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Vol. 1 No. 1 (2026)

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Organised Famine: Conflict-Induced Food Insecurity, State Agency, and the Failure of Accountability in South Sudan and Yemen

Abraham Kuol Nyuon Ph D
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19551947
Published: April 13, 2026

Abstract

This article develops organised famine as an analytical lens for understanding how famine in conflict is politically organised rather than simply environmentally triggered. Rather than treating the topic as a descriptive case note, the manuscript positions the political economy of famine: state agency, conflict-induced food insecurity, and international humanitarian law in south sudan and yemen within wider debates on African political order, state formation, and institutional design. The paper is anchored in South Sudan and Yemen, with historical comparison to Biafra and Ethiopia, and it uses the topic brief's theoretical architecture to ask three linked questions: through what specific military, administrative, and economic mechanisms did parties to the south sudan conflict deploy food insecurity as a weapon of war and what is the evidence standard required for ihl accountability? How does the political economy of humanitarian response donor interests, access negotiations, aid diversion interact with state-level decisions to sustain famine conditions? What accountability mechanisms exist under international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute for the crime of starvation, and why have they systematically failed in the South Sudan and Yemen contexts? Methodologically, the article translates the proposed design into a publication-ready strategy built around epidemiological analysis of ipc food security data 2013–2023; conflict event analysis (acled) mapped against food security deterioration; legal analysis of rome statute article 8(2)(b)(xxv) and customary ihl; interviews with humanitarian actors; comparison with biafra (1967–70) and ethiopian famines.. It argues that the central analytical payoff lies not only in better explanation of the South Sudanese or regional c

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Abraham Kuol Nyuon, Ph D (2026). Organised Famine: Conflict-Induced Food Insecurity, State Agency, and the Failure of Accountability in South Sudan and Yemen. Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Transitional Justice in Africa, Vol. 1 No. 1 (2026). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19551947
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Keywords

FamineSouth Sudanstarvation as weaponIHLaccountabilitypolitical economy of foodRome Statute

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Vol. 1 No. 1 (2026)
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