Brazil: National Council for Human Rights adopts key regulation to advance the implementation of UNDROP

Lara Estevão Lourenço: National Human Rights Councilor and community lawyer for the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT – La Via Campesina Brazil)
Letícia Souza: National Human Rights Councilor and community lawyer for the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST – La Via Campesina Brazil)

On June 5, 2025, the National Human Rights Council (CNDH), after being prompted by Brazilian peasant organizations from La Via Campesina, published the Recommendation No. 5/2025, which “Recommends the adoption of the necessary measures for the observance, publicization, and compliance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants by the Brazilian State.” This document constitutes an extremely important normative and political milestone for the realization of peasant rights in Brazil, insofar as it explicitly recognizes the centrality of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) as an indispensable parameter for the Brazilian State’s actions. This normative advance also constitutes a good practice in the promotion and implementation of UNDROP at the national level, which can—and should—inspire peasant organizations and public authorities in other countries.

To understand the relevance of this Recommendation, it is important to recall the context in which the Declaration was approved in 2018, when Brazil was under a far-right government and, due to its foreign and domestic policy, abstained from voting in favor of the text. The consequences of this stance resulted in the Declaration not being incorporated into Brazil’s domestic policies, hindering its implementation.

In this regard, the CNDH, as an autonomous institution with a legal duty to promote and defend human rights in Brazil, and through its permanent commission on “the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Quilombolas, Traditional Peoples and Communities, Populations Affected by Large-Scale Enterprises, and Rural Workers Involved in Land Conflicts,” recommended a series of measures to be taken by the Brazilian state, in its three branches of government, to fill this gap and implement policies to protect the rights of peasant communities and other rural workers, in accordance with the Declaration. Among these measures, it was recommended that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil convey to the United Nations Secretary-General Brazil’s support for UNDROP.

In issuing the recommendation, the CNDH anchored itself in the context of human rights policy in Brazil and in the consistent complaints received, which reveal a longstanding pattern of invisibilization and vulnerability of rural populations. In fact, the aforementioned Commission receives nearly half of all human rights violation complaints submitted to the entire Council, underscoring the importance of the Brazilian State adopting effective measures to promote and implement UNDROP and the human rights of rural peoples.

By affirming the need for observance, dissemination, and implementation of UNDROP, the CNDH seeks to contribute to bridging the gap between the international commitments assumed by Brazil in the field of human rights and their effective domestic implementation. This instrument underscores that peasants’ rights are not limited to sectoral or welfare policies but are an integral part of fundamental human rights, encompassing civil, political, economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights.

Moreover, the Recommendation explicitly highlights the structural link between the denial of rights in rural areas and the persistence of violence in the countryside, land conflicts, slave labor, and the criminalization of human rights defenders. By acknowledging Brazil’s repeated convictions by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in cases involving rural violence, the document reinforces the State’s duty to prevent such violations, hold perpetrators accountable, and provide full reparations to victims and their families, including in situations where abuses are committed by private actors with the acquiescence or omission of public authorities.

Another central aspect is the recognition of the role of peasants in ensuring food sovereignty and security, preserving biodiversity, and addressing the climate crisis. The Recommendation recognizes that agroecological practices and the traditional knowledge of rural peoples are fundamental to the construction of socially and environmentally sustainable development models, breaking with the logic of intensive exploitation of land and natural resources that has historically produced inequalities and rights violations.

The CNDH Recommendation also has institutional relevance in proposing concrete measures for the implementation of UNDROP, such as the creation of an inter-institutional Working Group, coordination between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches, and the active participation of organized civil society. These guidelines reinforce the notion that the realization of peasant rights requires state policies, with mechanisms for monitoring, evaluation, and social participation, rather than isolated or discontinuous actions.

Finally, by providing guidance to justice system bodies, such as the National Council of Justice, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and Public Defender’s Offices, the Recommendation strengthens the incorporation of the human rights perspective of peasant men and women into judicial and administrative decisions, contributing to greater access to justice and the eradication of impunity for crimes committed in rural areas. In this regard, the document reaffirms that Brazilian democracy and social justice necessarily depend on recognizing the dignity, autonomy, and territorial rights of rural populations. It is also important to note that the CNDH has been receiving responses from institutions reporting the incorporation of the Declaration into their legal and guiding frameworks. Notable examples include publications by the Court of Justice of Sergipe, the Court of Justice of Paraná, the Federal Court of Bahia, and the Regional Federal Court of the 5th Region.

Recommendation No. 05/2025 of the CNDH represents a strategic instrument for the realization of the rights of rural peoples in Brazil, by aligning the legal system and national public policies with the highest international human rights standards, promoting social justice, combating violence in rural areas, and strengthening democracy, with the direct participation of rural social movements.