1. Peasants and other people living in rural areas have the right to land, individually and/or collectively, in accordance with article 28 of the present Declaration, including the right to have access to, sustainably use and manage land and the water bodies, coastal seas, fisheries, pastures and forests therein, to achieve an adequate standard of living, to have a place to live in security, peace and dignity and to develop their cultures.
2. States shall take appropriate measures to remove and prohibit all forms of discrimination relating to the right to land, including those resulting from change of marital status, lack of legal capacity or lack of access to economic resources.
3. States shall take appropriate measures to provide legal recognition for land tenure rights, including customary land tenure rights not currently protected by law, recognizing the existence of different models and systems. States shall protect legitimate tenure and ensure that peasants and other people working in rural areas are not arbitrarily or unlawfully evicted and that their rights are not otherwise extinguished or infringed. States shall recognize and protect the natural commons and their related systems of collective use and management.
4. Peasants and other people working in rural areas have the right to be protected against arbitrary and unlawful displacement from their land or place of habitual residence, or from other natural resources used in their activities and necessary for
the enjoyment of adequate living conditions. States shall incorporate protections against displacement into domestic legislation that are consistent with international human rights and humanitarian law. States shall prohibit arbitrary and unlawful forced eviction, the destruction of agricultural areas and the confiscation or expropriation of land and other natural resources, including as a punitive measure or as a means or method of war.
5. Peasants and other people working in rural areas who have been arbitrarily or unlawfully deprived of their lands have the right, individually and/or collectively, in association with others or as a community, to return to their land of which they were arbitrarily or unlawfully deprived, including in cases of natural disasters and/or armed conflict, and to have restored their access to the natural resources used in their activities and necessary for the enjoyment of adequate living conditions, whenever possible, or to receive just, fair and lawful compensation when their return is not possible.
6. Where appropriate, States shall take appropriate measures to carry out agrarian reforms in order to facilitate the broad and equitable access to land and other natural resources necessary to ensure that peasants and other people working in rural areas enjoy adequate living conditions, and to limit excessive concentration and control of land, taking into account its social function. Landless peasants, young people, small – scale fishers and other rural workers should be given priority in the allocation of public lands, fisheries and forests.
7. States shall take measures aimed at the conservation and sustainable use of land and other natural resources used in their production, including through agroecology, and ensure the conditions for the regeneration of biological and other natural capacities and cycles.
Editor’s note: The United Nations Working Group on UNDROP has opened a call for inputs inviting civil society, states, and multilateral institutions to directly contribute to its next report on Peasant Territorialities of Sea and Land, which will be delivered to the UN General Assembly in the fall of 2026. This is a key opportunity…
Interview conducted by Defending Peasants’ Rights in October 2025, on the occasion of the 11th session of negotiations for a UN legally binding treaty to regulate transnational corporations, held at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Interviewees: Lungisa Huna – RWA South Africa; Grace Tepula and Precious Shonga – RWA Zambia; Zakithi Sibandze – RWA…
Photo: MST (Brazil) This article draws on the example of Brazil to illustrate the synergies and complementarities between agroecology and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP). What do we actually mean by agroecology? In summary, one could say that agroecology is a life project:…
In a groundbreaking decision issued on April 16, 2024 (Ruling No. T-123/24), the Colombian Constitutional Court granted protection to an elderly peasant couple forced to leave their land after repeated flooding. This ruling marks a turning point in how Colombian jurisprudence addresses internal displacement linked to natural disasters. To do so, the Court relied on…
This article was first published on La Via Campesina’s website on April 25th, 2025. You can find it here. The Movement for Land and Agriculture Reform (MONLAR), representing over 5,000 peasant workers in Sri Lanka, recently made a submission to the government listing out several instances of the violation of the UN Declaration on the…
We are publishing here a chapter of the book The United Nations’ Declaration on Peasants’ Rights, edited by Mariagrazia Alabrese, Adriana Bessa, Margherita Brunori, and Pier Filippo Giuggioli. This book was published by Routledge in 2022. The chapter is entitled The Right to Land, written by Lorenzo Cotula, who is principal researcher and head of…
This publication is a selected chapter of The Oxford Handbook of Land Politics, edited by Saturnino M. Borras Jr. and Jennifer C. Franco. This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. Defending Peasants Rights is thankfull for the authors giving access to their work. Abstract This chapter…
La Via Campesina and CETIM have organized a training course for La Via Campesina members in August 2023, and are now making training materials available to all. This material is also available in PDF version here. Session 2 of the UNDROP training seminar aims to provide a general overview and analysis of the key rights…
This publication is available in CETIM’s website. The recognition of the right to land, a historic demand by peasant movements throughout the world, is gaining momentum at the international level. This publication takes stock of this major issue of our times, fundamental not only for all peasants but also for the rest of humanity, at…
CETIM has published a series of training sheets to serve as support for activities and trainings in view of the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (Declaration). After adopting the Declaration, we are now in a new phase: implementation. It is absolutely vital…
FIAN International releases a series of briefings exploring how the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) is to impact the rural world These briefings take a close look at the rights, principles and states obligations adopted in UNDROP by the United Nations General Assembly on…
The First Thematic Booklet on “Access to Resources and Means of Production” is here! This is the first of four thematic booklets—part of the popular education materials to be used as a crucial step in reconnecting those who inspired and created United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in the…
