(Geneva, 16 September 2026) — La Via Campesina, supported by CETIM and FIAN International, is in Geneva from 12 to 19 September to participate in the 63rd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UN HRC), which is taking place from 7 September to 7 October 2026.

This 63rd session is particularly important for us, as peasants, because UN Member States will consider the renewal of the mandate of the Working Group of Experts on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas. The Working Group’s three-year mandate, established in 2023, is coming to an end in October.

It is therefore crucial that the Member States of the Human Rights Council support and vote in favour of renewing the mandate.

Why is UNDROP important to us?

UNDROP is very important to us because we fought for its adoption to protect the rights and role of peasants and other people working in rural areas. They are the people who feed populations, preserve biodiversity, protect ecosystems, and sustain local economies and cultures.

UNDROP provides an internationally recognised human rights framework that supports measures such as comprehensive agrarian reform, the protection and strengthening of traditional seed systems, and the promotion of local food production. It strengthens the legitimacy of States in adopting policies that protect peasants and support food sovereignty.

The Declaration is also an important voice for countries and communities whose economies remain largely rural.

As Elizabeth Mpofu, a peasant farmer from Zimbabwe, explains:

“Rural communities and peasants produce more than 80% of the food we consume. Not only that, we, particularly women, are the backbone of local food markets, supplying a diversity of foods that does not come from supermarkets or stores. This frees our governments to focus on other urgent social, physical and economic development needs. Through our peasant seed systems, we have created vibrant rural economies, generated employment for millions of people, and educated our children.

My story is the story of billions of rural women who play an important role in the social reproduction of labour and in fighting hunger, malnutrition, unemployment and poverty around the world.”

Our mission in Geneva

Our mission here is to keep up the advocacy work we began almost thirty years ago when we launched this process of recognizing the rights of peasants at the international level.

The LVC delegation will meet with and engage the missions of UN HRC Member States, advocating for the renewal of the mandate of the Working Group of Experts on UNDROP.

The Working Group is essential to ensuring continuity in international efforts to advance the implementation of UNDROP. It supports dialogue, cooperation and capacity-building among States, independent experts and UNDROP rights holders.

The Working Group also ensures that the realities and struggles of peasants and other people working in rural areas continue to be represented within the UN system. Its work strengthens the struggle for peoples’ food sovereignty.

Defending the Right to Seeds

While in Geneva, LVC delegates will participate in and contribute to a Side Event and a Public Conference on the Right to Seeds. These events will take place following the presentation of the UNDROP Working Group’s report on the Right to Seeds to the UN Human Rights Council today.

The Right to Seed report can be accessed here

The Right to Seeds is central to the struggle for peasant rights, food sovereignty and agroecology. Peasant seed systems, built through generations of knowledge, exchange and collective stewardship, are essential for protecting biodiversity, sustaining local food systems and strengthening the autonomy of rural communities.

For La Via Campesina, renewing the mandate of the Working Group is not simply about maintaining a UN mechanism. It is about ensuring that the voices, rights and struggles of peasants remain visible and recognised within the international human rights system.

Globalise the Struggle! Globalise Hope!

La entrada LVC Calls on the UN Human Rights Council to Renew the Mandate of the Working Group of Experts on UNDROP se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Purpose:To inform the Working Group on the rights of peasants for their visit to Paraguay

Deadline: 14 September 2026

Background

The Working Group on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas, established pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 54/9, will conduct a country visit to Paraguay from 16 to 27 November 2026, at the invitation of the Government of Paraguay.

The visit will make an independent, impartial and objective assessment of the progress made in the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas (UNDROP) in Paraguay. The Working Group will issue a detailed end of mission statement on 27 November 2026 and present a final report the UN Human Rights Council in 2027.

The Working Group invites individuals and organizations, including peasants, small-scale fishers, rural workers, civil society organizations, activists, and academics, to share information on the issues below to help prepare for the visit.

Key questions and types of input/comments sought

All submissions are welcome. The questions below are a guide, not an exhaustive list. Please answer only those most relevant to your life, work or experience.

1. What progress has Paraguay made in protecting the rights of peasants, rural communities and rural workers? Please share good practices, laws, or policies.
2. What are the main challenges to implementing UNDROP and protecting the rights of peasants and rural workers in Paraguay? What lessons learned can you share?
3. What legislative, judicial, administrative, or policy measures has Paraguay adopted, or failed to adopt, to realize the rights of peasants and rural workers as laid out in UNDROP? Are there any measures you consider progressive or regressive?
4. What are social, economic, political and environmental challenges that affect peasant communities, Indigenous peoples, and rural workers?
5. What are the main trends and actors that have influence over the livelihoods of peasants and rural workers, as well as over their access to land, water, and natural and productive resources?
6. What issues specifically affect rural women and girls?
7. What challenges do workers engaged in agriculture, aquaculture, forestry and artisanal fishers face in Paraguay?
8. Which locations, organizations, or communities should the Working Group visit to see these issues first-hand?
9. Please share any relevant reports, research, or other documents.

How inputs will be used?

The Working Group greatly appreciates the effort that goes into making such contributions and looks forward to reviewing all submissions.

Please feel free to circulate this call for inputs widely in your networks.

Confidentiality of inputs

All submissions received will be published on our website unless requested otherwise, and will inform the preparation of the country visit and the consequent report.

La entrada Call for input – Working Group on UNDROP visits Paraguay se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

La entrada The Growing Centrality of UNDROP in the International Governance of the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

La entrada New Report by the UN Working Group on UNDROP on the Right to Seeds: Defending the Commons, Resisting Corporate Control se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Artificial intelligence, controlled by the large transnational technology corporations of the Global North, reinforces capitalist power structures and shapes global agriculture. The IARAA aims to reorient this technology to serve peoples and rural communities’ needs and thereby break the corporate technological monopoly. In this way, it helps to strengthen food sovereignty and build fairer, more democratic and sustainable agricultural systems, transforming technology into a genuine lever for emancipation and social justice for the peasantry.

To better understand this initiative and inspire rural movements in different parts of the world, the Defending Peasants’ Rights platform conducted the following interview with representatives of the movements that conceived and developed this project:

1. What is IARAA and how did the initiative come about within the World March of Women and the MST?

IARAA stands for Artificial Intelligence for Agrarian Reform and Agroecology, a tool created by grassroots movements with the aim of democratising agroecological knowledge and strengthening Popular Agrarian Reform. It emerged from the Course on Artificial Intelligence for Grassroots Movements in the Global South, which took place in Shanghai in July 2025. At that time, as well as critically and technically engaging with the technologies involved in AI, activists from movements in various countries were introduced to the Chinese model of technological development. This experience led us to reflect on building the struggle for technological sovereignty in our countries, and to create tools to wage this struggle.

The Landless Workers’ Movement of Brazil (MST) and the World March of Women (MMM) were involved in developing this course and, together with the International Association for Popular Cooperation (Baobab), decided to establish the IARAA so that it could serve as a tool for the widespread adoption of agroecology, popular feminism and our perspective on technological sovereignty in Brazil.

To build the knowledge base that underpins this tool, we brought together a team of agroecology experts from the MST and the World March of Women, representing all regions of Brazil. It was these comrades who defined the conceptual, political and technical foundations that guide the IARAA’s responses. At the same time, we trained activists from the movements themselves in the more technical aspects of AI development, particularly in the RAG architectures that underpin the tool. We did not want to rely on an external technical team that did not understand the political project, but rather to train activists who understood this political commitment in all its dimensions. We have had the support of internationalist allies with more experience in developing RAG tools, and this collaboration has been fundamental.

2. How do you define the role of IARAA within the broader strategy of the popular struggle for food sovereignty?

The IARAA is not an isolated tool. It is part of a larger strategic project. It complements the various forms of struggle that seek to overcome the agribusiness model. It is a tool that aims to strengthen agroecology in local communities, understood by the movements as a strategic perspective for political action and for tackling the environmental crisis imposed by agribusiness. Sharing the body of agroecological knowledge is one of the fundamental tasks in this battle.

The ‘Semeadura’ profile is aimed at those working in the field who need quick, practical guidance. The ‘Mutirão’ profile goes further: it was developed to support technicians, community leaders and grassroots educators in organising participatory processes and grassroots training, serving as a tool to support not only production but also grassroots organisation within local communities. The ‘Quintal Produtivo’ profile, meanwhile, offers a distinct capacity to deal in depth with the concepts, theoretical discussions and political foundations of agroecology, serving as a reference for study, theoretical development and the training of activists, students and movement leaders.

By providing a repository of agroecological knowledge curated by the movements, IARAA helps ensure that everyone who uses it is better prepared for technical visits, collective work initiatives, rural schools and assemblies. It builds on what already exists and strengthens the struggle for what still needs to be achieved. IARAA also demonstrates, in practice, that grassroots movements are capable of creating their own technological tools. This is no small feat in a world where the development of artificial intelligence is concentrated in the hands of a few transnational corporations. However, it remains a very limited endeavour, mainly due to a lack of infrastructure. Overcoming this technological dependence requires a strategy for popular digital sovereignty, which must go hand in hand with the struggle for food sovereignty and energy sovereignty.

3. How does the IARAA incorporate a feminist perspective and help to tackle gender inequalities in access to technology and in the production of knowledge in the field?

Our perspective is not merely to guarantee women’s access to technology, but rather to position women as the subjects of technology. When women do not participate in the design, development and control of digital tools, these tools are unlikely to meet the demands of women’s lives. This has concrete consequences: most commercial AI systems are deeply gender-biased, fail to recognise women’s unpaid labour in the reproduction of life when considering ‘the economy’, and treat agriculture as if it were a neutral activity, without taking into account that women’s ways of practising agriculture are specific, diverse and, to a large extent, sustain life.

At IARAA, we address this on several fronts. Firstly, in the knowledge base: we have included a wide range of materials on popular feminism and feminist agroecology, so that the tool draws on these frameworks when generating its responses, rather than on the androcentric frameworks that dominate hegemonic knowledge production. Secondly, in the design of the tool: principles of popular feminism are embedded in the guidelines that steer IARAA, ensuring that it always takes into account the gendered division of labour, the need to build popular feminism, and the overcoming of patriarchy when formulating a response. Thirdly, regarding the team: we have a technical and political coordination team comprising many women, which represents an alternative approach to developing technology, drawing on different forms of knowledge, different questions and different priorities.

IARAA is designed to strengthen and raise the profile of women’s experiences in rural areas, recognising the invisible work they carry out and providing concrete support for the organisation of their struggle, whilst acknowledging them as key actors in agroecology.

4. How can IARAA make a concrete contribution to the implementation of the rights set out in the UNDROP, particularly the right to information (Art. 11), to the means of production (Art. 16), to agrarian reform (Art. 17) and to food sovereignty (Art. 15)?

UNDROP is a fundamental milestone because it recognises that peasant women and men have specific rights that the capitalist system systematically denies. IARAA positions itself as a tool to support the struggle for the realisation of these rights.

With regard to the right to information, what we see is that, unlike commercial chatbots which simplify responses and standardise practices, the IARAA is being programmed to take into account the diversity of biomes, production systems, social organisation and the material conditions of territories in its responses. The right to high-quality, politically informed, contextualised information presented in accessible language is central to the IARAA.

As for the means of production and food sovereignty, transnational corporations such as John Deere, BASF and Microsoft have made significant strides in Agriculture 4.0, implementing technological systems that capture data from hundreds of thousands of hectares via big tech firms. As a result, they are concentrating more and more power and gaining greater leverage to push ahead with their destructive agenda. The IARAA takes the opposite approach, putting advanced technology at the service of peasant families, boosting their productive capacity without creating technological dependence, and providing recommendations aligned with agroecology, grassroots organisation and the diversity of production systems.

On the subject of agrarian reform, we believe that IARAA is a tool to support the struggle and to advance the organisation and widespread adoption of agroecology. Popular Agrarian Reform is underpinned by the ability of peasant families to produce, remain and organise themselves on the land they have secured. A community that has access to high-quality, politically oriented agroecological knowledge produces more effectively, diversifies its production, reduces its dependence on external inputs and strengthens its autonomy. At the same time, the IARAA supports leaders and technical staff working in the settlements by organising training programmes, facilitating collective production planning and systematising experiences that can be shared across different territories. It also contributes to the political education of activists and students who need to grasp the theoretical foundations of the agrarian issue and agroecology in order to play an active role in the struggle.

5. What role does international cooperation, through the partnership with China, play in the project? How has this partnership been developing?

The partnership with Baobab and comrades from China was central to making IARAA a reality. Seeing the Chinese model of technological development at close quarters has provided us with much inspiration: a model in which the state directs technology to serve the people, and in which data is treated as a factor of production at the service of a collective project. We have received concrete technical support from colleagues living in a society where this debate and this development are more advanced, and who have already gained experience in developing open-source RAG tools and language models. In this sense, this has been and continues to be a fundamental partnership.

At the same time, we know that, here in Brazil, we need to develop our own tools, based on the struggles of our movements and rooted in our reality. The reality of technological dependence, low levels of industrialisation and historically insufficient investment in science and technology that characterises Brazil and much of the Global South weighs heavily on the possibility of developing projects such as IARAA. In this sense, South-South cooperation is fundamental to enabling experiments, sharing technical knowledge and jointly building projects that reflect our identity and are suited to solving our own problems.

6. How can we ensure that peasant knowledge is not diluted within the hegemonic logic of AI? And how can we scale up the use of IARAA without losing sensitivity to local realities?

The logic of large language models tends towards homogenisation and the reproduction of biases that mirror the logic of commercial agriculture. To address this, we have made several adjustments to the architecture of the IARAA system. A central element of this is the knowledge base, which consists of documents produced by movements and research institutions committed to agroecology (booklets, technical manuals, summaries of local experiences, training materials, scientific publications on agroecology, and policy documents produced by the movements themselves). As it operates on a RAG architecture, IARAA will not seek its answers on the internet or in the generic repositories that feed commercial AIs, which are rife with agribusiness biases and hegemonic thinking about agriculture.

IARAA’s knowledge base has been built with a focus on the diversity of Brazilian territories: it includes materials on different biomes, summaries of agroecological experiences from various regions of the country, and analyses covering different production systems, crops and climatic conditions. This diversity is intentional and aims to ensure that the tool has a genuine capacity to deal with specific situations, rather than merely with generic, decontextualised agriculture. Even so, there are certainly questions for which IARAA does not yet have sufficient answers in its database, and in such cases it is advised not to make things up. In such situations, the IARAA encourages users to seek information from organisations and peers in their local area. It was designed not to be the end point of a conversation, but a starting point: it encourages dialogue within the community, the exchange of knowledge between neighbours, and consultation with local leaders. Interaction with the tool should open doors to collective organisation.

One of the greatest challenges in developing the IARAA lies precisely in bringing together this entire body of knowledge in written form so that it can serve as a knowledge base for the AI, given that it is scattered across multiple repositories and, at times, exists only in oral form. The IARAA does not replace the knowledge of the people. It can amplify this knowledge and facilitate its circulation across different territories and generations, and it must be subject to a constant process of refinement by the movements in order to continue fulfilling this role.

7. How can the IARAA be integrated with the public policy on Technical Assistance and Rural Extension (ATER) aimed at peasants and smallholder farmers in Brazil, ensuring that it acts as a tool to strengthen technical assistance, rather than as a mechanism to replace human technical work in the countryside?

One of the principles of IARAA is that it is a tool to support, not to replace, ATER. The absence or precarious state of public Technical Assistance and Rural Extension (ATER) in most parts of Brazil is a reality we cannot ignore. The expansion of agroecologically-based ATER as a right is a long-standing struggle of the movements, and we believe that no technological tool will replace this work. But IARRA can play a concrete and immediate role: to be a reliable support for agroecological production right now. There are, however, limits that the tool will never be able to cross: the systemic analysis of the agroecosystem; the bond of trust built up over time between the technical advisor and the farming family; and the understanding of the territory gained by those who know it intimately in all its dimensions. IARAA is even programmed to encourage people to seek out the ATER services in their own area and to demand this right.

8. What are the challenges of translating processes of political education and class consciousness into an artificial intelligence tool?

This remains a major challenge, because our collective intelligence as movements does not exist solely in the documents we write. It exists in our interactions and in the political experiences we have with our bodies, not just with our minds. However, the technical expertise we have built up, particularly with comrades who are skilled in developing RAG architectures, has enabled us to go beyond what we initially thought possible in this regard. We have managed to embody several of our political principles in the tool’s architecture, and these are indeed rigorously taken into account in most of the responses. This was only possible because the people who developed the tool had a deep understanding of both the technology and the political project.

La entrada IARAA: Artificial intelligence at the service of the peasantry and food sovereignty in Brazil se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Engaging UNDROP’s rights holders in the next thematic report of the Working Group

Defending Peasants’ Rights continues to collaborate closely with the experts from the UN Working Group on UNDROP. In March 2026, we organised an online dialogue with the former chair of the Working Group, Carlos Duarte, gathering UNDROP’s rights holders from all over the world to provide direct input to the Working Group’s upcoming thematic report on Rural Territories on Land and Sea.

This report, due to be presented to the UN General Assembly in New York in the second term of 2026, will examine how violations related to land, water, and forests impact the dignity, stability, and livelihoods of peasants and rural workers worldwide. Inputs from rights holders and their representative movements and organisations were key to ground the report on the lived realities and struggles of peoples working in rural and water territories, who face multiple forms violations and threats as green- and blue-grabbing practices advance in a world increasingly controlled by private capital and transnational corporations.This discussion took place following the official Call for inputs released by the WG, which gathered many contributions. See them here.

The UN Working Group on UNDROP concludes its official visit to Ghana

The Working Group conducted its first official country visit since the start of its mandate, undertaking a ten-day mission to Ghana. During the visit, the experts met with a wide range of UNDROP’s rights holders, including smallholder farmers, artisanal fishers and pastoralists, as well as public authorities and varied civil society representatives. While noting important legislative and policy advances, they highlighted ongoing challenges related to land access, poverty, exclusion, environmental degradation and limited access to finance and markets.

The Working Group stressed the need for stronger implementation of existing laws and policies to ensure that Ghana’s agricultural transformation benefits rural communities and fully reflects the rights recognised in UNDROP.

Read the end of the mission statement with preliminary findings here.

Two new subcategories have been added to the website. Check them out!  

New category on UNDROP’s Rights Holders

UNDROP recognises a wide range of rural constituencies as its rights holders, which allows diverse rural groups that often face marginalisation and multiple human rights violations to use UNDROP as a legal and political tool to protect their fundamental rights at the national, regional, and international levels. This new subcategory aims not only to highlight the plurality of UNDROP’s rights holders, but also to provide guidance on the interpretation of the definition of “peasants and other people working in rural areas” contained in Article 1 of the Declaration. It includes insightful contributions from Shalmali Guttal, Chairperson of the UN Working Group on UNDROP, as well as from rights holders themselves, who participated in an online roundtable held during our 2025 public webinar.

Click here to access the new Rights Holders subcategory on Defending Peasants’ Rights

National Laws and Policies

The appropriation and mobilisation of UNDROP by rural movements and organisations have increasingly yielded important victories at the legislative and policy levels across different countries, especially in South America. This new subcategory serves to gather the main legislative and policy advancements obtained as a result of political advocacy led by rural constituencies and allies, aimed at creating or amending national legal frameworks that protect the rights of peasants, fisher peoples, nomads, and pastoralists, as well as other rights holders, in light of UNDROP’s provisions.

In recent years, we have witnessed a growing influence of UNDROP in shaping laws and policies at national level, thanks to the mobilisation of rural movements that give life to this legal instrument in their struggles. These victories not only help safeguard the rights of rural peoples, but also contribute to emerging practices that can guide future legislative and policy developments in favour of the rights of those who live and work in rural areas.

Click here to access the new National Laws and Policies subcategory on Defending Peasants’ Rights

Subscribe to our Newsletter!

Send us your proposals for publications and future collaborations!

Join us on social media to stay inspired and amplify the voices of rural struggles!

La entrada Defending Peasants’ Rights – Newsletter n°10 se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Cuba’s experience demonstrates that the principles and provisions enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) can be translated into concrete public policies, legal frameworks, and initiatives aimed at guaranteeing and promoting the rights of peasant communities. This report highlights the progress achieved and the main initiatives developed in this regard, underscoring the commitment of the State and of rights holders themselves to the promotion and protection of peasant rights.

This experience also constitutes a valuable reference for other countries and contexts. It demonstrates that, even under conditions of vulnerability resulting from an ongoing imperialist offensive, and in the face of enormous challenges caused by external economic warfare, it is possible to advance the implementation of the rights recognized in the UNDROP when there is political will, a supportive institutional framework, and the active participation and mobilization of grassroots organizations and communities.

Beyond its national particularities, the Cuban case offers lessons and inspiration for other countries seeking to strengthen their public policies and legal frameworks in support of the rights of people living and working in rural areas.

See the full report below:

La entrada Report on the Promotion and Implementation of the UNDROP in Cuba se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

In wake of the recently approved “Law For The Strengthening And Protection Of The Agro-Industrial Sector, Energy Projects, Tourism, Livestock, And Small Agricultural Producers Of Honduras” promoting and protecting agribusiness, 1000 eviction orders of peasant communities have been ordered. This law compounds on existing violence, criminalization and intimidation of many peasant groups who have been fighting for their historic right to land and food and food sovereignty including for example the massacre that occurred on 21 May, 2026 in the community of Rigores, Colon that resulted in the deaths of 20 peasants.

Defending Peasants Rights extends its solidarity with the peoples and communities of Honduras, especially the peasant, Indigenous and Afrodescendant organizations that are currently facing evictions and other attacks. We also uphold these organization’s demands for access to justice at the local, national and international levels, and we call for the rights enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas to be protected and respected.

We invite you to read the statements prepared by La Via Campesina Honduras about these recent events:

Honduras: Peasant Organizations Denounce 1,000 Eviction Orders: https://viacampesina.org/en/2026/07/honduras-peasant-organizations-denounce-1000-eviction-orders/

La Vía Campesina Honduras denounces the massacre of peasants in the community of Colón: https://viacampesina.org/en/2026/05/la-via-campesina-honduras-denounces-the-massacre-of-peasants-in-the-community-of-colon/

La entrada Peasant, Indigenous and Afrodescendant communities under attack in Honduras se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Please join us on 17 September at 1:00 pm in Room XI at Palais des Nations (Geneva) for a rich and engaging discussion bringing together perspectives from different regions on:

“Our seeds, our rights, our future : Resisting the criminalization of peasant seeds and putting peasant seed systems at the heart of food system transformation”

We warmly encourage you to share this invitation with your networks and contacts.

Looking forward to seeing you there and to a fruitful exchange!

La entrada Our seeds, our rights, our future: Resisting the Criminalization of Peasant Seeds se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

La entrada The Future of the Fisheries: a press forum for journalists and storytellers se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Issued by: Special Rapporteur on the human right to a healthy environment

Deadline: 21 August 2026

Purpose: Inform the preparation of my thematic report to the 64th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Background

Environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs) play a critical role in protecting the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment and all other human rights. Their work contributes directly to protecting ecosystems and biodiversity, advancing a safe climate, improving air quality, protecting water and watersheds, promoting healthy and sustainable produced food, and achieving non-toxic environments. Environmental human rights defenders’ work is fundamental for the advancement of the procedural elements of the right to a healthy environment; access to information, public participation, and access to justice. These are recognised human rights and fundamental pillars of the rule of law, democratic governance and peaceful societies.

The role of EHRDs is especially vital today, as humanity faces the triple planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and toxic pollution, aggravated by systemic inequalities and discrimination. Around the world, EHRDs are actively identifying and implementing alternative viable solutions to the triple planetary crises, with solutions that span from protecting fragile ecosystems on land and in the ocean- to advancing renewable and sustainable energy. This helps in achieving accountability while supporting States to fulfill their obligations. Whilst there has been an increased recognition of the crucial role of EHRDs by institutions, overall, the risks, violence and repression these defenders keep facing are increasing in all regions. These risks are reflected by the closing of civic spaces, stigmatization, harassment, surveillance, strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs), criminalization, threats, attacks, and even assassinations and forced disappearances.

People and groups in marginalized situations, including Indigenous Peoples, peasants, coastal and fisher peoples, people of African descent, women and girls, children and youth, older persons, LGTBQ+ and people living in highly polluted areas are especially in vulnerable situations. EHRDs on the ground face higher risks, aggravated by conflict, war, and illegal economies, while increased risks for journalists, lawyers, and even scientists working for a healthy environment, have also been documented .

To further understand the situation that EHRDs are facing around the world, and to find effective measures for their protection is urgent and important per se but also for solving the triple planetary crises. Understanding the situation requires considering differentiated impacts that EHRDs are facing by region, sector, gender, age, among others, towards the protection of their rights, and for effectively implementing the right to a healthy environment.

Objectives

In this report, the Special Rapporteur examines the situation of environmental human rights defenders, working in the context of the triple planetary crises, focusing on how violations against them also affect the realization of the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. The report will outline the obligations of States and non-State actors, under international law and human rights law, to protect EHRDs, as well as States’ duty to protect the environment and the climate system, preventing further harms. In doing so, the Special Rapporteur aims to contribute to the understanding of the situation of EHRDs from an individual and a collective perspective, acknowledging that while many of EHRDs are leading and implementing individual actions, these are commonly part of broader community or collective efforts.

The Special Rapporteur will provide concrete recommendations to States and other stakeholders to ensure the protection of environmental human rights defenders and the effective implementation of the right to a healthy environment, including in relation to collective measures from an intersectional approach.

Key questions and types of input/comments sought

Key Information and Contributions for the Report

The Special Rapporteur invites submissions from States, civil society, Indigenous Peoples, people of African descent, peasants, children and youth, small scale fisheries, academics, businesses and others on the following:

1. Regarding the situation of Environmental Human Rights Defenders

Please contribute with information describing:

• Specific risks faced by environmental human rights defenders, including Indigenous Peoples, women and girls, children and youth, peasants, coastal communities, rural communities, journalists, lawyers, scientists, LGTBQ+, and people living in highly polluted areas, among others. Please describe impacts of these risks and attacks on their communities, collectives, work, and environmental protection outcomes, as well as specific considerations applicable to regions or sectors that might be relevant.
• The use of legal measures to restrict, limit or obstacle the work of EHRDs, including impacting the civic space, use of SLAPPs, the use of criminal law, or other mechanisms to create a ‘chilling effect’.
• Kinds of impacts, including psychosocial impacts of threats, violence, and repression on environmental human rights defenders. Please detail the ways in which these attacks may generate or exacerbate internal conflicts within communities, organizations, and social movements.
• Factors that might be contributing to the worsening situation of environmental human rights defenders.

2. Policies, legislation and other existing measures of State and non-State actors for the protection of EHRDs

Please contribute with information related with :

• Policies, regulations and practices adopted by States, businesses and/or financial institutions to identify, mitigate, mitigate, prevent, prosecute and remedy for risks and impacts on EHRDs, including in the context of high-risk sectors such as extractive industries, agribusiness, energy, and infrastructure, as well as information on barriers to accountability and access to justice. Please mention whether mechanisms consider individual and collective protection and include examples of the implementation of these;
• Examples of actions taken by non-State actors to ensure meaningful engagement with affected or potentially affected EHRDs as individuals, collectives and communities, including Indigenous Peoples and other groups in vulnerable situations, and measures to avoid contributing to threats, reprisals, or conflicts. Include information of how these actions have succeeded or failed, and redress processes, established by non-State actors that are relevant to the protection of EHRDs, including their accessibility, effectiveness, implementation in practice.
• Grievance mechanisms, and redress processes, established by non-State actors that are relevant to the protection of EHRDs, including their accessibility, effectiveness and implementation in practice.

3. Other effective measures for protecting Environmental Human Rights Defenders

Please provide information regarding:

• Concrete examples of effective measures beyond legal frameworks or policies, to ensure a safe and enabling environment for environmental human rights defenders, including measures for individual, collective and/or communities’ protection.
• Explanation if these measures consider an intersectional approach and how it is implemented, as well as the process to conceive, plan and implement such measures.
• Examples of structural measures for the effective protection of EHRDs ensuring a safe and enabling environment for the implementation of their work.

How inputs will be used?

We appreciate your efforts to submit your valuable inputs for this report, and your collaboration and support for the implementation of this mandate. If there is information that you have previously sent to other special procedures or human rights mechanisms that may be relevant, we urge you to flag these to avoid duplication and more effectively coordinate. 

Please email your responses in Word format (subject: Planning and the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment to hrc-sr-environment@un.org. Unless specifically requested otherwise and provided they are in line with UN norms and standards, submissions may be posted on the Special Rapporteur’s homepage at the OHCHR website and may be referenced in the reports. In view of consent and privacy issues, contributions containing names of alleged victims will be considered but not published online.

For additional information on the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the human right to a healthy environment | OHCHR.

La entrada Call for Input: Environmental human rights defenders and the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

*Image: El mundo campesino. Elena Rusca

By Elena Rusca, June 25th, 2026

Interview with Geneviève Savigny, a member of the UN Working Group on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP)

Geneva, June 25th, 2026 — Elena Rusca

As food, climate, and geopolitical crises intensify, small-scale farmers—who feed the majority of humanity—remain among those most vulnerable to poverty, dispossession, and violence. Since 2018, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP) has provided an unprecedented framework for protecting their collective rights, their seeds, their lands, and their knowledge. But its implementation remains fragile. Geneviève Savigny, a member of the Working Group on the UNDROP, analyzes the agricultural, seed-related, and political challenges facing the world’s rural areas today—from West Africa to Latin America.

UNDROP: A Historic Text Born of Peasants’ Struggles

Adopted in 2018 by the United Nations General Assembly, the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas is one of the most ambitious instruments of the international system. The result of nearly twenty years of mobilization led by La Vía Campesina, it seeks to protect those who produce most of the world’s food but who remain the most vulnerable to poverty, expropriation, violence, and political marginalization.

UNDROP recognizes rights that are rarely explicitly stated in other international texts:

• the right to land,
• the right to seeds,
• the right to water,
• protection against evictions,
• participation in decision-making,
• collective and customary rights,
• and the recognition of peasant knowledge.

To ensure its implementation, the Human Rights Council established a Working Group in 2023 composed of five independent experts. Geneviève Savigny, a farmer and former member of the Peasants’ Confederation and La Vía Campesina, is a member of the group.

An international working group to defend the rights of peasants

— How was your working group formed?

G. Savigny: “The working group was formed by the Human Rights Council after a resolution was adopted in the fall of 2023. We were selected during the winter, and there are five of us. Personally, I am a farmer and a former member of the Peasants’ Confederation and La Vía Campesina. The others are Carlos, an anthropologist and professor in Colombia; David, a law professor in Armenia; Shalmalee, former director of the NGO Focus on Global South; and Uche, a Nigerian law professor working in the United States.”

— How do you work, specifically?

G. Savigny: “Our group holds two annual five-day in-person sessions, usually one in Geneva and another in New York. This year, we decided to replace the second session with country visits. We just completed a visit to Ghana, and another is scheduled for November in Paraguay. Each time, two members of the group go, along with our staff.”

— What do you do during these visits?

G. Savigny: “We meet with representatives from various ministries related to agriculture and food, and then with representatives of farmers, fishermen, herders, and rural women. In Ghana, the meetings had to be arranged through the government or local authorities so we could meet with village chiefs. The goal is to understand how farmers’ rights are being implemented, what the strengths are, and what can be improved. We then draft a report that will be presented in the fall.”

Participation: An Essential Right, Yet Difficult to Exercise

— You published a report on the right to participation. What were your conclusions?

G. Savigny: “Participation is truly indispensable for ensuring that the situation of rural men and women is taken into account and addressed appropriately. But there is still much to be done, including for practical reasons: translation, distance, and the difficulties of traveling to centers of power.

As for women, there is a particular challenge in freeing themselves from domestic chores and daily work in order to participate in decisions that affect them. This adds an extra layer of difficulty in a rural world where work is very demanding and often isolating.”

Seeds: A Crucial Challenge in the Face of Multinationals

— This year you are working on the right to seeds. Why is this so important?

G. Savigny: “Article 19 of the UNDROP specifies that farmers must have the right to maintain farmer-based seed systems: to save, reproduce, exchange, and sell seeds. The state must also support the existence of this system. This is not always the case, as there is a very dynamic, even aggressive commercial system in place, depending on how you look at it.”

— Do GMOs play a role in this issue?

G. Savigny: “Yes, of course. With technological advances, we now have much easier and faster ways to create GMOs. To facilitate their distribution and commercialization, seed companies no longer want them to be called GMOs, but rather NGT—New Genomic Techniques. They want it to be recognized that these traits could occur naturally, so there would be no need to label them.

But there are patents filed on them! And there is a fear that patented traits—which are not labeled—might appear naturally in farmers’ plants that they have been selecting for years.”

— What does this mean for farmers?

G. Savigny: “The patent on the CRISPR-Cas system, for example, belongs to a single company. There is an ever-increasing concentration of rights that determine whether or not seeds can be multiplied. In response to this, many seed laws impose strict rules for the certification and commercialization of seeds, which contradicts farmers’ right to seeds.

Farmers must assert this right, and governments must realize that—even for the sake of biodiversity and plant resilience—the small-scale breeding carried out by local farmers must not be halted. There is an entire system that must be preserved if we want to maintain significant biodiversity and crop diversity.”

Land and Territory: Collective Rights Yet to Be Recognized

— They are also working on the issue of land. What is the main challenge?

G. Savigny: “We’re working on Article 17 of the declaration, which addresses the rights to land and territory. Interestingly, UNDROP highlights the importance of collective and customary rights. This is important because that’s where the problem lies in many places: since there are no clear property titles, the situation becomes informal.”

— And in Switzerland, how do you view access to land?

G. Savigny: “I believe the right to land serves to illuminate new paths. Secure access to land is needed, not necessarily ownership. I hope that in Switzerland we can develop leasing arrangements or forms of collective ownership that provide security for those who cultivate the land.

There’s a major problem: an entire generation is reaching the end of their working lives with meager pensions and few resources. Sometimes they don’t want to pass the land on to younger people. It’s a widespread social problem. If we want high-quality food production, we must also solve the problem of access to land.

Buying land is prohibitively expensive. And we have to be careful because in some countries, even in Europe, it’s corporations that are buying up the land.”

Latin America: A “Peasantization” Under Attack but Essential

— For our Chilean readers, what is your perspective on “peasantization” in Latin America?

G. Savigny: “In Latin America, I believe ‘peasantization’ is essential. Together with indigenous peoples, they form the core of an agricultural sector that is, at the same time, under intense attack from the rise of highly intensive industrial agriculture.

This is reinforced by free trade agreements aimed at increasing exports of products and raw materials. What the farmers there say is that this does not serve to protect them.

It’s a region I don’t know perfectly well, but it seems so rich and diverse. From a cultural standpoint, it is rural and indigenous. In Latin America, artisanal production methods remain very important. Food quality also comes from being able to eat fresh vegetables everywhere.”

— Is it also a struggle against transnational corporations?

G. Savigny: “Of course. Small farmers must be supported; transnational corporations must be held in check, because they have a natural tendency—I think it’s even their business model—to expand, consolidate, and maximize profits. But there must be limits, because otherwise, it’s destructive both environmentally and socially.”

The UN’s “special procedures”: explaining the mandate

— Can you explain what the special procedures are?

G. Savigny: “Working groups are part of the special procedures, as are special rapporteurs. They focus on a particular aspect of human rights, such as the right to food or the right to water. We are a working group: instead of a single special rapporteur, there are five of us, which reflects the diversity and breadth of the issue.

Our role is to implement the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, the UNDROP. It is a text adopted in 2018 by the UN General Assembly that comprises twenty-eight articles summarizing the rights necessary for peasant activities.

It defines what constitutes a peasant, the obligations of States, non-discrimination, women’s rights, the right to resources, the right to participation, to information, to education, and so on—all detailed in a manner tailored to the rural context.”

The Working Group will present its reports on land and seeds this coming September in Geneva. These documents, which will be submitted to the UN General Assembly, should shed crucial light on the issue.

La entrada Without land, without seeds, there is no future for farmers se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.