"The Geneva Convention in 1977 adopted two protocols for a specific prohibition on starvation.

The ban on starvation on the civilian population

contained in Article 54 of the First Additional Protocol

begins as follows:

1 Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited.

2 It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render

useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population

such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops,

livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works,

for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population

or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians,

to cause them to move away or for any other motive.

Alex de Waal – Mass starvation – The history and future of famine