Statement Presented at the UN Human Rights Council
UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL
| Fourth Session of the Intergovernmental Working Group on a
United Nations Declaration on the
Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas |
[Geneva, 15–19 May, 2017]
___________________________________________________________________________________
Distinguished Madam Chair-Rapporteur, distinguished delegates, ladies, and gentlemen,
I would like to begin by expressing
my gratitude to the organizers for this invitation and for the opportunity to
speak at this extremely important session to deliberate and hopefully finalize
the text of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working
in Rural Areas. I would also like to commend the Working Group for the groundbreaking
work done in preparing this draft declaration, which is of critical
significance to the lives of rural people around the world, and is thus greatly
needed.
In the few
minutes that I have, I would like to highlight five serious problems faced by
peasants and other rural communities, present five reasons why I think this
declaration is of great importance, and discuss five issues that could be
strengthened in order take this declaration forward.
Problems Faced by Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas
1. Multiple Human Rights Violations
Peasants and
other rural peoples, around the world, despite their significant contributions
to food security, sustainable development, and biodiversity conservation, suffer
from extreme poverty, hunger, and discrimination. Unfortunately, the situation
is only getting worse. Even since the discussions on this declaration
commenced, rural communities have witnessed growing violations of their human rights
and fundamental freedoms, as well as increased marginalization, neglect,
exclusion, violence, and impoverishment. Those working to defend their rights are
witnessing increased repression and persecution, including arbitrary arrests,
detention, criminalization, and in extreme cases, even death. Among rural
communities, certain groups face greater marginalization and discrimination.
These include indigenous peoples, historically discriminated communities, women,
and the landless. Despite the widespread violations of the human rights of
peasants and other rural communities, there is limited awareness and
documentation of these violations and even less attention paid to them. This reality
highlights the exigency of finalizing and adopting this declaration.
2. Acute Agrarian Crisis
The absence
of human rights-based agrarian reform and a failure to adequately invest in
agriculture has resulted in an acute agrarian crisis. It is a cruel
irony that those who feed the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition. This
reveals a gross failure of governance, not just nationally but also globally. It
also highlights the need to address the macroeconomic roots of this inequality
and the unquestioned perpetuation of a global economic order that promotes
social injustice while failing to protect the most marginalized from the
vagaries of the market and international trade regimes, including over their
lives, lands, seeds, and other natural resources. The agrarian crisis has resulted in growing indebtedness and impoverishment of farmers,
leading to the extreme situation of suicide in several countries. This is a human rights
emergency reflecting the grave reality facing peasants today, which, as human
rights advocates, we should be ashamed of.
3.
Discrimination Against Rural
Women and the Failure to Recognize Women as Farmers
Rural women constitute a quarter of the
world’s population but suffer disproportionately from poverty, exclusion, malnutrition,
and inter-sectional
and multiple forms of discrimination. With the feminization of agriculture, women's share in the
agricultural workforce has been rising but in many countries, women are not legally recognized
as peasants/farmers. Women’s contributions to food security and sovereignty, to the rural
economy, and to environmental sustainability are also not adequately acknowledged.
Furthermore, they are denied their equal rights to land, housing, property,
inheritance, participation, information, and access to financial services and
credit.
4. Land Grabbing, Forced
Evictions, and Displacement
People in
rural areas face severe challenges related to accessing, asserting, and
maintaining their rights to land. Forced land acquisition, evictions, and
displacement along with increased insecurity are pervasive problems, especially
in the global south. It is estimated that at least 15 million people are
forcibly displaced from their homes and lands every year. In many countries, the
state acquires land for the ostensible reason of ‘public purpose’—a concept
that is often ill-defined—even in law, and thus widely misused. Projects including
mining, ports, and greenfield development are cited as ‘public purpose’
projects. However, most of these projects benefit populations different
from those that have to pay the price with the loss of their lands, livelihoods,
food, health, security, and homes. In the majority of cases, due process is not followed,
neither are human rights standards implemented. Generally, such processes are
marked by the absence of human rights impact assessments, the full, free and
prior informed consent of communities, and adequate resettlement
and rehabilitation. In particular, the important principle of providing ‘land
for land’ is not respected. Women are the worst impacted by such
processes. Land
alienation is also the root cause of social conflict in many parts of the world
but is not addressed, neither is the right to land of individuals and
communities recognized by states.
5. Urban Policy Bias
The
fifth problem is that of the lack of adequate investment in rural development
leading to growing unemployment and forced migration. Furthermore, the global
policy assumption that urbanization is inevitable has led to a policy denial in
addressing the structural causes of rampant urbanization and its ecological
impacts. This has further led to an urban policy bias, with budgetary
implications, that fails to adequately focus on and address the needs of rural people,
who constitute half of humanity. This urban policy bias is also evident in the 2016
New Urban Agenda. Growing urban sprawl and the forced takeover of agricultural
lands, further exacerbate the crisis of food security and food sovereignty.
1.
Focus on Peasants and Other Rural Communities
This
draft declaration, for the first time, recognizes the specific needs and persistent
marginalization of peasants and other rural communities, as a special constituency
requiring urgent attention. It develops a human rights framework
to protect them within a sustainable development and environmental paradigm. While
collating existing international legal and normative standards related to rural
communities, it also aims to fill gaps in international law with new provisions. It is crucial
to reversing the urban policy bias, and would also help to meet the glaring
gaps in the 2016 New Urban Agenda.
2. Recognition of the Right to Land
A very important contribution of this declaration is that it calls
for the recognition of the right to land, individually and collectively, of
rural communities. This would build on and expand the scope of the UN
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as well as the FAO Voluntary Guidelines
on Tenure. The stress on agrarian and land reform, and the inclusion of the principle
of social function of land are very significant in ensuring the realization of
the right of rural communities to live with dignity.
3. Human Rights Principles
The explicit recognition
of the principles of food sovereignty
and of free and prior informed consent,
as human rights principles in the declaration, is a very positive and
noteworthy achievement. It is also of fundamental importance to protecting the
human rights of rural people.
4. Link to the Paris Agreement and 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda
This declaration would
help to meet implementation gaps in the Paris Agreement and the 2030
Sustainable Development Agenda. Rural people, while contributing the least to
climate change with their low ecological footprints, unfortunately, bear the
greatest brunt of its impacts. A human rights declaration focusing on the
specific needs of rural communities would help protect their rights, including
to disaster risk reduction, preparedness, and reconstruction and
rehabilitation. While several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) relate to
land, food, water, social inequality, and poverty reduction, this declaration could
help to contextualize them for rural people within a human rights-based
framework for implementation and monitoring.
5. Global Guidance and Standard-setting Tool
The declaration would be useful in guiding international and national law and policy developments aimed at protecting rights of rural people. It could also help support some important processes underway within the UN human rights system, such as the proposed development of a general comment on business and human rights, and on the right to land by the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.
Issues That Require Greater Focus in the
Declaration
1.
Prevention of Violations
It would be useful if the
declaration could strengthen the framework for prevention of violations. For
instance, by including the need for human rights-based impact assessments
before any projects are sanctioned in rural areas, and by developing early
warning systems, including for conflict and agrarian crises. The declaration
should also call for the regulation of macro-economic policies as well as trade
and investment agreements to prevent human rights violations.
2.
Reparation and Restitution
The declaration should address
issues of non-recognition of rights and incorporate a stronger framework for
restitution and reparation. This would include addressing issues of ‘biopiracy’
and appropriation of traditional knowledge; including omitted groups such as internally
displaced persons, refugees, migrants, people living under occupation and
situations of armed conflict, and stateless persons; and incorporating
international human rights standards on evictions, tenure security, internal
displacement, disasters, resettlement, and rehabilitation.
3.
Public Purpose
A major achievement of
this declaration would be if it could incorporate or request states to adopt a human
rights-based definition of ‘public purpose’ that is compliant with the
international human rights framework and aims to prevent human rights
violations of one group for the benefit of another.
4.
Climate Change
A stronger human rights
approach to addressing climate change and its impacts on peasants and other
rural people would be useful. The declaration could include provisions that
climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies of states must not, under
any circumstances, violate human rights, and especially must not lead to forced
evictions and displacement.
5.
Women’s Rights and Children’s Rights
A greater focus on women’s
rights and children’s rights throughout the text would strengthen the
declaration. In particular, issues of child labour, exploitation, early/forced
marriage, and rights of widows, single women, and other marginalized women
should be addressed.
Once again, I would like to commend
the Working Group for the excellent work done on drafting this historic declaration,
and would like to urge all states to take this issue seriously and to work
collaboratively towards finalizing the text and adopting the declaration soon.
Rural peoples around the world cannot afford to wait any more for their rights
to be respected, protected, and fulfilled.
Thank
you very much.
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