Anticolonial struggles in the Global South: A peasant perspective
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Anticolonial struggles in the Global South: A peasant perspective

On Thursday March 14, 2024, a conference “Anticolonial struggles in the Global South: A Peasant Perspective” organized by CETIM, La Via Campesina (LVC), Uniterre, Le Silure, FIAN International/FIAN Switzerland and the Movement for Peasant and Citizen Agriculture (MAPC), was held in Geneva. This conference was organised on the occasion of the visit of an LVC…

UN Human Rights Council appoints the members of the new Working Group on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas
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UN Human Rights Council appoints the members of the new Working Group on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas

This article was first published on La Via Campesina’s website on April 8th, 2024, we can find it here. Press Release / La Via Campesina, Fian International, CETIM In October 2023, during its 54th session, the UN Human Rights Council adopted resolution 54/11, establishing a new Working Group on the Rights of Peasants and other…

UNDROP: a key to a just transition to agroecology
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UNDROP: a key to a just transition to agroecology

This briefing paper was first published on Fian International website on September 19th, 2023. You can find it here. The global food crisis, rising inequalities and the triple planetary crise of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution are stark reminders that maintaining the status quo is no longer viable. We urgently need to embark on…

Palestine: no food sovereignty without national sovereignty
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Palestine: no food sovereignty without national sovereignty

This article was originally published in CETIM’s website the 20th of March 2024. The Union of Agricultural Work Committees (a Palestinian peasant organisation and member of La Via Campesina), CETIM and FIAN International conducted a week of advocacy in support of the Palestinian people’s struggle against Israeli colonialist and genocidal oppression. This campaign took place…

Peasant Protests in Europe
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Peasant Protests in Europe

We republish here an article written by Christophe Golay linking current farmer protests in Europe to the rights contained in UNDROP. This article was originally published in English on the Geneva Graduate Institute website on February 6, 2024. A list of articles and press releases, notably from the European Coordination Via Campesina, concerning these protests…

Podcast Peasant Voices | Episode 2 – The UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP)
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Podcast Peasant Voices | Episode 2 – The UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP)

This podcast was produced by La Via Campesina, and is the second episode in a series entitled: Peasant Voices – on the road to the 8th International Conference. You can find the episode on La Via Campesina’s website here. Episode 2 focuses on the Declaration of the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in…

Does agriculture need “new technologies”?
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Does agriculture need “new technologies”?

This article was published in the Swiss newspaper Le Temps on September 7, 2023, and can be found here (in French). In this article, Melik Özden, director of Cetim, responds to the director of the multinational seed company Syngenta, promoting new technologies in agriculture. He prefers peasant agriculture to new technologies, and calls for the…

What is a peasant? What are peasantries?
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What is a peasant? What are peasantries?

In 2013, for the first session of the Intergovernmental Working Group on what would be the UNDROP, Marc Edelman, Professor of Anthropology at Hunter College (New York), wrote an article on the term peasant. This article is a “must read” for anyone wanting to understand the use of peasant in the UNDROP. To have the…

In the name of climate: The criminalization of peasants and forest guardians in Thailand
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In the name of climate: The criminalization of peasants and forest guardians in Thailand

In Thailand, the government has been rolling out a climate change mitigation policy since 2014. One of the components of this policy concerns the protection of the country’s forests. For this strand, the government has decided to sanctuary these lands in defiance of the lives and rights of the people who live and depend on…

Land Is a Human Right
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Land Is a Human Right

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…

Proposal for an EU Directive on Agricultural Land
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Proposal for an EU Directive on Agricultural Land

In 2023, European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) wrote a proposal for a European directive on agricultural land based on Article 17 – right to land – of UNDROP. European directives are legislative acts that give general objectives to the member countries of the European Union, and the countries must then take measures to make these…

Defending Peasants’ Rights – Newsletter n°3
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Defending Peasants’ Rights – Newsletter n°3

Victory for Peasants’ Rights! The United Nations Human Rights Council votes in favor of creating a Working Group on UNDROP On October 12th, the United Nations Human Rights Council voted, with a very wide majority, for the creation of a Working Group dedicated to the UN Declaration on the rights of peasants and other people…