Collective Rights in the UNDROP

This briefing notes was originally published on Fian’s website, on March 29, 2018. You can find it here.

This note was written as inputs for the negotiations of the UNDROP and published before its adoption in December 2018. Nonetheless, it is still very pertinent to this day, firstly because it discuss a version of the UNDROP very closed to the final one. Then, because its subject – collective rights – was one of the most discussed during the negotiations and is still invoked to criticize the UNDROP. Collective rights were a cornerstone demand of the peasants and workers all along the negotiations, it’s a victory to have them recognize in the Declaration. This note participate to their dissemination, defense and implementation.

Peasants, indigenous people, fisherfolk and nomads have long claimed that recognizing human rights exclusively as individual rights disregards the essential role that community relationships play in the management and use of communal resources, the protection of community members’ rights, as well as the preservation of the individual’s subjectivity and identity.

Fian international

This set of documents addresses the following issues: States’ obligations, the right to sovereignty over natural resources, development and food sovereignty, the right to land and other natural resources, the right to seeds and biological diversity, the rights of rural women, access to justice, the right to a decent income and livelihood, and the right to water.