After receiving contributions from various UNDROP rights-holder movements and organisations, as well as States, the UN Working Group on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas recently released its latest report on the territorialities of land and sea. The report highlights the growing gap between the recognition of territorial rights under…
Article written by Elena Rusca, originally published in Spanish in the newspaper El Clarín de Chile on 17 September 2026. Available here. English translation by Defending Peasants’ Rights. The seed is the first link in every food chain. However, what for millennia was a common good safeguarded by farming communities is today at the centre…
Author: Zainal Arifin Fuat, leader from the Serikat Petani Indonesia (SPI) and member of the International Coordination Committee of La Via Campesina This article was originally published in the journal Lendemains Solidaires, available in French here. Food Sovereignty is intended as the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food, produced through ecologically sound…
This webinar brought together rural movements, civil society organisations, and the Chair of the UN Working Group on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) for an international dialogue on one of the Declaration’s most fundamental principles: the right to participation. Held in the context…
Defending Peasants’ Rights hereby republishes the press release issued by the Confédération paysanne and CETIM on 15 January 2026. Paris, Geneva, January 15, 2026 – The Confédération paysanne and CETIM filed today an official complaint with several Special Procedures of the United Nations Human Rights Council, following the arrest and detention of 52 peasants, members…
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 the Right to Seeds, which will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in October 2026. This is a key opportunity for rural movements…
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…
Article originally posted on: https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/tools-and-resources/peasants-right-seed-briefing-paper-working-group-peasants-and-other (26 November 2025) The Working Group on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas has issued a briefing paper on peasants’ right to seed, in connection with the Eleventh Session of the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture…
Defending Peasants’ Rights hereby republishes the statement released by the UN Working Group on UNDROP on the occasion of COP30, taking place in Brazil from 10 to 21 November 2025 (also available here). Geneva, 10 November 2025 Peasants and Rural Workers Rights at the Heart of Climate JusticeAs world leaders and civil society gather for…
Defending Peasants’ Rights hereby republishes the statement released on the website of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (available here). Editor’s note: The experts’ visit, initially planned for November 4–14, 2025, was postponed despite its critical timing, following recent protests in Ecuador that were met with a state of emergency and…
On 16 October 2025, the Working Group on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas presented its third thematic report (A/80/180) to the UN General Assembly in New York. The report delves into the right to participation of rural peoples and highlights the entrenched barriers suffered by them when it comes…
On 18 September 2025, on the occasion of the 60th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, a parallel conference brought together actors committed to the protection of the rights of rural communities at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. Entitled “Advancing the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas through…
