoro.
    Pomodoro launched her proposal while chairing a meeting of the Milan Center for Food Law and Policy, an association created in February 2014 by Expo SpA, the city of Milan, the Lombardy region and the Milan chamber of commerce.
    The mission of the center is to gather and organize legal material and best practices in the food sector, as well as tracing a global map of the right to food.
    Pomodoro said law is key to universal healthy and sustainable nutrition.
    "There's no food without rights," she told an Expo press conference to present the center's work.
    "Processes along the entire food chain must be spelled out by the letter of the law," the former judge also noted.
    "Today more than ever, the law can take a leading role as part of a new international awareness of the dramatic scourge of world hunger".
    The objective of the Milan Center for Food Law and Policy is to outline joint basic rules at an international level - a battle that starts in Milan during Expo and will continue after it ends, Pomodoro said.
    "The Center aims to become a coordination platform for research on the theme of nutrition through the creation of a worldwide network of information and documentation to make the words of the law available to policymakers and institutions," she said.
    The movement for the right to food begins in Milan, Pomodoro said.
    The "platform for the future" represented at Expo by the Milan Charter has kicked off a process of responsible reflection on food access involving institutions, enterprises and citizens.
    The Milan Charter on right to food, which is to be the legacy of the world's fair, "will be submitted on September 26 to the United Nations," Agriculture Minister Maurizio Martina said.
    "We're working on a dedicated event to coincide with the UN debate to define the objectives for the millennium," the minister said at the Expo launch of the Milan Center for Food Law and Policy. The Milan Charter commits individuals, associations and companies that sign it to take responsibility with respect to their activities, and requests governments and international institutions to adopt rules and policies that ensure a fairer and more sustainable future for the planet.
    It has gathered more than 500,000 signatures so far.
    "We will show that, like other initiatives generated by Expo, (the Charter) will have a future beyond October 31, that it can continue with its legacy to ideally define the juridical context," Martina added.
    Environment Minister Gian Luca Galletti said that 2015 represents a "cultural turning point on the themes of nutrition and climate change, which are closely connected".