1: What is the Rural Women’s Assembly and what are your key areas of work?

The Rural Women Assembly is a network of movements of peasants, fisher folks, farm workers, migrant and landless women, all living and working in the rural areas in the Southern Africa region. We are in 11 countries, with a membership of close to 200,000 members. So it’s a very unique movement of rural women in the region.

Essentially, the Rural Women Assembly builds the voice of rural women and builds agency in relation to questions of access to land and water; the right to food; the right to seeds; and of course, we deal with patriarchal issues that affect women particularly in rural areas. Also central to our work is the issue of climate justice, which has a substantial impact on the region, largely due to the many cyclones that strike it repeatedly, as well as other climate-related crises.

Furthermore, we deal with cases of gender-based violence. In this regard, we develop study cycles in different countries, which are spaces that allow us to discuss on issues related to violence against women.

We are also the guardians of our seeds, because we believe that seeds are our lives, our heritage, our identity, which we don’t want to lose. We have a situation where the transnational corporations, the seed companies, want us to do away with our seeds, which we have inherited for generations and generations – and we’re resisting against that.

2: Why are you here in Geneva this week? What are your expectations?

We are here in Geneva for the 11th session of negotiation on a legally binding treaty to regulate transnational corporations (TNCs). We are here because our communities are experiencing violence from transnational corporations every day. The people in the communities are being grabbed off their land, where we do farming as women. We also have issues of climate crisis, as already said. These companies should pay for the pollution, the damages and the losses that we’re experiencing each and every year. It’s drought, it’s floods… So that is why we are here, so that we can contribute to the elaboration of a binding treaty to hold these companies accountable. Our goal is for the treaty to be out so that we are able to prevent these catastrophes.

We are here to have our voices heard, because when we’re in our countries we can issue statements, but they don’t reach the United Nations. So we are here in multiple movements and communities, and a collective voice from different countries can carry weight.

We are here as part of the Global Campaign to Reclaim Peoples’ Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity – a powerful coalition of social movements, progressive organisations and communities affected by transnational corporations – to raise the issues of the rural women in the Global South. Being here is critical for us and it’s part of our advocacy strategy as Rural Women’s Assembly. We want to invest and participate in different platforms to advocate locally, nationally, and internationally, and use these global policy-making spaces or even UN instruments to really amplify our voice.

3: How does the struggle for a strong binding treaty to regulate transnational corporations relate to the protection and implementation of peasants’ rights as outlined in the UNDROP declaration?

There is a strong connection. I was very pleased to hear about the inclusion, in Article 15.7 of the draft text of the binding treaty, of a provision on the rights of peasants and rural peoples, which received strong support from almost all countries, particularly from Colombia and Palestine. It speaks to the UNDROP that the rights of the peasants are included in this treaty. This instrument will help us to push forward the agenda of ours, which is pushing for the implementation of UNDROP in our countries. Whilst our countries, for example, South Africa, signed the declaration in 2018, we still don’t have a policy that implements UNDROP. Having this binding treaty in place will strengthen our advocacy and work back home to ensure that we hold our governments to account to implement both instruments. So, these two legal frameworks are going to be key vehicles for us to utilize in our advocacy strategies.

It is necessary to note that the violations committed by transnational corporations directly affect the very rights granted to us by UNDROP. In particular, the right to seeds, the right to land, and the right to water. Once this treaty is adopted, we will have a binding instrument to which we can refer in order to defend ourselves.

4: How do TNCs activities impact your communities?

Firstly, TNCs want to take away our seeds and impose their own industrial seeds.. These enterprises pollute our water, causing a lot of diseases. The pollution affects not only people, but also animals and crops. As a result, we suffer from illnesses we don’t even recognise – sometimes even our own countries tell us they don’t know how to treat them. These are the impacts we are facing as a result of what TNCs are doing in our communities.

Seed sovereignty is no longer a right. Seeds have been commodified by transnational corporations. They have become a source of capital accumulation at the detriment of the rural poor. Our governments ignore that our seeds are resistant when it comes to the effects of climate change. Our seeds can be planted several times. When you buy hybrid seeds, they only last for a year. If you try to plant those seeds afterwards, they won’t germinate. Our seeds, on the other hand, are resistant – we can plant them for many years. Hence, we have food security at home and in the community. Our seeds are perfect. They are not harmful. They have healing properties and a lot of nutrients. You can cook the food coming from them in different ways. Sometimes they say there’s hunger in Zambia. It’s because they are following the corporate world’s thinking. If we could think like the rural women are thinking, there would be a lot of food in Zambia. There shouldn’t be even hunger in there. So, this treaty will also help us protect our seeds and our lives.

Hybrid seeds are expensive compared to our own kept seeds because they require fertilizers and chemicals. If you plant hybrids without any fertilizer, you get nothing. So, we are also trying to promote our own indigenous seeds, despite the threats we face from our governments. With the support of our governments, TNCs steal our seeds, make them hybrid, and make us pay the price for them. We have the right to say no to what they want to offer us.

Furthermore, they’re polluting the environment and they’re telling us we shouldn’t cut our trees so that the trees can clean up the carbon. They are interested in developing the carbon credit markets. They come into our areas, they grab big portions of land. They say, we shouldn’t even go and pick the mushrooms in there; we shouldn’t go pick the caterpillars in there. They put guards, so that we can’t go get the firewood. So, we have our own land, but we don’t have control of our own land. It’s very intimidating. They sell carbon with a lot of money, but we don’t get to get anything from there.

They grab land also because they want to do their mining, meanwhile we are displaced from a land where we’ve lived for so many years. They even damage the graves that are on the land. That is very de-humansing. There’s a lot of impunity in what they’re doing.

These TNCs have destroyed our land with pollution. You have a field that you cannot use for the next 10 years because it has been damaged with unknown toxic minerals that have passed through the area. In the Zambian Copperbelt province, which is near where we stay, TNCs polluted the Kafue River, which runs across the whole country. We can’t access the water in three quarters of the land through which the Kafue River passes. We can’t eat any fish from there.

In South Africa, fisher folks have taken up our government – particularly our Department of Mineral Resource and Energy – for blasting on the oceans, for working and collaborating with the Shell company, which was looking for oil in the ocean in the eastern part of South Africa. We have a similar case in terms of Titanium that has been going on for a long time also in the eastern part of South Africa, in Mbizana, where the communities are standing up and saying, ‘we have the right to say no’.The principle of free, prior and informed consent of the concerned communities should be respected. This has been a long process of litigation and these transnational corporations must be held accountable. They need to pay. We need reparations. Through the process of resisting, lives were lost, defenders have been killed and many are being threatened as we speak.

5: How have you been mobilising the UNDROP declaration in Southern Africa in favour of rural women’s rights?

Firstly, we made sure that our members understand what this declaration stands for and therefore what are the rights that are contained in it. We went through a strong move of capacitating, educating and building awareness amongst our members on their rights and how to engage to defend them. It is a declaration adopted by the United Nations that every country must implement, so it was critical for us to make sure our communities understood their rights. Each country has an advocacy strategy, they amplify the UNDROP in their communities. We have a booklet which is featured on our website, and we carry it everywhere. In every opportunity we have in engaging the duty bearers or government officials, we use this as a tool to engage and empower communities.

For example, in South Africa, we have been running a campaign called “One Woman, One Hectare of Land”, to provide more land for women. We combine that campaign with the UNDROP, especially the right to land, the right to food sovereignty, the right to use our seeds.

As rural women across different countries, we hold food and seed festivals every year. We do that to identify what seeds were lost, what we still have, how we can make better use of each seed. We now want to make seed banks and demo fields where we can be planting these seeds, so that we can multiply them. We also develop seed sharing initiatives. We work to increase our seed stocks so that, as we resist transnational corporations, we also show the strength of what we have.

In Swaziland, for instance, we are engaging government officials in the implementation of UNDROP. We have engaged with several ministries, including the Ministry of Agriculture, but concrete results are yet to come as they have not yet prioritised the issue. We also started with translating the UNDROP to the local languages so that it is accessible to our people, to the women.

6: What is your message for Southern African states regarding their engagement in the Binding Treaty process?

What is critical in this podium is to hear the voices of the Global South, especially our African governments. We want them to stop corporate impunity. The should take action for our people, for our communities, for the poor, for our nations. In South Africa, for example, we have a great human rights constitution. South Africa has signed declarations, and has been historically committed to the UNDROP. Therefore, we demand that our voices are heard and that these instruments are implemented.

We wish more African countries were actively engaging in this Binding Treaty negotiation process. The governments should step in, find markets for our indigenous foods and promote them, and help the peasants. If we don’t have maize, there’s sorghum, there’s different types of beans, there’s cassava. We can make a meal from that. So they should put the lives of their people first rather than protecting these so-called investors that are coming into our countries just to plunder. They extract the minerals, take them away, and when they return, we are forced to buy our own resources back at a very high price.

If corporations are coming as investors in our countries, let them build schools, roads, hospitals. The government should stand up and fight for us. Stop looking at the profits, and look at the lives of our people!

La entrada Corporate impunity and seed sovereignty: Interview with the Rural Womens’ Assembly (RWA) se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Defending Peasants’ Rights hereby republishes the press release issued by the UN Working Group on Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas on 11 December 2025 (available here)

GENEVA – UN experts* today welcomed a landmark ruling of the High Court of Kenya declaring unconstitutional provisions of the Seed and Plant Varieties Act that criminalised the saving, use, exchange and sale of Indigenous and farm-saved seeds.

“This judgment rightly recognises that seed sharing is not a crime, but a fundamental element of peasants’ identity, resilience and contribution to national food systems,” said the Working Group on Peasants and other people working in rural areas.

The High Court of Kenya found that the law, which granted exclusive marketing and property rights over seeds to breeders and seed companies and exposed farmers to potential imprisonment of up to two years for seed-saving and seed-sharing, violated farmers’ rights to life, livelihood and food. The Court stressed that centuries-old practices of seed-sharing form the backbone of Kenya’s food security and cultural heritage.

“This decision is a significant affirmation that the human rights of peasants and the imperatives of food security and biodiversity must prevail over overly restrictive intellectual property regimes,” the Working Group said.

The experts noted that similar restrictive provisions, often modelled on the 1991 Act of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), have been incorporated into national laws in many countries – criminalising age-old practices in Indigenous and peasant agriculture.

“The Kenyan ruling sends a clear and timely message that human rights obligations cannot be subordinated to commercial seed monopolies or narrow interpretations of plant breeders’ rights,” the Working Group said.

The decision is consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP), in particular article 19, which recognises the right to seeds, including the right to save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seed or propagating material. The experts recalled their Briefing Paper on the Right to Seeds**, which clarifies that States must ensure that seed policies, certification schemes and intellectual property frameworks, are designed and applied in a manner that respects, protects and fulfils these rights, and that peasants-managed seed systems are legally recognised and actively supported.

“Courts play a critical role in ensuring that national laws comply with international human rights standards,” the Working Group said. “Where legislative frameworks have criminalised traditional seed systems or restricted peasants’ customary practices, judicial review offers an essential safeguard to restore the primacy of human rights and the right to food.”

The experts commended the courage and perseverance of Kenyan peasants, Indigenous Peoples and civil society actors who mobilised to secure seeds rights before the Court. “Their determination offers inspiration to peasant movements worldwide and shows that when courts uphold human rights, they defend not only the livelihoods of small-scale farmers and Indigenous Peoples but also the future of diverse, resilient and sovereign food systems,” they said.

“Kenya’s ruling should inspire similar human-rights-based interpretations of seed laws and plant variety protection regimes in other jurisdictions,” the Working Group said.

*The Working Group on Peasants and other people working in rural areas is comprised of five independent experts from all regions of the world. The Chair-Rapporteur is Carlos Duarte (Colombia), other members are Geneviève Savigny (France); Shalmali Guttal (India), Uche Ewelukwa Ofodile (Nigeria) and Davit Hakobyan (Armenia).

**Briefing paper on the right to seeds, issued by the Working Group in connection with the Eleventh Session of the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), held from 24 to 29 November 2025 , details how States can integrate UNDROP obligations under the right to seeds to safeguarding peasants’ and Indigenous Peoples’ traditional practices and biodiversity.

Special Rapporteurs/Independent Experts/Working Groups are independent human rights experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Together, these experts are referred to as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. While the UN Human Rights office acts as the secretariat for Special Procedures, the experts serve in their individual capacity and are independent from any government or organization, including OHCHR and the UN. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the UN or OHCHR.

Country-specific observations and recommendations by the UN human rights mechanisms, including the special procedures, the treaty bodies and the Universal Periodic Review, can be found on the Universal Human Rights Index https://uhri.ohchr.org/en/.

UN Human Rights, country page – Kenya

For inquiries and media requests, please contact: Jamshid GAZIYEV, Secretary of the Working Group on peasants and rural workers (jamshid.gaziyev@un.org).

For media inquiries related to other UN independent experts, please contact Maya Derouaz (maya.derouaz@un.org) or Dharisha Indraguptha (dharisha.indraguptha@un.org)

Follow news related to the UN’s independent human rights experts on X: @UN_SPExperts.

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It is part of a series marking the 70th anniversary of the 1955 Bandung Conference. A turning point in anti-colonial and South-South solidarity, Bandung’s legacy endures in today’s global struggles for justice and self-determination. Read the rest of the series here.

Good afternoon everyone. I am Shalmali Guttal. I am a member of the Working Group (WG) on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP). I am joining you from India.

UNDROP was adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in 2018. The WG for its implementation was established in April 2024.

For me, it is a double honour to be invited to speak at this commemoration event in Indonesia, whose leaders birthed and enabled the Asia-Africa Conference in Bandung in 1955, and UNDROP several decades later. There are some important parallels between the two that I would like to highlight.

It was an Indonesian leader, Ali Sastroamidjojo, who proposed a conference of leaders from newly decolonized countries in Asia and Africa, which, after a planning meeting in Bogor in December 1954, resulted in the Asia-Africa Conference in Bandung from 18-24 April 1955. The Bandung conference led to the Non-Aligned Movement, the creation of the G77, and new sensibilities of South-South solidarity and cooperation across all the regions of the Global South.

And it was an Indonesian leader, Henry Saragih, from the Federation of Indonesian Peasants, who launched discussions in the early 1990-s with social movements and civil society organisations on the importance of articulating, realizing and defending the rights of peasants. These discussions intensified in La Via Campesina (LVC) in the following years and resulted in a charter on peasant rights drafted by SPI in 2002, and then a broader declaration on peasant rights collectively drafted by other LVC member organisations, which was presented by LVC in the UN Human Rights Council in August 2008.

From 2008 onwards, SPI and LVC built alliances with and won the support of numerous other social movements, CSOs, human rights experts and UN member states from the South. After a period of intense negotiations in the UN Human Rights Council from 2013-2018, UNDROP was adopted by the HRC and UNGA in 2018.

UNDROP is regarded as a “United Nations Declaration” after having been endorsed by the United Nations, but it remains first and foremost a “peasants’ bill of rights.” It was not States who launched the process, but peasants themselves, with the support of their representative organisations. And it was not States who shaped its content, but peasants, based on their knowledge and first-hand experience of the discrimination, oppression and social exclusion they have been subject to. This is evident in the inclusion in UNDROP of food sovereignty; agroecology; regulation of markets; rights of rural women; rights to seeds and biodiversity; rights to land, water and natural resources; protection of rural and migrant workers regardless of their status; right to participation; rights to justice; and numerous other civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights.

The UNDROP WG pays tribute to all social movements who have been involved in the negotiating process of the Declaration for their resolve and clear-sightedness. The Declaration would not have seen the light of day without their unwavering commitment to the equal and effective realisation of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all individuals and groups who live and work in rural areas. In keeping with this spirit, the WG elected as our first Chair-Rapporteur, Ms. Genevieve Savigny, who is a peasant herself, and was closely involved in the negotiations that resulted in the adoption of UNDROP.

Just as the 29 independent nations represented at the Bandung Conference in 1955 constituted more than half the world’s population. UNDROP’s rights holders also constitute more than half the world’s population: they include peasants, fisherfolk, Indigenous Peoples, forest peoples, herders, nomadic rural peoples, rural and migrant workers in agricultural and food systems, rural women, and their families. Article 1 of UNDROP lays out the breadth and diversity of UNDROP’s rights holders. Rural women are highlighted as those facing persistent, intersectional discrimination and rights violations.

The ”Bandung Spirit” became—and remains to this day—a banner for the ideals of anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, peace, sovereignty, self-determination, solidarity, and South -South cooperation to build robust domestic economies based on equality, justice and dignity of all peoples.

These ideals were not dreamed up by the state leaders who participated in the Bandung conference; they emerged from and were shaped by the struggles of the peoples in Asia and Africa, who were at the forefront of struggles for liberation from colonialism and resistance to imperialism, who gave their lives for liberty. These included peasants, Indigenous Peoples, fishers, workers and working classes, intelligentsia, women from numerous classes and backgrounds, local merchants, lawyers and many more.

The heroes of the Bandung Spirit were, very regrettably, not at the Bandung conference in 1955. Women were noticeably absent even among the leaders, although so many were at the forefront of freedom struggles back home. Even more regrettably, the decades after Bandung did not bring peace, liberation from settler colonialism and self determination to everyone. In many countries, the benefits of liberation and independence were enjoyed by particular classes, castes, races, ethnicities and religions, with women usually at the end of the line.

As former colonizing powers regrouped in the subsequent decades, the Bandung spirit was undermined by political demonization and persecution, criminalization of liberation ideologies, and the weaponization of debt, trade, and other economic and financial policies that recreated global structures of colonialism, imperialism and slavery.

The Bandung ideals of Asia -African cooperation on agriculture, rural development, technology sharing, and industrialization fell off the table. National development models were subverted by neoliberalism, and the expansion of corporate power in the economy, finance and governance. Countries of the South have grouped again through BRICS and regional formations, but competition has replaced cooperation and solidarity. The ten Bandung principles have been captured and reinterpreted on the basis of geopolitical and geoeconomic interests.

Reviving the spirit of Bandung in the present context demands urgent attention to long standing priorities: agrarian reform and rights of rural working classes to land, water and territories; food sovereignty and the right to food and nutrition; stable, secure employment and workers’ rights; social protection, and secure access to essential goods and services; economic and political systems that serve and respond to the needs of vulnerable peoples, and address the structural conditions of vulnerability to prevent vicious cycles of poverty and deprivation from recurring; protecting environments, eco systems and biodiversity; tackling debt and climate change through the principles of justice and historical responsibility; dismantling structures of historical discrimination among races, genders, ethnicities; and ending settler colonialism and extractivism that continue to dispossess people.

UNDROP and other international human rights instruments are important tools in rebuilding the spirit of Bandung in the present political, economic and environmental context. As multilateralism itself is faltering under the pressures of multistakeholderism, unilateral actions by a powerful few and cynical alliances among some countries, the international human rights architecture offers people all over the world a strategic tool to rebuild peoples’ multilateralism based on justice, equality, non-discrimination, peace, dignity and self-determination. UNDROP and other human rights instruments can serve as ethical benchmarks and criteria for assessing national, regional and international laws, policies, agreements, institutions and actions

In the present context, those at the forefront of struggles for liberation from the multiple, cascading and inter-meshed crises of our times–hunger, poverty, inequality, climate change, biodiversity loss, authoritarianism, military occupation and conflicts, gender based and other social-cultural violence and injustice, and extractivism–have been working classes, peasants and small-scale food providers, workers, Indigenous Peoples, women, students, journalists, lawyers, academics, parliamentarians and civil society organisations.

Despite facing persecution from authoritarian, fascist, patriarchal and oligarchic regimes, today’s heroes–like the heroes who fought for our liberation from colonial subjugation and rule–are not abandoning the terrains of struggle. UNDROP and other human rights instruments make these heroes visible, offer ways to protect their lives and efforts, and provide a basis for reviving the spirit of Bandung.

For us in the WG, UNDROP constitutes a new starting point, a paradigm shift towards a more inclusive society that recognises and values the essential contribution of peasants and people working in rural areas in the fight against poverty, hunger, exploitation and persecution in all their forms and dimensions; to the protection of the natural environment from pollution and degradation; to the nurturing and regeneration of biodiversity crucial for sustaining life; to the economic and social progress of our societies; and to the realisation of peaceful, just and inclusive societies where everyone’s rights are equally protected.

On behalf of the UNDROP WG, I urge governments, social movements, civil society, academics, parliamentarians and all those committed to equality, justice, peace, dignity, human rights and self-determination, to join us in implementing UNDROP.

Thank you.

La entrada The Bandung Spirit and UNDROP se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

“The present Declaration also applies to indigenous peoples and local communities working on the land, transhumant, nomadic and semi-nomadic communities, and the landless engaged in the above-mentioned activities.” Article 1 §3 UNDROP

On March 13th, 2025, WAMIP held a webinar on the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP) 2026. The webinar was a complete presentation of WAMIP and of the lives of pastoralists around the globe, with presentation from representatives from : Jordan, India, Europe, Mongolia, Kenya, Uganda, Argentina, Morroco and Iran. They gave thorough analysis of the current context and crisis facing them, but also good exemples of advocacy and concrete programs on the field. You will find below all the recording of the webinar and all the materials shared by WAMIP after the webinar.

WAMIP IYRP 2026 Webinar: Recording, Insights & Additional Resources

We are pleased to share the webinar recording and presentation slides with you:
WAMIP IYRP 2026 Webinar – Watch here

Webinar Slides – Access here

Additionally, we would like to share two videos contributed by WAMIP members, highlighting the realities and experiences of pastoralist communities in different regions:
Latin America (Peru) – Watch here
South Asia (India) – Watch here

We are also grateful to Nyéléni Food Sovereignty Movement for publishing reflections from the webinar, with a special focus on pastoralist women’s leadership and resilience in honour of March as the month of Working Women’s Struggle. You can read their article here:
Voices of Pastoralist Women: Leadership and Resilience – Read here

As we move forward, we must continue to amplify Indigenous pastoralist voices in the governance of IYRP 2026. Let’s remember and renew our promise to leave no one behind through strengthening, recognising, and involving the pastoralist governance institutions to enable their participation in decision-making and policy-making processes linked to their destiny at all levels.

Here are the key calls to action raised during the webinar:

• Pastoralists as Right-holders, Not Just Stakeholders – Pastoralists must have a direct role in co-managing IYRP 2026, with pastoralist civil society organisations actively involved in its governance at all levels. We urge nation-states, with the support of FAO, to form smaller steering committees with key pastoralist right-holders and relevant stakeholders and launch a dedicated trust fund to implement actions. The governance of IYRP must acknowledge and integrate established pastoralist organisations, ensuring fair representation in decision-making, including the management of trust funds.
• Securing Land & Resource Rights – Immediate action is needed to halt land grabs, mining, and large-scale infrastructure projects that displace pastoralists. Governments must respect Indigenous land tenure, mobility rights, and access to water.
• Ensuring Connectivity & Mobility Rights – Animal trails, migration routes, seasonal pasture access, and customary governance systems (such as ICCAs) are crucial for sustainable rangeland management.
• Upholding Food Sovereignty & Trade Justice – The current global trade system prioritises profit over people. Alternative trade frameworks must safeguard small-scale food producers, ensuring fair markets and protection against agribusiness expansion.
• Empowering Women in Governance – Women pastoralists face exclusion from decision-making. Addressing structural barriers, securing land rights, and supporting their leadership in rangeland management are critical.
• Youth Engagement & Education – Young pastoralists need policies that protect their livelihoods, provide access to education, and integrate modern technology to sustain pastoralism as a viable way of life.
• A Broad Definition of Rangelands – Policies must recognise that rangelands include not just grasslands, but also forests, tundra, mountains, and post-harvest croplands.
• Global Solidarity & Coordinated Action – Pastoralists must unite with small-scale farmers and fisher movements to push for systemic change in governance, climate adaptation policies, and social protections.

We are committed to actively promoting IYRP through our networks and communications, ensuring Indigenous pastoralist communities remain at the center of global discussions on rangelands. We look forward to further collaboration with FAO, governments, and allied movements to advance these goals.

La entrada Webinar : Voices of Indigenous Pastoralists on 2026 – Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

La entrada Nyeleni Newsletter n°59 March 2025 – Waves of resistance: Fisher peoples defending food sovereignty se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

The Working Group received just over 80 contributions, 10 from States, 10 from national human rights institutions, 60 from civil society organizations and 1 from a UN entity. You can find all the contributions here.

On this page, we have compiled contributions from organizations representing rights holders, as well as from a number of other sources. These contributions are a mine of information on the realities of both the violations and the advances of the rights contained in UNDROP.

We are highlighting some of the contributions, particularly from parties who have so far been less visible in the struggles to implement UNDROP.

Crispin Hernández, Institute for Migrant Rights, and Cornell Law School Farmworker Legal Assistance Clinic

World Forum of Fisher People

Rural Women’s Assembly

Sea Nomads – Apintlaw

La Via Campesina, Cetim et Fian International

Helena Morgera, Rapporteuse Spéciale sur le changement climatique et les droits humains

Fastenaktion

• Kenyan Peasants League
• Masifundise & Coastal Links (South Africa)

La entrada Contributions to the first call for input of the UN Working Group on UNDROP se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Call to domesticate UNDROP

ESAFF-Uganda has been commited to the promotion and implementation of UNDROP for many years. Right after the adoption of the UNDROP by the UN General Assembly in December 2018, ESAFF Uganda published and dissiminated an UNDROP version with photos and titles on each rights. In 2023, they published a call to domesticate the UNDROP in Uganda. In this call, they explained the background of UNDROP, its main content and how it is linked to agroecology. They called for an urgent implementation of the peasants rights.

A podcast on the relevance of UNDROP

For International Peasants day, April 17th, this year, they have dedicated an episode of their podcast to the UNDROP. The episode is called Justifying the relevance of the UNDROP, it is an interview of Christine Nabwami, a small scale farmer and facilitator on the UNDROP. In the podcast she shares how the UNDROP is relevant to improves the lives of small-scale farmers. You can listen to the podcast HERE.

Awarness raising at the local level

Also for April 17th, 2024, members of the organization participated in a special council in Ttamu division, Mityana district. The Council was dedicated to present and discuss UNDROP, its importance and the need for its implementation. This is one example of actions the ESAFF-Uganda is undertaking to promote UNDROP at the local level. The organization aims to inform the local authorities about the rights enshrined in the UNDROP and how they should be implemented them at the local level. ESAFF-Uganda reports that, at the end of the special council, “Council members collectively agreed to adopt the UNDROP declaration and further spread awareness about the key rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas“, demonstrating how necessary the awarness raising work at the local level is, but also how very efficient it can be to advance peasants rights! You can read the full report on ESAFF-Uganda website HERE.

La entrada Empowering Rural Communities Through UNDROP – the actions of ESAFF-Uganda se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

This video was included in an article of Capire about Defending Peasants’ Rights, you can find it here. Capire is an international feminist online media that emphasize and carry the voices of feminist struggles around the world.

La entrada In defense of peasants’ rights and popular peasant feminism – Voices of Peasant Women of La Via Campesina se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

This Researche Brief is the summary of a longer publication on The Right to Seeds in Africa, you can find it on our website here.

The implementation of UNDROP represents a unique opportunity to redress the imbalance between, on the one hand, the lack of support for peasant seed systems worldwide, including in Africa; and, on the other, the massive support for commercial seed systems. This is essential for the protection of the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of peasants. It is also in the interest of all, to ensure the rights to food and food sovereignty, preserve crop biodiversity, and tackle climate change.
In 2018, the great majority of African countries voted in favour of adopting UNDROP, which is based on binding international human rights treaties. In accordance with the need to apply international instruments adopted by the UN General Assembly in good faith, and to give priority to human rights norms in international and national laws, reflected in UNDROP Articles 2.4, 15.5 and 19.8, the African Union (AU) and African states shall ensure that their regional and national laws and policies, as well as the international agreements to which they are party, do not lead to the violation but, on the contrary, to a better protection of the rights of peasants, including their right to seeds.

La entrada Reasearch Brief: The Right to Seeds in Africa se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

For the International day of Peasants’ Struggles, La Via Campesina and Defending Peasants’ Rights organized a webinar on the uses of UNDROP in peasant’s struggles since its adoption. La Via Campesina members around the world are using UNDROP in their struggles, the aim of the webinar was to present these examples to inspire others. To this end, eight peasants presented how their movements incorporate UNDROP in their struggles. You will find videos of each of these presentations below.

Zainal Arafin Fuad – SPI – Indonesia

Zainal Arafin Fuad is a member of the Indonesian peasant union Serikat Petani Indonesia. He is also a member of La Via Campesina’s International Coordinating Committee. Zainal took part in a large part of the negotiations for the Declaration. In this video, he presents the progress made in Indonesia since the adoption of UNDROP, in particular the launch of food sovereignty zones by his union.

Nury Martinez – FENSUAGRO – Colombia

Nury Martinez is a member of the Federación Nacional Sindical Unitaria Agropecuaria. In her presentation, she looks back at the process of integrating peasants as subjects of rights in the Colombian Constitution.

Jessie MacInnis – National Farmers Union of Canada – Canada

Jessie MacInnis is Youth President of the National Farmers Union of Canada. She is also a member of La Via Campesina’s youth group. In her talk, she explains a Canadian court ruling based, among other things, on UNDROP.

David Cidi Otieno – Kenyan Peasants League – Kenya

David Cidi Otieno is national convenor of the Kenyan Peasants League. In his talk, he describes, among other things, his organization’s fight to maintain Kenya’s ban on GMOs, and how UNDROP is used in this context.

Hortense Kinkodila – CNOP-Congo – Congo

Hortense Kinkodilla is a member of Coordination Nationale des Organisations Paysannes et des Producteurs Agricoles. She tells us about the initiatives taken by her organization to transmit the Declaration to the peasants of the Congo and their participation in the negotiations on the next Agricultural Orientation Law.

Ramona Dominiciou – Ecoruralis – Roumania

Ramona Dominiciou is a member of the Ecoruralis organization. She took part in the negotiations for UNDROP at the UN Human Rights Council and at European level. In her speech, she recalls the peasants struggles in several Eastern European countries: Romania, Moldavia and Ukraine. She also reviews the concerted efforts of peasants in this region at the FAO.

Pramesh Pokharel – All Nepal Peasant’s Federation – Nepal

Pramesh Pokharel is President of the All Nepal Peasant’s Federation of Nepal. He is also a member of La Via Campesina’s Youth International Coordination Committee. He tells us about the progress made for peasants’ rights in Nepal and the ongoing struggle for the approval of a law protecting peasants’ rights, obtained after three years of negotiations in committee.

Alberto Silva – Uniterre – Switzerland

Alberto Silva is a member of the farmers’ union Uniterre. He tells us about the creation of the coalition Friends of the Declaration in Switzerland and the work this coalition of organizations is doing to implement the Declaration.

La entrada Videos of our webinar : The UNDROP Alive and Kicking, Peasants’ Rights in practice – A regional perspective se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

On October 3^rd, 2022, the Kenyan Government lifted the ban on importation and cultivation of genetically modified organisms (GMO) that had been in place for ten years. The Kenyan Peasants League (KPL) reacted immediately and filled a lawsuit against that decision. They also asked the High Court for conservatory measures, which were granted on November 29th, the Court decided the ban will remain until the matter is judged in court. Those conservatory measures are a first victory for the peasants.

The Government appealed the decision, but the Court of appeal sided with the High Court and KPL and left the conservatory measures in place. In its decision, the Court cited the lack of public participation, which was one of the main arguments of KPL, argument based both on the Kenyan Constitution and on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) article 10. UNDROP is a tool largely used by KPL in this struggle, both in and out of courts.

The struggle is far from over, since a complete trial and judgment has not happened yet, but the first decisions are good signs and KPL is determined to have the Rights of Peasants recognized and protected.

Introduction

The lifting of the ban on GMOs importation and open cultivation, via a Cabinet Dispatch on 3 October 2022, was a direct attack on the peasants way of life not only in Kenya, but globally, since the struggle against forces hell-bent on dismantling the peasants managed seeds systems is been ongoing worldwide.

The ban was put in place in after a series of actions by social movements calling for a ban on GMOs due to a better scientific knowledge of the harmful impacts of GMO on both health and the environment and for the protection of the agroecological practices of the small-scale farmers¹. A specific study linking GMO to cancer was detrimental to the adoption of the ban.

To the Kenyan Peasants League (KPL), the lifting of the ban instituted 10 years prior, did not come as a surprise since the current President of Kenya William Ruto has in the past been advocating for biotechnology as a solution to the food crisis we have in Kenya. For instance, in 2008 during the All Africa Congress on Biotechnology, when he was Kenya’s Minister for Agriculture, he indicated his wishes to “see all African countries adopt an enabling policy and regulatory framework for the development and application of biotechnology²”. In 2014, this time as a Deputy President, he made the case for Africa to use biotechnology in food production to deal with hunger and poverty³ and in 2015, he announced that plans were underway to lift the ban on GMOs⁴.

So, to KPL, it was just a matter of “when” but not “if” the 2012 ban was going to be lifted. So, prior to the lifting of the ban on GMOs in Kenya, KPL had already established a Working Group on GMOs that included advocates.

In the Cabinet Dispatch that lifted the ban, the Cabinet stated that it had considered various expert and technical reports on adoption of biotechnology, including reports from the Kenya National Biosafety Authority (NBA), World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United States of America’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Upon the lifting of the ban, KPL quickly called for an emergency meeting and organized a media briefing, where it announced its intention to challenge the lifting of the ban in court.

Petition to the National Biodiversity Agency

In parallel, KPL also decided to present a petition to the NBA. A peaceful procession was organized on 12 October 2023 to present the petition to the NBA offices in Nairobi.

In the petition, KPL demanded that the NBA give access to the advisory it gave to the Cabinet and which was cited in the lifting of the ban. KPL also asked the NBA to avail the Prof Kihumbi Thairu Taskforce report⁵ commissioned right after the ban was enacted, to inform KPL whether the issues that were raised by Prof Kihumbu Thairu Taskforce had been addressed and that NBA provides evidence that there was a public consultation before lifting of the ban, as required under the article 10 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) and article 10 of the Constitution of Kenya.

On 15 of November 2013, the taskforce released a report, where it came to the conclusion that the safety of GM foods had not been conclusively demonstrated to allow for the lifting of the ban. The taskforce gave some recommendations, which included: a need to develop guidelines for testing of GMOs, the priority of safety with regard to human health and the need to develop capacity for the determination of the safety of GMOs on a case-by-case basis through the national regulator – the NBA. Fundamentally, the taskforce noted that there was a need to develop adequate infrastructure for carrying out and where necessary, replicating, long term trials by Kenyan scientists funded solely by the Kenyan government.

In their response to KPL’s petition, the NBA stated that they were not involved in the process of lifting of the ban on GMOs and that they did not have the Taskforce report since the Taskforce was appointed by the Minister of Health and that the report was only submitted to the appointing authority. To KPL, this was a serious breach of the National Biosafety Authority Act and National Biosafety Regulations that places the role of regulating GMOs on the NBA and not on the Cabinet.

First victories : conservatory orders maintening the ban

By the time KPL was filing the matter to the High Court, the NBA had not yet responded. Before the Hight Court, KPL argued that the NBA denied KPL the right to information, as stated under article 11 of the UNDROP; read together with article 35 of the Constitution of Kenya. On 27 November 2022, the High Court granted KPL conservatory orders, reinstating the ban on GMOs until 15 December 2022, when the matter was coming up for hearing. On 15 December 2022, the High Court further extended the ban up to February 2023, despite protests from the government and the NBA. This suspension of the lifting of the ban was a first victory for the peasants.

Before KPL filed the matter, senior counsel Paul Mwangi had filed an application over the lifting of the ban on GMOs before the same judge. The judge however declined to grant him conservatory orders. KPL studied the application by Paul Mwangi to establish why he could not get orders. It emerged that the senior counsel based his arguments more on science when there is not yet an complete scientific consensus. KPL therefore decided to challenge the lifting of the ban on the basis of process, the right to information and to public participation. KPL argued that the Cabinet usurped the role of NBA, who had indicated that they were not involved in the process. KPL also stated that NBA abused our right to information by failing to provide information we had sought from them adding that there was no adequate public participation. The High Court agreed with our arguments and granted KPL the conservatory orders. On 15 December 2022, all the cases were consolidated.

Meanwhile in December 2022, the Government of Kenya, through the office of the Attorney General, filed an application at the Court of Appeal seeking to reverse the order of the High Court that reinstated the ban on GMOs. In the application, the Attorney General argued that the ban would hamper government agencies from performing their responsibilities, KPL in response argued that the orders were prohibitory orders that are not to be executed, but to be abstained and therefore, there was no subject matter to be preserved and nothing to be rendered nugatory. On 31 March, the Court of Appeal decided to maintainthe orders until the judgment of the case before the Hight Court. This is another victory to the peasants.

As this proceeding was going on, the NBA made an application at the High Court for a three-judges bench to be empanelled to hear the case on GMOs. This application was also thrown out by the High Court. Against that claimed, KPL’s had argued that the NBA had not displayed issues that needed a three-judge bench to address and that could not be addressed by the current presiding judge, Lady Justice Mugure Thandi.

Meanwhile the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) had moved to the Environment and Land Court in Nyahururu over the same matter. The Government, through the Attorney General, has filed another application seeking that the ongoing cases by KPL and by LSK be joint and heard at the Environment and Land Court (ELC) in Nyahururu, Kenya. KPL has however opposed the application by the Attorney General on grounds that the ELC court had no power to handle a case on violation of the constitution, while the constitutional Court cannot hear a case on environmental pollution since its of the jurisdiction of the ELC.. They are totally separate and distinct courts and matters are not transferrable between them⁶. The High Court is yet to pronounce itself on the matter. However, KPL believes that the latest move by the Government is an indication that it has lost the arguments and is seeking friendly judges who can be manipulated.

Conclusion

Despite the victories in the corridors of justice, the KPL also views this case as a very good avenue for domesticating the UNDROP in local laws. KPL’s main arguments are premised on the UNDROP and also supported by the Constitution of Kenya. KPL submitted that lifting of the ban abused the rights of peasants enshrined in the UNDROP, especially articles 10 on the Right to Participation; article 11 Right to Information; article 12 Access to Justice; article 19 Right to Seeds and article 26 Cultural Rights and Traditional Knowledge. That this Declaration is at the centre of a high-profile case like this one is already making the UNDROP more popular both locally and regionally.,Groups have moved to the East African Court of Justice on the same matter and grounds.

While the ban is still in place, the war is far from over given the machinations by the government and the total capture of the State by powerful corporations. KPL is thanking international partners including the La Via Campesina, the GMWatch, GMOFreeFlorida, GMWatchIndia and GMFreeUSA groups for providing solidarity and materials that were very useful in our application. KPL also thanks the Thousand Currents for supporting the matter. KPL is still calling for more support as it is anticipated that the matter will continue to the Supreme Court.

Cidi Otieno,

Ag. National Convener and Policy Chief and Advisor

Kenyan Peasants League

1 Kenya: Agricultural Lobbyists Demand a Stop to GMOs. Available from:<https://africa.peacelink.org/newsfromafrica/articles/art_12714.html> [6 June 2023]

2 ISAAA Inc. Kenya Agri Minister Calls for Clear Direction for Biotech. Available from:<https://www.isaaa.org/kc/cropbiotechupdate/article/default.asp?ID=3188>. [6 June 2023].

3 EXPOGROUP. Kenya Chooses GM and Biotech, But there are Smarter Ways to Feed Africa. Available from:<https://www.expogr.com/expokenya/detail_news.php?newsid=73&pageid=2>. [6 June 2023]

4 Citizen Digital. DP William Ruto Announces Plans to Lift Ban on GMOs. Available from:<https://www.citizen.digital/news/dp-william-ruto-announces-plans-to-lift-gmos-ban-97796>. [6 June 2023]

5 In November 2012, not long after the enactement of ban, the Public Health Minister, Beth Mugo, appointed a Taskforce led by Prof. Kihumbu Thairu to review and evaluate information on the safety of GMOs. This was after an outcry by the biotech industry following the ban.

6 The Standard. State Fight to Have GMO Freeze Cases Consolidated. Available from<https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/national/article/2001474532/state-fights-to-have-gmo-freeze-cases-consolidated>. [6 June 2023].

La entrada The legal fight of the Kenyan Peasants League against the lifting of the ban on GMO in Kenya se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

This briefing was first published on the Geneva Academy website on March 6th, 2023. You can find it here.

Our new Briefing The Right to Seeds in Africa – authored by Dr Karine Peschard, Dr Christophe Golay and Lulbahri Araya – explores the implications of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) for the right to seeds in Africa.

‘For too long, peasant seed systems in Africa have been neglected and marginalized by laws, regulations and public policies geared toward the needs and interests of the corporate sector. The implementation of UNDROP represents a unique opportunity to redress this imbalance and is essential for the protection of the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of African peasants’ explains Dr Golay, Senior Research Fellow at the Geneva Academy.

‘It is also in the interest of all, to ensure the rights to food and food sovereignty, preserve crop biodiversity, and fight climate change’ he adds.

La entrada The right to seeds in Africa se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.