<p>The persistence of hunger in a world characterised by unprecedented levels of food production and technological capacity reveals profound structural contradictions at the heart of contemporary food systems, despite abundant international commitments and legal frameworks. Current approaches fragment the right to food into isolated, individualised, and state-centred interpretations, remaining largely reactive rather than structural, while ignoring power asymmetries, food commodification, and the erosion of territorial and cultural rights that perpetuate systemic inequalities. This research develops a normative theory of food systems that integrates philosophical principles, material dignity, structural justice, material equality, non-domination, participatory governance, food sovereignty, territoriality, and culture, with legal foundations, including the fourfold interpretation of the right to food. Employing doctrinal, comparative, and critical legal methods, it conceptualises food systems as normative politico-legal structures governed by values, institutions, and power relations, articulating expanded state obligations: structural design, distributive regulation, participation, and ecological management.​ The theory contributes a coherent iusphilosophical framework that transforms the right to food from an abstract subjective right into a structural organising principle of governance, providing legitimacy criteria for policies, constitutional reforms, and institutional evaluations. Ultimately, it redefines food system legitimacy as spaces of material justice, laying foundations for future empirical and comparative research in food governance.​</p>