Introduction The UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas is often abbreviated to the Declaration of the Rights of Peasants, yet it would be a disservice to the Declaration to overlook the other groups it protects. This article will focus on one such group of people who also…
Session of the Expert Mechanism on the Right to Development : Notes on the thematic discussion “Trade, biodiversity and the right to development: an equation to be constructed“ La Via Campesina and CETIM took part in the thematic discussions organized during the 10th session of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Right to Development. In…
New category on the website: The UN Working Group on UNDROP In September, Defending Peasants’ Rights added a new category: the UN Working Group on UNDROP! The creation of the Working Group is a major step forward for the implementation of UNDROP at all levels. It’s important to make it accessible to everyone, by putting together…
The Voluntary Guidelines to support the progressive realization of the right to food in the context of national food security (Right to Food Guidelines) were adopted 20 years ago, and the CFS52 in October 2024 will take stock of their implementation. This side-event of the United Nations Committee on World Food Security in Rome brought civil…
Notes from the authors Introduction In this article we propose three approaches to recognize the “environmental component of the peasantry” in international environmental law. This concept, introduced by the Colombian Constitution through Legislative Act 01 of 2023, mandates that decision-making processes affecting peasants take into account their special relationship with the ecosystems they rely on….
On September 16, the European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) published a report on the implementation of UNDROP in Europe. You can find the launch press release here. This new publication presents the Declaration: its origin, purpose, content and how it should be implemented. It lists policy recommendations for international and regional organizations, European decision-makers and…
Belgium, July 2024. Geneviève Savigny, Chair of the UN Working Group on UNDROP, introduces us to the group, its mandate, prerogatives and initial projects.She also explains how to contact the Group’s experts. She emphasizes the importance of being able to interact with peasants and rural workers.She concludes her presentation with a message of support and…
The video of the complete training is online! The United Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted the UN Declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas (UNDROP) on 17 December 2018. Four years later, on 12 October 2023, the Human Rights Council created the UN Working Group on the rights of…
Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri At the 55th session of the Human Rights Council in March 2024, the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, presented his annual report. This year, he highlights the challenges facing small-scale fishermen in the context of the climate crisis. He…
Since its adoption in 2018, UNDROP has been included in the work of some United Nations human rights mechanisms. We present how this has been done in this contribution, in which we also present the new Working Group on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas created by the Human Rights…
The webinar video is now available! We are delighted to announce that the video of our webinar on the UN Working Group on UNDROP is now online. We were thrilled to have three of the Working Group’s experts with us: Shalmali Guttal, Carlos Duarte and Geneviève Savigny. The experts had the opportunity to explain their…
In 2022, fifteen farmers from different regions of Kenya filled a lawsuit against the Seeds and Plant Varieties Act. This law prohibits and even criminalizes the sale and exchange of peasants seeds by the farmers that have developed them. The claim of the fifteen farmers is based on the Constitution of Kenya. As you will…
