The first session of an intergovernmental working group responsible for drafting a UN Declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas took place in the frame of the UN Human Rights Council from 15-19 July 2013.
While many governments and civil society supported the negotiation of a declaration, the USA and some European states, as well as Korea and Japan remain opposed.
The international peasant movement La Via Campesina, which represents around 200 million peasants all over the world, together with other civil society organizations, has been calling upon the UN to adopt a declaration on the rights of peasants for many years. FIAN has supported this process since the beginning. With the first session of the intergovernmental working group, the process towards the adoption of a UN declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas enters into a new phase. The working group was established through a resolution of the Human Rights Council passed in October of last year, and was given the mandate to negotiate a draft declaration to be presented to the Human Rights Council.
While a majority of countries supported a declaration, others, especially the USA and several EU member states, decided not to engage in negotiations. They pointed to procedural matters and to concerns that new rights might be established. They also raised doubts about the need for an instrument to protect peasants specifically. This despite the fact that over two days renowned experts and representatives of peasant organizations and other small-scale food producers presented overwhelming evidence about the importance of peasants to feed the world and the extreme discrimination faced by rural populations.
FIAN finds unacceptable the fact that some states question that the protection of peasants and small-scale food producers, who are disproportionately affected by hunger and malnutrition, is a human rights issue. “From our longstanding experience, we can not only say that peasants’ rights are human rights, but also underline that the problems faced by peasants and other people living in rural areas are genuine human rights issues and not merely economic or political conflicts,” underlined Philip Seufert from FIAN International.
The protection of the most vulnerable and marginalized people should be at the heart of the human rights agenda, and is key for states to comply with their obligations under international human rights law. Therefore, all states should contribute to this process in a constructive spirit.
The next session of the working group will take place in 2014. In the interim, Bolivia, as the chair, will hold informal consultations with all stakeholders, including governments, peasant organizations and other civil society organizations, in order to elaborate a new draft declaration that will serve as the basis for further negotiations.
During the session, FIAN called upon states to use the aspirations of the rights holders as the starting point for the negotiations. Philip Seufert underlines that “reality on the ground clearly shows that there is an urgent need to take strong action in order to address the precarious human rights situation of many rural communities. We should not forget that the protection of peasants and other small-scale food producers is not only necessary for them, but for all humanity.”