Indigenous Peoples And Social Movements Reaffirm Unity And Support To ICARRD+20 Organisers, But Reject Conference Declaration

By La Via Campesina (28 February 2026)

PRESS RELEASE | CARTAGENA DE INDIAS, COLOMBIA

At the closing session of the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20), Indigenous Peoples and social movements, represented by the International Planning Committee for food sovereignty (IPC)*, issued a strong political statement affirming their “irreducible unity” in the face of ongoing attacks on their rights.

The movements expressed appreciation for the Government of Colombia and Brazil for bringing agrarian reform back into the agenda of the international policy dialogue, and for including their voices in the conference process. They also highlighted the need for Global South governments and peoples to stand united in defense of international law and human rights, noting that Iran is currently facing what they describe as another imperialist attack.

The IPC statement reaffirmed that the rights of Indigenous Peoples and peasants are firmly recognized under international law, including instruments adopted by the United Nations General Assembly such as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP). The IPC rejected any attempt to roll back these recognised rights.

A central concern raised was the conflation of Indigenous Peoples with the vague concept of “local communities”, repeated multiple times in the declaration of governments presented to the plenary. While acknowledging the importance of the Conference, the movements stated that they “cannot accept the declaration” adopted at its conclusion. They committed to continued engagement in follow-up processes to ensure that their rights are respected, protected, and guaranteed.

Indigenous Peoples organisations articulating through the IPC under the International Indian Treaty Coouncil (IITC), emphasised that the three UN mechanisms on the rights of Indigenous Peoples have clearly distinguished the unique characteristics, origins, and legal status of Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and warned that grouping them with undefined communities undermines those protections. Similar concerns were expressed for fisher peoples, nomadic pastoralists, peasants, rural workers, and mobile and artisanal communities whose territorial and mobility rights must be explicitly recognized.

The declaration called for a 21st-century agrarian reform that is inclusive of Indigenous Peoples, peasants, fisher peoples, pastoralists, women, youth, gender-diverse people, Afro-descendant communities, family farmers, and rural workers. It stressed that agrarian reform must go beyond land redistribution to encompass forests, oceans, rivers, grazing lands, and migratory routes. Redistribution, Recognition, Restitution and Regulation must form the mutually reinforcing axes of an intergal agrarian reform – speaking to the different realities that exists worldwide. Food sovereignty and agroecology, they affirmed, must be central pillars of this transformation. The strategy and the concrete steps towards a transformative agrarian reform are laid out in the IPC position paper launched ahead of ICARRD+20.

The statement concluded with a call to all governments to engage in good-faith dialogue on Indigenous Peoples’ rights, the rights of fisher peoples and nomadic pastoralists, women’s rights, and agroecology.

“Agrarian reform, food sovereignty, and social, agrarian, and environmental justice will only be achieved through struggle”, the declaration affirmed. “We are going home to organize our peoples and defend the future of our communities and Mother Earth”.

* WHO WE ARE: The International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty

The International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) is an autonomous and self-organised global platform of small-scale food producers and rural workers organisations and grassroots/community-based social movements whose goal is to advance the Food Sovereignty agenda at the global and regional level.More than 6000 organizations and 300 millions of small-scale food producers self-organise themselves through the IPC, sharing the principles and the 6 pillars of Food Sovereignty as outlined in the Nyeleni 2007 Declaration and synthesis report. 

The IPC facilitates dialogue and debate among actors from civil society, governments and other actors in the field of Food Security and Nutrition, creating a space of discussion autonomous from political parties, institutions, governments and the private sector.

The legitimacy of the IPC is based on the ability to voice the concerns and struggles that a wide variety of civil society organisations and social movements face in their daily practice of advocacy at local, sub-national, regional and global levels.

View the closing statement

View the IPC position paper in the three languages

View the LVC briefing note on agrarian reform

Collaborative interview on the conclusions of ICARRD+20 and the Forum of Peoples and Social Movements (Spanish only)

La entrada The outcomes of the ICARRD+20 from the perspective of rural and indigenous movements se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

(Cartagena: February 23, 2026) On the eve of a historic intergovernmental conference on agrarian reform and rural development, nearly 300 delegates from worldwide representing peasants, Indigenous Peoples, artisanal fishers, pastoralists, and rural workers – organized through the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) – have arrived in Cartagena for the ‘Forum of Peoples and Social Movements: United for Land, Water, Territories and Dignity, being held from 22-23 February at Hotel Almirante, Cartagena de Indias.

This autonomous space serves as a critical staging ground for our global social movements to unify our voice before the second International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20) begins on February 24, where all the IPC members will be actively participating in the official plenaries and panels.

Two decades after the first International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD), the crises surrounding land, water, forests, and oceans are intensifying as resources are increasingly concentrated, commodified, and degraded.

The first ICARRD, held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2006 with the participation of states from all continents, underscored the importance of redistributive agrarian reforms. It was also a milestone in the history of the United Nations as it set in motion a democratic process that allowed for strong and self-organized participation of organizations representing peasants, landless people, Indigenous Peoples, artisanal fishers and fish workers, pastoralists, workers, and other rural communities.

Twenty years later, ICARRD+20 offers a historic opportunity to reaffirm the importance of agrarian reform and rural development, to take stock of transformative examples of agrarian reform, to update the meaning of agrarian reform, and to forge a shared vision for popular, feminist, decolonial, and eco-social transformation. We demand from states and international institutions not another round of voluntary pledges but real commitments and concrete, binding, and measurable actions for structural change.

Since 2006, we have successfully campaigned for significant global normative frameworks, including the Tenure Guidelines (2012), the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP, 2007), and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP, 2018).

These international human rights instruments affirm that states have the duty to ensure equitable access to and control over land, fisheries, forests, and water as part of the realization of their rights to food, water, housing, work, health, and an adequate standard of living.

Yet, the implementation of policies, programs, and mechanisms that assure the rights of rural peoples and strengthen rural development remains profoundly inadequate.

States, UN institutions, and peoples’ organizations must collectively assess what has and has not been done. Renew political will to apply these existing instruments and confront the systemic barriers that block their realization. Translate the obligations and commitments of states, as well as human rights principles, into redistributive public policies that place territories under the control of those who feed, protect, and care for the world.

At the center of our movements’ demands is a holistic understanding of territories.

Unlike the narrow, technocratic view of land as a “factor of production,” the IPC views territories as living spaces that embody the spiritual, cultural, and material basis of a people’s sovereignty. To defend territory is to defend the cycles of care and renewal that sustain the planet.

Our collective vision for an “Integral and Feminist Agrarian Reform” is rooted in the 4Rs framework:

• Recognition: Respecting and protecting collective and customary tenure systems, particularly for Indigenous Peoples and marginalized communities.
• Redistribution: Ensuring the equitable transfer of land, power, and wealth to landless peasants, women, and youth, while placing caps on corporate land ownership.
• Restitution and Reparation: Restoring control to those dispossessed by colonization, conflict, and forced evictions, including the settlement of historical debts to Indigenous nations.
• Regulation: Implementing strict public interest regulations to limit the influence of market forces and financial speculation on natural resources.

In this regard, our core demands and proposals toward ICARRD+20 are the following:

• Acknowledge Root Causes: States must conduct an honest assessment of the structural drivers of the current crisis, including the failures of market-based reforms and the impact of militarization and occupation.
• Commit to Structural Transformation: Reject the commodification of nature and move toward public policies that shift power from corporations to people – with special attention towards women, youth and gender-diverse and sexually-diverse peoples.
• National Policy Implementation: Develop comprehensive, gender-sensitive agrarian reform plans that prioritize the rights of women, youth, and landless workers – especially from historically oppressed castes and groups.
• Corporate Accountability and Financial Justice: End corporate resource grabs and “definancialize” land and water, removing them from the logic of speculative markets.
• Strong Monitoring Mechanisms: Strengthen the role of the CFS in monitoring the implementation of the Tenure Guidelines and the outcomes and commitments of ICARRD+20. Outcomes of ICARRD+20 should be reported to all relevant UN institutions, including the UN Human Rights System, the Rio Conventions (CBD, UNFCCC and UNCCD), UNCTAD, IFAD, UNDP etc. Establish international, national and regional observatories to monitor progress and reform the FAO’s Global Land Observatory into a participatory platform for community-led data.

Our position paper captures these demands in its full nuance and detail. (English, Spanish, French)

The struggle for agrarian reform today is inseparable from the struggle against ecological collapse and imperialist expansion. In Cartagena, the world’s social movements are standing firm:

Peoples’ control over land, water, and territories, NOW! Popular Agrarian Reform, Now!

Below is the Forum’s Declaration

La entrada ICARRD+20 must move beyond technocratic fixes to implement real, integral agrarian reform: Global Social Movements in Cartagena se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

La Via Campesina Brazil has submitted a written contribution in response to the call from the UN Working Group on peasants’ rights, outlining the main challenges faced by the Brazilian peasantry. Drafted collectively following a training session on the UNDROP for Brazilian organisations of La Via Campesina (LVC), the text also presents a collective vision on the current state of peasants’ right to participation in Brazil.

La Via Campesina Brazil has submitted a written contribution in response to the call from the UN Working Group on the UNDROP, outlining the main challenges faced by the Brazilian peasantry. Drafted collectively following a training session on the UNDROP for Brazilian organisations of La Via Campesina (LVC), the text also presents a collective vision on the current state of peasants’ right to participation in Brazil.

During the months of January and March 2025, a training session on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) was held for member organisations of La Via Campesina Brazil, with support from the human rights organisation Terra de Direitos and CETIM. This was the first training focused on the UNDROP for social movements and grassroots rural organisations in Brazil, serving as a practical example of the implementation of La Via Campesina International’s strategy of conducting training on the Declaration for its bases in various countries.

The aim of the training was not only to make the UNDROP known among its rights-holders, but also to facilitate and encourage a popular appropriation of this Declaration by peasants and other rural peoples in their political and legal struggles at local, national, regional, and international levels. The training also had the central objective of drafting a strategic plan for advocacy vis-à-vis various governmental, legal, and political bodies, aiming for the implementation of the Declaration with the active participation of peasants and other rural peoples whose rights are enshrined in the UNDROP.

In the framework of this first training in Brazil, participants from the various social movements that make up La Via Campesina in the country studied the history of the process leading up to UNDROP’s adoption, as well as the content of the instrument – highlighting peasants’ rights to land, biodiversity, seeds, and food sovereignty. In a second stage, they discussed concrete cases of violations of the rights enshrined in the UNDROP that have occurred in their national territory, perpetrated mainly by transnational corporations and agents of the agribusiness sector.

Leveraging the political capital of the social movements present in the training, driving the implementation of the UNDROP from a popular perspective is crucial within the scope of the arduous and long-standing work for social justice, agrarian reform, and food sovereignty in rural Brazil. In this sense, the strategic plan collectively drafted during the training provided important clarity on the path to be taken towards promoting and implementing the UNDROP in Brazil and translating its provisions into both legal frameworks and public policies.

Among the various initiatives to be carried out is engagement and advocacy with the United Nations (UN), particularly with its newly established Working Group (WG) on the UNDROP. By participating in the WG’s debates and collaborating with its work, peasant and rural organisations around the world can use this international mechanism to advance the implementation of the UNDROP in their respective countries. After all, one of the WG’s functions is precisely to recommend, support, and monitor UN member states in implementing the Declaration, so that it can serve as a direct vector in the elaboration of public policies, programmes, and laws that truly address rural inequalities.

In March 2025, the WG issued a public call for peasant and rural organisations, as well as governments and other institutions, to contribute to its next two studies which will address the following themes: i. global trends in the challenges affecting peasants; ii. peasants’ right to equal participation. Thus, La Via Campesina Brazil, through the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), the Small Farmers’ Movement (MPA), the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB), the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST), together with Terra de Direitos and with technical support from CETIM, submitted a document to contribute to the WG’s studies based on the challenges faced by the Brazilian peasantry. The document, available here, presents a collective perspective on the current situation of rural peoples’ challenges in Brazil, summarised as follows:

Peasants, artisanal fishers, traditional peoples, and rural workers in Brazil face structural challenges that threaten their livelihoods and fundamental rights. Land concentration and agrarian conflicts are exacerbated by the lack of agrarian reform and the privatisation of common lands, leading to violence and impunity. Moreover, access to public policies is limited by bureaucracy, lack of technical assistance, and infrastructure, while the climate crisis and large-scale projects, such as dams, displace communities and degrade the environment. Peasant cultural identity is also threatened by the advance of agribusiness, which replaces sustainable practices with monocultures and intensifies the use of agrochemicals. The criminalisation of struggles for territorial rights and the lack of access to justice further perpetuate the vulnerability of these populations, particularly indigenous peoples, quilombolas (Afro-Brazilian communities), and extractive communities, who suffer violence and social exclusion.

The right to participation of peasants and rural workers in political decision-making still faces significant barriers in Brazil. The exclusion of these groups is evident in the lack of access to information, the difficulty of effective political representation, and the absence of free, prior, and informed consultations, especially in environmental licensing processes and public policy formulation. Traditional communities, such as indigenous and quilombola peoples, frequently have their rights violated, with no adequate channels to influence decisions that impact their territories and ways of life. Furthermore, political marginalisation is worsened by the dominance of agribusiness, which concentrates power and resources, limiting the voice of family farming and small producers in national and international decision-making spaces.

Despite these challenges, there are mechanisms and policies aimed at expanding rural participation, such as agricultural development councils (CONDRAF), discussion forums, and programmes to strengthen family farming. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP) and ILO Convention 169 provide legal bases to demand participatory consultations. However, the effectiveness of these instruments depends on social pressure, access to justice, and the State’s commitment to ensuring rural voices are heard. Social movements have played a crucial role in this struggle, promoting marches, land occupations, and political advocacy to ensure participatory rights are not merely formal but concrete and transformative.

Following the example of LVC Brazil, conducting training processes on the declaration at national and/or regional levels, developing a strategic plan by local movements for its promotion, and participating in the UN Working Group on UNDROP are essential steps to implement the declaration at national, regional and international levels. This is a fundamental path to breathe life into the declaration from the grassroots, through rights holders' appropriation of their rights and the integration of the UNDROP into their political and legal struggles for social justice and human rights for rural peoples.

La entrada Challenges facing the Brazilian Peasantry: The UNDROP as a Tool for Struggle se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

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 Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, to which Sri Lanka is a signatory. They also called upon the UN Working Group on the Declaration to initiate an assessment of how the conditions of the IMF, other IFIs, and global debt architecture violate the human rights of peasants and workers. The submission, an excerpt of which is reproduced below, also reveals how global financial institutions have enforced economic reforms that transferred the burden of economic stabilization to the poorer sections of society through austerity measures.

1.65 million peasants and small-scale food producers in Sri Lanka work on less than 2 hectares each, yet produce 80% of the country’s food. But debt-driven economic policies advocated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and Asian Development Bank (ADB) have wrecked peasants’ and fishers’ autonomy in food production and their ability to ensure food sovereignty.

Through various structural adjustment programs, the International Finance Institutions (IFIs) push Sri Lanka to prioritize cash crops for exports over food for domestic consumption. Export-oriented agricultural reforms that mainstreamed capital-intensive farming have favored agribusinesses and weakened peasants and small fishers by making them dependent on the market for inputs such as seeds, fertilizer, fishing nets, and boats. As a result of the increasing cost of food production, peasants and fishers are deeply in debt, dispossessed of their land, rendered agricultural laborers on their lands, and migrating to local industrial zones or abroad as indentured workers.

The current agriculture system’s failure to create dignified livelihoods for peasants and other workers in rural areas is evident in the extremely high levels of poverty concentration in rural and plantation areas, where more than 80% of Sri Lanka’s poor live.

Sri Lanka faced one of the worst economic crises in 2022 as it defaulted on its foreign debt payments in April 2022. The economic crisis had a devastating impact on rural communities, resulting in a doubling of poverty rates. The IMF, other IFIs, and private creditors have used the crisis and the debt default to push Sri Lanka into its 17th IMF program, a 48-month Extended Fund Facility worth around 3 billion dollars.

Violation of Article 2: State Responsibility
Two days before the September 2024 presidential election, Sri Lanka was forced to sign an agreement with international creditors to restructure its debt to private lenders. This agreement, which was neither disclosed nor discussed with the public or even in the Sri Lankan Parliament, forced the country to prioritize debt payment over the rights of people in Sri Lanka. It will severely impact the government’s ability to invest in food production, development of rural livelihoods, and social security of rural communities.

Violation of Article 4: No Discrimination Against Women
Despite their contribution being neither recognized nor reflected in national policy frameworks, the involvement of peasant women in Sri Lanka’s food production is critical. Peasant women face numerous barriers that inhibit them from reaching their full potential—the lack of access and control over natural resources, markets, financial services, technology, and care responsibilities. Yet, peasant women support food production as unpaid family members, agricultural workers, or through home gardens. However, they are neither acknowledged nor given any significance in government spending at the macro level. Hence, they are excluded at two levels—as women and as small-scale food producers.

Violation of Article 15: Right to Food and Food Sovereignty
Malnutrition and undernourishment have always been serious concerns in Sri Lanka, with 32.6% of women aged 15 to 49 years found to be anemic and 15.9% of infants handicapped by low weight at birth. The situation has been worse among agriculture worker families in the plantation sector. Despite being considered an ‘agricultural’ country, Sri Lanka depends heavily on food imports. Our food security’s vulnerability is evidenced during crises such as the pandemic, geopolitical conflicts like the Ukraine-Russia War, and scarce foreign exchange.

The economic crisis in 2022 has further worsened the situation. According to the World Food Program, by January 2023, 6.3 million people, or over 30 percent of Sri Lanka’s population, were “food insecure” and needed humanitarian assistance. Of these, around 5.3 million people were either reducing or skipping meals, and at least 65,600 people were severely food insecure. An increase in VAT also drove up food inflation.

Violation of Article 16: Right to Decent Income and Livelihoods and the Means of Production
The economic reforms enforced through the 17th IMF program have transferred the burden of economic stabilization to the poorer sections of society through austerity measures. Implementation of the IMF-recommended cost-recovery energy pricing has almost tripled fuel and electricity prices, having devastating effects on the livelihoods of peasant farmers and fisheries. Taxes on equipment, seeds, and chemical inputs have increased production costs, throwing peasant farmers into poverty and indebtedness.

Indebtedness among peasants and fishers is mainly linked to expansions in capital-intensive agriculture and the proliferation of pro-profit lending by banks and finance companies such as microfinance loans. With the withdrawal of the State from the provision of agrarian credit, indebtedness has become a permanent feature in the lives of peasants, peasant women, and fishers. Suicides among the peasant farmers in the 1990s and among the peasant women after 2015 illustrate the protracted nature of indebtedness in the agrarian sector. According to national statistics in 2019, indebtedness is more prevalent in the rural and estate sectors than in the urban sector. 60.9% and 64.4% of households in the rural and estate sectors, respectively, are in debt. Vavuniya and Polonnaruwa, predominantly agricultural areas, also located near the biggest rice mills owned by private individuals, recorded the highest incidences of indebtedness, with 76.1% and 70.3% of households in debt.

Violation of Article 17: Right to Land
IFIs like the IMF and World Bank have long advocated privatizing land markets in Sri Lanka. Freehold land titles are distributed to farmers by lifting restrictions for peasants to sell their land provided by the State to outsiders, which has been a long-standing demand from these IFIs. With the ongoing IMF program, this demand has returned to the fore, with the government introducing a new program to provide freehold land titles to peasants. With the ongoing economic crisis and indebtedness among peasants, MONLAR and many other organizations fear that this move will lead to large-scale dispossession of peasants’ land.

Currently, the State does not recognize the customary right to land; hence, many peasants have lost land they have been cultivating and living on for generations. Due to the absence of tenure recognition, many communities are displaced when large-scale projects and developments come to their villages.

Even though it has been 15 years since the end of the war, large portions of land in the North are still under the occupation of the military. Minoritized communities have used these lands for generations before and during the war and hold a key place in their livelihood and culture. Some of the residents of these lands are internally displaced, while some are still living in IDP camps.

Violation of Article 24: Right to Housing
Even after 200 years, the descendants of people brought to Sri Lanka from South India as indentured workers (Malaiyaga community) in tea and rubber plantations in Sri Lanka do not own their housing and land. They were forced to live on plantation land (owned by the State and privately owned companies) in extremely low-quality housing. They lack access to land for their food production and remain vulnerable to evictions by the landowners—the plantation companies.

Recommendations to the Government of Sri Lanka

1. Immediately exit the ongoing IMF and debt restructuring agreements, as they are unfavorable and harmful. The government should negotiate new agreements that ensure the country’s sustainable economic development and the socio-economic rights of peasants, workers, and other poor and vulnerable communities.
2. Introduce the necessary reforms to the local legal and policy framework to enforce the rights enshrined in the UNDROP. Some immediate actions can include:
   • Revise the current laws regarding land, seeds, water, biodiversity, and other natural resources to ensure the rights of peasants and other workers in rural areas.
   • Codification of a new Constitution that integrates the social, economic, and cultural rights of peasants, workers, and others as fundamental human rights.
3. Recognize food sovereignty and the rights of peasants and rural workers as key priorities in its agriculture, development, and economic policy formulation.
4. Conduct an agrarian debt audit and provide debt relief, including debt cancellation.
5. Recognize women as key actors in agriculture, food production, and the rural economy. Allocate resources through national and local budgets to ensure women have access to accessible and just financial resources. The government should support the collective actions of peasant women in food production, processing, marketing, and saving systems.
6. Release all the land occupied by the military in the North and East to their original owners, and support peasants and other food producers in restarting their livelihoods in those lands.
7. Recognize and fulfill the demand by the Malaiyaga community to allocate land for their housing and food production.

MONLAR also called upon the UN Working Group on the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas to initiate an assessment of how the conditions of the IMF, other IFIs, and global debt architecture violate the human rights of peasants and workers, and also initiate a cross-country study to examine the impact of microfinance on women and rural development.

La entrada Sri Lanka: MONLAR asks the governement to reform the Law to Align with UNDROP se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Today, we join hands with peasants, landless rural workers, small-scale food producers, Indigenous Peoples, and other peoples working in rural areas around the world to mark the International Day of Peasant Struggles.

Land grabbing continues to intensify, driven by agribusiness, mining, energy projects, and so-called “development” plans. Forests and ancestral lands are cleared, our territories are converted into commercial sites, and water sources are privatized – all to make way for profit-driven investments.

When peasants resist, they are met with repression. They are harassed, surveilled, and falsely labeled as “anti-development” and enemies of the state. Many are imprisoned on fabricated charges. Others never return home. Their right to organize is under attack and their communities live in fear. Meanwhile, those who destroy the land and violate human rights enjoy protection, and are even rewarded.

This is a systematic effort to dismantle resistance, silence dissent, and clear the way for capital accumulation. And yet, peasants continue to rise. They organize, resist, and assert their right to land, food, and life with dignity.

On this day, we honor the farmers of Samahan ng Nagkakaisang Mamamayan ng Barangay Sumalo (SANAMABASU) Hermosa, Bataan for their courage. Since 2009, the organization has been tirelessly defending their land against Litton & Co., Inc and Riverforest Development Corporation (RDC)’s attempt to convert it into industrial use, leading to their criminalization by the corporation. Although the farmers, charged with non-bailable offenses, were released on bail on January 8, 2025, the community now faces renewed repression, as RDC has filed ejectment cases to displace them from their homes and farmlands.

On September 16, 2024, the mandates of five United Nations Special Rapporteurs and Working Groups sent a joint communication to Litton & Co., Inc. and Riverforest Development Corporation (RDC), as well as to the Government of the Republic of the Philippines. This communication highlighted significant human rights concerns regarding the situation in the community. Key issues included forced evictions, housing demolitions, restricted access to cultivated land, criminalization, and the prohibition of agricultural activities.

In a response dated January 16, 2025, RDC refuted the allegations. They asserted that the land in question was unsuitable for agriculture, claiming that no legitimate farmers were tilling it. They accused certain community members of exploiting the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) for personal gain and described their actions as illegal. RDC defended its eviction efforts as lawful, claiming that they are targeting only those obstructing development plans.

Meanwhile, the response from the government of the Philippines dated January 23, 2025 claimed that the syndicated estafa¹ case filed against the farmers “have already been dismissed due to insufficiency of evidence.” They also laid down some other efforts of the government on agrarian reform. However, this is untrue as farmers continue to attend court hearings in the two pending cases of syndicated estafa cases.

On January 28, 2025, the House Committee on Agrarian Reform conducted a Congressional inquiry on the criminalization and harassment faced by farmers and agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) in the country. Despite this being a positive development, the Congress is now in session break until June to give leeway for the upcoming elections in May. This means that another lobbying effort would be needed in the next Congress starting July, as a new set of representatives will occupy the Congressional seats.

With these developments, we reaffirm our commitment to their cause and to all farmers facing the same dilemma. We raise our voices in unity to demand:

1. The implementation of agrarian reform and the redistribution of land to those who till it;
2. The protection of ancestral domains and Indigenous territories;
3. An end to land grabbing and corporate-led development aggression;
4. The repeal of laws and policies that favor corporations over communities;
5. Justice for victims of land-related killings, arrests, and harassment;
6. An end to the criminalization, militarization, and red-tagging of peasant leaders and advocates;
7. The recognition and protection of the rights of peasants, as enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP); and
8. Food sovereignty, not corporate-controlled food systems.

We honor those who have fallen, those imprisoned for defending the land, and those who continue to fight in the face of threats and fear. Your courage lives on in every seed planted, every barricade built, every piece of land reclaimed, and every collective struggle for justice won.

Land to the tillers. Justice for the oppressed.

Long live peasant resistance!

Signed:

Organisations:

• Kilusan para sa Repormang Agraryo at Katarungang Panlipunan (KATARUNGAN), Philippines
• FIAN International
• FIAN Indonesia
• FIAN Switzerland
• FIAN Austria
• FIAN Nepal
• FIAN Sri Lanka
• Focus on the Global South 
• Centre Europe – Tiers Monde (CETIM)
• Habitat International Coalition-Housing and Land Rights Network
• National Fisheries Solidarity Movement in Sri Lanka 
• LOAM Sri Lanka
• Gaza Urban & Peri-urban Agriculture Platform (GUPAP), Gaza, Palestine   
• Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee, Pakistan  
• Participatory Research & Action Network- PRAAN, Bangladesh
• Bangladesh Food Security Network- KHANI, Bangladesh
• Anti-jindal & Anti-POSCO Movement (JPPSS) Odisha, India
• Youth’s Forum for Protection of Human Rights, Manipur, India   
• Zambia Alliance for Agroecology and Biodiversity (ZAAB) 
• Seed and Knowledge Initiative (SKI) 
• UBINIG, Bangladesh 
• Coastal Action Network (CAN), India
• Feminist Dalit Organization (FEDO), Nepal 

Individuals:

• Claudio Schuftan, PHM and WPHNA
• Prof. Dr. Anne C Bellows, Syracuse University, USA

1 Syndicated estafa is defined under Presidential Decree No. 1689 and involves a group of five or more individuals forming a syndicate to defraud the public, typically with the intent to misappropriate funds or property on a large scale, punishable by life imprisonment.

La entrada Joint Statement of Peasant and Solidarity Organizations on the International Day of Peasant Struggles se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Carbon markets vs. peasant autonomy: UNDROP’s role in safeguarding rights and data sovereignty

There is an urgent need to rapidly phase out fossil fuels to reduce the devastating impacts of the climate catastrophe. Carbon market mechanisms, such as those recently pushed through by the COP29 presidency, are false solutions and a dangerous distraction from States fulfilling their obligations to reduce emissions and address the root causes of climate change.

Increasingly, carbon trading projects concern agricultural areas and directly involve peasants and other small-scale food producers. A recent report by FIAN International and MAELA Colombia explores the complexities and risks associated with carbon markets, particularly their impact on small-scale food producers. Carbon markets, increasingly adopted by governments and corporations as a response to climate change, have drawn criticism due to their questionable environmental benefits and potential to harm the human rights of rural communities.

These concerns are particularly relevant in Colombia, where a lack of regulatory frameworks puts Indigenous Peoples, Afro-Colombians, and peasant communities at risk.

One key example developed in the report is the Asómbrate project, which aims to integrate Colombian smallholder farmers into global carbon markets. Although marketed as a way to boost farmers’ income through agroforestry and carbon trading via Rabobank’s ACORN digital platform, participants have raised concerns. These include lack of transparency, potential negative environmental impacts, and the erosion of small farmers’ autonomy.

The report stresses that carbon markets rely on complex, data-driven technologies—such as remote sensing and artificial intelligence—which add opacity to the system and exacerbate power imbalances. This trend represents a troubling shift towards the financialization of nature, turning ecosystems into tradeable assets and undermining local, community-led models of sustainability.

The implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) plays a pivotal role in addressing these concerns. Colombia is obligated under international law to protect the rights of these communities, particularly their autonomy over farming practices and control over their own data. The report urges Colombia to implement stronger legal frameworks that safeguard these rights, calling for participatory processes to ensure fair and sustainable carbon market practices.

Furthermore, international institutions are encouraged to develop comprehensive guidelines to ensure carbon markets respect human rights, especially for Indigenous Peoples and rural communities. By centering policies around human rights frameworks like UNDROP, a more just transition towards sustainable food systems and climate action can be achieved.

Read the report

La entrada Coffee and carbon in Colombia: Human rights concerns at the intersection of food systems, climate change and data-based technologies se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

“Building on this tapestry of human rights configurations, the UNDROP’s affirmation of peasants’ right to land represents a turning point in longstanding efforts to connect land to human rights. It raises questions about the legal contours of the right to land and how this newly affirmed right complements, and intersects with, other human rights. Although such questions are theoretical, they also have practical implications. Restrictive interpretations can hollow out the emancipatory potential of a new right from within, while clarifying the full reverberations of that right can facilitate its use in processes of change. It is therefore important to explore the social, economic, and political circumstances that led to the affirmation of the right to land, what the right to land entails in practice and its potential for bringing about the change peasant movements are fighting for around the world.“

La entrada THE RIGHT TO LAND se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Abstract
Focusing on the Guarani Mbyá and the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) in Santa Catarina, this thesis explores the similarities and differences between indigenous and landless food sovereignty. It shows how their narratives are intertwined and how their unique legal and cultural positionalities shape their food practices. Brazil’s high land concentration and dominant agri-food practices put pressure on both groups. This pressure generates similar food sovereignty practices to preserve their food systems while promoting favorable public policies. Uniquely, the MST, as part of the settler society, sees agrarian reform and food practices as a means to change the Brazilian land and food system. Instead, for the Guarani Mbyá, food practices are an integral part of their culture and a way to preserve their self-determination. The Guarani case illustrates the complex, non-linear relationship between mental health and access to traditional food production and consumption, both within their territories and in public spaces.

La entrada Common Struggles, Different Roots: Indigenous and Landless People’s Food Sovereignties in Southern Brazil se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

La entrada FAO’s work on the themes of the United Nations Declarationon the Rights of Peasantsand Other People Workingin Rural Areas (UNDROP) se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Integrating UNDROP in the Work of the Human Rights Council and Special Procedures

UNDROP in the Universal Periodic Review of the Human Rights Council

When it created the Human Rights Council in 2006, the UN General Assembly decided that it would undertake ‘a universal periodic review, based on objective and reliable information, of the fulfilment by each State of its human rights obligations and commitments in a manner which ensures universality of coverage and equal treatment with respect to all States’.

At the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), all UN Member States are evaluated by their peers, who formulate recommendations for better implementation of human rights in the country under review. The state under review can then decide if it accepts or if it only takes note of the recommendations made.

Following the examples of Bolivia, South Africa, Portugal and Switzerland, who made UPR recommendations to push for UNDROP’s implementation in other countries, states should use the UPR in order to protect and promote the rights of peasants.

Creation of a new Special Procedure

UN special procedures are mandated by the Human Rights Council to promote and protect human rights. They have thematic mandates, for example on torture or the right to food, or mandates that cover all human rights in a specific country. They include special rapporteurs, independent experts, special representatives of the UN Secretary-General and working groups. They produce annual thematic reports, conduct country visits, and send communications to states on human rights violations. They can be renewed without limitation, while their mandate holders cannot serve for more than six years.

At its 54th session, from September 11th to October 13th 2023, the Human Rights Council
adopted a resolution on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas (A/HRC/RES/54/9). With this resolution, the Council created a Working Group on UNDROP, composed of 5 independent experts from the five UN regions. The Human Rights Council resolution gives the Working Group a broad mandate: to promote the dissemination and application of UNDROP; to identify gaps in its application and make recommendations to remedy them; identify and disseminate best practices from a wide range of sources; facilitate exchanges and international cooperation concerning UNDROP; work with relevant bodies of intergovernmental organizations and report to the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations. To fulfill this mandate, the Working Group will have the same competences as the other Special procedures, as described above.

At the 55th session (February-April 2024), the mandate holders were appointed as follows:

• Ms Uche Ewelukwa OFODILE (Nigeria)
• Ms Shalmadi GUTTAL (India)
• Mr Davit Hakobyan (Armenia)
• Ms Geneviève SAVIGNY (France)
• Mr Carlos Duarte (Colombia)

The creation of this Working Group fills an important accountability gap in the UN human rights system. This new body can act as a catalyst for the Declaration, providing visibility and important support to advance the promotion and protection of UNDROP rights by clarifying the implications of the Declaration, sharing best practices and key challenges, and recommending concrete measures to be adopted by States and other actors.

Examples of inclusion of UNDROP in the work of Special Procedures

Following the example of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, who included UNDROP in three of its most recent reports on violence, on seeds, and on the Covid-19 pandemic, all UN special procedures should include UNDROP in their work.

Here are some examples of UN special procedures including UNDROP in their work.

In his 2020 report on private debt and human rights, the Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt, explained that he was preoccupied by the debt of peasant families: “As land is sometimes collateral against loans contracted by small farmers, the risk of livelihood loss in the event of debt default is clear when they face a natural disaster, a bad harvest or dropping commodity prices, even though they should be protected in such situations by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas”.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, in her 2020 Guidelines for the Implementation of the Right to Adequate Housing, referred to UNDROP and stated that: “(a) Forced evictions as defined under international human rights law must be prohibited in all circumstances, regardless of ownership or tenure status of those affected. Victims of forced evictions must receive adequate compensation, reparation and access to housing or productive land as appropriate”.

The Working Group on discrimination against women and girls, in 2020, in its report on women’s human rights in the changing world of work, recommended to States to “ensure women’s equal rights to own, control and access land, credit and other productive resources” and to guarantee “the enjoyment without discrimination by peasant women and other women working in rural areas of all the human rights and fundamental freedoms set out in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and other People Working in Rural Areas, including decent employment, equal remuneration and social protection benefits, access to income-generating activities and freedom from all forms of violence”.

The Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment included many references to UNDROP in his 2020 report on a healthy biosphere. For him: “There is growing recognition of the linkages between human rights and the health of the biosphere. It is acknowledged in recent United Nations declarations that indigenous peoples and peasants have rights “to the conservation and protection of the environment and the productive capacity of their lands””. Referring to UNDROP, he underlined that “States have particular obligations to indigenous peoples and local communities and peasants. The top priority involves recognizing their land titles, tenures and rights, acknowledging the existence of different customs and systems, including collective ownership and governance models. (…) States are obligated to prevent human rights abuses – evictions, displacement, beatings, torture and murder – arising from exclusionary and militarized conservation. States must “take appropriate measures to promote and protect the traditional knowledge, innovation and practices of peasants and other people working in rural areas, including traditional agrarian, pastoral, forestry, fisheries, livestock and agroecological systems relevant to the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity””.

The Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment also incorporated UNDROP in his 2021 report documenting the catastrophic environmental, health, and human rights consequences of industrial food systems, unhealthy diets and food waste, but also offering human rights-based guidance for transformative action moving forward.

The Special Rapporteur on water and sanitation also relied on UNDROP to frame its 2022 General Assembly report on the fulfillment of the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation in impoverished rural communities.

Inclusion of UNDROP in Human Rights Council resolutions

The work to include UNDROP at all levels of the UN, carried out by the Special Procedures, States and civil society organizations alike, has borne new fruit, with renewed interest on the part of the Human Rights Council. This interest was marked first and foremost by the creation of the Working Group on UNDOP, as already mentioned, but also by the inclusion of UNDROP in other Council resolutions.

This was the case in the resolution to promote and protect economic, social and cultural rights in the context of the fight against inequalities, adopted at the end of the 54th session of the Council in October 2023, which incorporated UNDROP into the legal framework underpinning the resolution. Another example is the resolution on the right to food adopted at the end of the 55th session of the Council in April 2024, which, on the basis of UNDROP, recognized “the contribution made by peasants, small farmers, family farmers and other people working and living in rural areas, artisanal fishers and small-scale fishermen from all regions of the world contribute to the development and realization of the right to food, food security and nutrition, which are essential to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”.

Calls for action inside the UN

On the occasion of UNDROP’s first anniversary on 17 December 2019, nine UN special procedures and four members of UN treaty bodies released a joint statement in which they committed to protect the rights of peasants and other rural workers, to integrate these rights in the exercise of their mandates, and to provide guidance to states on how they can implement them. They called on the Human Rights Council to create a new special procedure to monitor UNDROP, and on states to protect human rights defenders of land, environment and natural resources, who are the first victims of criminalization, intimidation and attacks against their physical integrity and life. The mandate holders underlined that, peasants and other rural workers “shall be recognized as agents of change and essential actors in the local, national and international implementation of (…) UNDROP, and not just as victims of discrimination or in terms of vulnerability”. They called for the creation of a UN Voluntary Fund for peasants and other rural workers to support their participation in the activities of the UN system. They added that the effective implementation of UNDROP will not be realized without meaningful grassroots engagement.

On 16 December 2022, twelve UN special procedure mandate holders released a joint statement on the need for action on UNDROP, in which they highlighted that “besides their disproportionate exposure to environmental degradation, toxic substances, land grabbing and climate change, peasants and rural workers also suffer from the burdens caused by poverty, hunger and malnutrition. More recently, their situation has become even more dire, due to the direct effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as its subsequent harmful impact on food and cost-of-living crisis”.

UN special procedures commended peasants and other rural workers across the world who have shown great resilience in the face of multiple challenges and intersectional oppression facing them and their communities, and they called on states to do more to protect, support and listen to them. For the special procedures, “UNDROP provides a framework to enable a just transition to a food system where biodiversity and human rights flourish. (…) UNDROP provides not only a recognition of peasants’ and rural workers’ rights and contributions, but also serves as a roadmap for States, the UN, business enterprises and other stakeholders to take concrete actions on the ground”.

More recently, a new UN human rights actor, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, has begun to cite UNDROP in its work and to highlight it. In its report on measures to minimize the adverse effects of climate change on the full realization of the right to food, presented in March 2024, the Office of the High Commissioner stressed that it is essential to take measures to protect the rights and knowledge relating to food of peasants, local populations and other people living in rural areas, in accordance with international legal instruments, including UNDROP.

In addition, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has highlighted virtuous states in this field, encouraging other member states to draw inspiration from the good practices already established in certain national legislations in order to contribute to the implementation of UNDROP. One example is the congratulations addressed to Colombia in the March 2024 OHCHR report on the human rights situation in Colombia. These congratulations concerned the reform of Article 64 of the Colombian Constitution, which recognizes peasants as subjects of law and special protection, and the approval of Legislative Act 03 of 2023, which creates a specialized agrarian and rural jurisdiction.

Integrating UNDROP in the Work of Treaty Bodies

UN treaty bodies are composed of 10 to 25 independent experts. They monitor the implementation of UN human rights treaties. They examine periodic reports from States Parties on the steps taken to implement UN human rights treaties. They also examine communications alleging violations of the rights protected by UN human rights treaties. They present recommendations to States Parties in the form of ‘concluding observations’ at the end of the examination of periodic reports, and ‘views’ at the end of the examination of communication procedures. They also adopt general comments or general recommendations in which they define the rights and states’ obligations enshrined in the UN human rights treaties. And they adopt statements on current issues or situations that are particularly relevant for the implementation of UN human rights treaties.

All UN treaty bodies should also include the monitoring of UNDROP in their work.

The fact that UNDROP builds on a number of UN human rights treaties that they monitor, including the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, will make the work of UN treaty bodies easier in terms of considering how state obligations under their particular treaty ought to be interpreted in the context of the rights of peasants and other rural workers.

In their joint statement released with UN special procedures in December 2019, four members of UN treaty bodies – the Committee on Migrant Workers, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW Committee), the Committee on ESCR, and Committee on the Rights of the Child – committed to integrate, or recommend the integration of the monitoring of UNDROP in the exercise of their mandates, to protect the rights of peasants and other rural workers, and to provide guidance to states on how they can implement UNDROP. Since then, a few references to UNDROP have been made in UN treaty bodies’ work.

Committee on ESCR

In its Concluding Observations to Guinea in 2020, the Committee on ESCR recommended to the state to “progressively guarantee all peasants access to support programmes and agroecological solutions without discrimination, respecting the choice of each person, in accordance with UNDROP”.

The Committee also referred to UNDROP in its General Comment on Science and ESCR adopted in 2020. Using UNDROP it provided that: “the right to participate in and to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications in agriculture should preserve, not violate, the right of peasants and other people working in rural areas to choose which technologies suit them best”. The Committee also affirms : “States parties should take appropriate measures to ensure that agricultural research and development integrates the needs of peasants and other people working in rural areas and to ensure their active participation in the determination of priorities and the undertaking of research and development, taking into account their experience and respecting their cultures”.

More recently, it included several references to the rights of peasants and other rural workers in its General Comment on land and ESCR, adopted in 2022. In this General Comment, the Committee on ESCR for example called states to “avoid adopting policies to mitigate climate change, such as carbon sequestration through massive reforestation or protection of existing forests, that lead to different forms of land grabbing, especially when they affect the land and territories of populations in vulnerable situations, such as peasants or Indigenous Peoples.”

CEDAW Committee

In its General Recommendation on the rights of rural women, adopted in 2016, the CEDAW Committee made numerous references to the rights of peasant women, even if it was adopted before UNDROP. It is also important to note that in its Concluding Observations to Colombia in 2019, the CEDAW Committee for example recommended to the state to “consider incorporating the principles contained in UNDROP in legal and policy instruments regarding rural women”.

Human Rights Committee

In 2019, the Human Rights Committee became the first UN treaty body to refer to UNDROP in its case law, with its decision in Portillo Cáceres and Others v. Paraguay. In this case, the Human Rights Committee explained that Portillo Cáceres and members of his family – a peasant family that had been poisoned by agrochemicals used in nearby large plantations, which also polluted their land and other natural resources – depend on their crops, fruit trees, livestock, fishing, and water resources for their livelihoods. It added that they have a special attachment to and dependency on the land, using the words of and referring to UNDROP’s Article 1. The Human Rights Committee concluded that these elements can therefore be considered to fall under the scope of “home”, i.e., the place where a person resides or carries out his or her usual occupation. As the pollution has had direct repercussions on the Cáceres family’s crops, fruit trees, livestock, fishing, and water resources, their right to privacy, family, and home has been violated.

Integrating UNDROP into other international instruments

While UNDROP has been used as a reference by the various treaty bodies, the Declaration has also been recalled in various drafts incorporating the rights of peasants. In the draft International Covenant on the Right to Development of the 54th session of the Human Rights Council (A/HRC/54/50), its provisions were mentioned in the preamble. Moreover, Article 18 of this draft refers directly to the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas, drawing inspiration from UNDROP. Indeed, it states that peasants and other rural inhabitants have the right to define their own development priorities and strategies, and the right to participate actively and freely in the formulation and implementation of laws and policies that affect their lives and livelihoods. It also states that States must consult and cooperate with these populations in a transparent manner before adopting laws or policies that could affect their rights.

The latest revised draft of the Declaration on Human Rights and International Solidarity (A/HRC/53/32*) sets out a series of arguments in favor of revision to take account of current events at the UN and around the world, as well as other key instruments such as UNDROP. Indeed, the Independent Expert’s report states: “Recalling the determination of States, enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, to take a step forward in the commitment of the international community to achieve significant progress in human rights action, through an increased and sustained effort of international cooperation and solidarity, in particular with regard to the measures to be taken to cooperate in addressing the cross-border problems of land occupation faced by peasants and other people working in rural areas that straddle international borders. “

Geneva Academy – 2020 – The Role of Human Rights Mechanisms in Monitoring the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants

To find all the references to UNDROP in the work of United Nations Human Rights Mechanisms, go to our dedicated page HERE.

La entrada UNDROP in the Work of United Nations Human Rights Mechanisms se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

The State under review can then decide whether to accept or only take note of the recommendations made. In case of acceptance, it will be possible to follow up on the concrete implementation of the recommendations. In the following UPR cycle (every 4 years), the Human Rights Council, together with civil society organizations, will evaluate the implementation or non-implementation of the recommendations accepted in the previous cycle.

It is a useful mechanism in the sense that, in the case of the UNDROP, it allows peasant and civil society organizations to issue recommendations on the implementation of the UNDROP and to ensure a follow-up of this process, as part of the political advocacy with the public authorities.

The report drawn up by CETIM on the implementation of UNDROP rights by the State of Cuba is available below. For us, this is a good example of how the UPR mechanism can be used to monitor national policies on peasants’ rights. In the case of Cuba, CETIM recognizes and encourages good practices concerning these rights, providing an example of policies implementing UNDROP that could inspire other states.

La entrada Universal Periodic Review of Cuba: CETIM highlights good practices on peasants’ rights se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Unjust criminalization

14 members of the Isan minority practicing family peasantry in the village of Sab Wai, Thailand, have been unjustly accused of destroying and “encroaching on the forests” even though they inhabited and lived off this land before the area became the protected Sai Thong National Park in 1992.

These accusations stem from an instrumentalization of the government’s 2014 climate change mitigation standards (Forest reclamation policy, NCPO Orders 64 and 66). These policies, adopted as part of Thailand’s participation in the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, were supposed to prevent the misuse of forest land by big business. In practice, however, 10 million people – 2,700 forest communities – across Thailand are threatened with eviction from their land¹. While these norms stipulated that “any operation must not have an impact on the poor people who have lived on these lands”, over 7,000 villagers are imprisoned every year on charges of “encroaching on forests” (and over 46,000 people have been arrested since the policy was implemented²).

“The Thai government instrumentalizes its commitment to the Paris Agreement and the need to reduce carbon emissions and criminalizes poor villagers, while indigenous peoples and forest-dependent communities actually contribute to forest protection through their traditional ways of life and culture.³”

Manushya Foundation, August 4, 2022

In 2018, the 14 Sab Wai villagers in question were ordered to pay fines, leave their land and destroy all their facilities. 11 of them were placed on probation and 3 others were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 5 months to 4 years. These sentences were confirmed by the Court of Appeal in 2019, and by the Supreme Court in 2021.

Recourse to UN special procedures

Faced with this situation, human rights organizations⁴ supported the Sab Wai villagers and turned with them to the special procedures of the UN Human Rights Council.

On June 23, 2019, they submitted their requests to seven special rapporteurs: on extreme poverty, on the right to food, on the right to adequate housing, on the right to a healthy environment, on freedom of opinion and expression, on freedom of peaceful assembly, and on human rights defenders. Special Rapporteurs are independent experts appointed by the Human Rights Council to report on the situation of human rights and advise on their implementation. To this end, they can issue thematic reports, carry out country visits, receive complaints and communicate with the States concerned.

The Special Rapporteurs who were contacted by the villagers asked the Thai government to explain their actions and their compatibility with international law. In their communication with the Thai government, they also warned that any evictions would violate the villagers’ human rights, in particular their rights to housing, food, water, health and work. The Special Rapporteurs underline that: “If the environment must be protected to guarantee the enjoyment of human rights, the environment itself depends on the exercise of human rights. It is therefore essential that conservation policies integrate these rights.⁵“

On June 10, 2020, a year after the rapporteurs’ referral, the Thai government partially answered their questions, evading in particular the frequent threats made by Sai Thong park officers towards the 14 villagers. As the situation did not improve for them, a second urgent complaint to the UN special procedures was sent in August 2022.

The special rapporteurs have once again turned to the Thai government. In their communication, they deplore the fact that eviction orders have been issued without offering alternative housing or farmland, or providing adequate compensation. They underline the contradiction (or hypocrisy) of the authorities, who criminalize communities dependent on forests and on subsistence and family farming under the pretext of combating climate change, while at the same time authorizing numerous investors to operate in protected areas and even withdrawing hectares from nature reserves to transform them into special economic zones.

The Special Rapporteurs also request precise information on this situation and, pending a response from the Thai authorities, demand that they take all necessary precautionary measures to put an end to the alleged violations and prevent their recurrence.

According to recent information from the Manushya Foundation, the threat of eviction has been lifted for a year while the authorities find a solution.

Welcome convening of the Declaration of the Rights of Peasants

In their most recent communication, the Special Rapporteurs express grave concern that the Thai government is failing to take into account the impact of its policies on the human rights of forest-dependent communities, in particular their right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food and housing. This right is recognized in article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It is also mentioned in several articles of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other Rural Workers (UNDROP), for example in articles 16 and 17.

The Special Rapporteurs drew on these international human rights instruments at the end of their communication to remind Thailand of its obligations. Indeed, Thailand has ratified the above-mentioned Covenant – which is a binding treaty – and voted in favor of the adoption of UNDROP at the United Nations General Assembly.

Two articles of the Declaration were invoked by the Rapporteurs in the case of the Sab Wai villagers:
Article 17.1 recognizes the right of peasants and workers in rural areas to land, water bodies, coastal and fishing zones, pastures and forests. They can use and “manage them in a sustainable manner, to ensure an adequate standard of living, to have a place to live in security, peace and dignity, and to develop their cultures“.
Article 18.3 states that: “States shall comply with their respective international obligations to combat climate change. Peasants and other people working in rural areas have the right to contribute to the design and implementation of national and local climate change adaptation and mitigation policies, including through the use of traditional knowledge and practices.“

The mention of these articles is welcome, as it testifies to the increasingly frequent use of this young declaration – adopted in 2018 – in the UN system (See C. Golay’s article). The use of the Declaration by the rapporteurs contributes in particular to raising awareness of this text, but above all to establishing its scope and pointing out to States the need for them to integrate these rights into their national policies and legislation. It also highlights the need for a special mechanism dedicated to the Declaration within the Human Rights Council.

The more the various UN bodies and farmers and others working in rural areas mobilize the Declaration, the more it will take root in the human rights landscape, becoming an essential instrument at all levels.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sai_Thong_National_Park#cite_note-SCMP-20200202-4 ︎
2. https://www.mekongeye.com/2023/01/16/thailan-troubled-forest-policy/ ︎
3. Petition to the United Nations for urgent measures to protect the 14 inhabitants of Sab Wai https://www.manushyafoundation.org/_files/ugd/a0db76_b0596c8c728849b2b163130b061f4548.pdf p.4 ︎
4. Isaan Land Reform Network, Manushya Foundation, Focus on the Global South, iLAW, Protection International, Institute of Human Rights and Peace STudies Mahidol University, Rangsit University ︎
5. Communication from the special rapporteurs to the Thai Government, AL THA 7/2019, August 19, 2019. ︎

La entrada In the name of climate: The criminalization of peasants and forest guardians in Thailand se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.