«Il n‘y a pas un monde développé et un monde sous-développé, mais un seul monde mal développé»
Bagnolet/Geneva, 5 October 2026
The United Nations Human Rights Council, meeting during its 63rd session, adopted Resolution A/HRC/RES/63/11 by a recorded vote of 33 in favour, none against and 14 abstentions, deciding to renew for three years the mandate of the United Nations Working Group on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas.
This decision represents an important recognition by a large majority of UN Member States of the work undertaken over the past three years to translate the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) from a political commitment into concrete implementation. The renewal of the mandate helps preserve a vital institutional space within the United Nations for the defence and promotion of peasants’ rights.
Three Years of Work: Turning UNDROP from Words into Reality
Established in 2023 through Human Rights Council Resolution 54/9, the Working Group is composed of five independent experts with a mandate to promote the effective and comprehensive implementation of UNDROP, identify and share good practices, facilitate technical cooperation, and coordinate with relevant United Nations mechanisms.
Over the past three years, the Working Group has helped raise the profile of UNDROP within the United Nations system through thematic reports, country visits and interactive dialogues. Its thematic reports on the right to participation and the right to seeds have not only identified emerging best practices from grassroots movements and governments but have also interpreted the provisions of UNDROP in light of contemporary challenges: climate crises, land grabs, and food system crises, among others.
The value and strength of the Working Group lie in its ability to address situations concerning the fundamental rights of approximately 1.2 billion people living in rural areas worldwide —a historically oppressed population that has lacked specific representation within UN human rights mechanisms but now has a channel for expression and a tool for accountability.
The Political Nature of the Struggle for Peasants’ Rights
The struggle for peasants’ rights, food sovereignty, and agroecology is fundamentally a political struggle. This means that it depends above all on the balance of power— or, to put it more accurately, on our ability to build a balance of power that favors the interests of the working people in rural areas.
The goal of the agribusiness elites, as an integral part of the dominant economic system, is clear: to fully commodify agriculture, drive peasants from their land, and turn food into an object of financial speculation. In this system, let us remember that small-scale producers account for 70–75% of the world’s food production, yet represent 80% of those suffering from hunger and 70% of those living in extreme poverty. This structural inversion is not a natural phenomenon: it is the product of very specific power dynamics.
This is why defending peasants’ rights is never merely a technical or legal task, but requires a continuous struggle to build and accumulate power in every possible arena—from community or citizens’ assemblies tonational legislative bodies, from regional forums to the UN Human Rights Council.
Territories are, of course, the primary arena of this struggle. Peasants’ demands can only truly be fulfilled or violated on the lands, pastures, and waters where they work and live with their families. The United Nations constitutes another important arena of struggle: it is not an arbiter standing above politics, but a tool that can be put at the service of the struggle on the ground.
The adoption of this resolution and the renewal of the Working Group’s mandate are not the culmination of the struggle, but rather the establishment of an institutional foothold for the next phase of the international advocacy process in support of the cause.
Call to Action: Mobilise UNDROP
The renewal of the mandate represents continuity, but it must also mean a deepening of our collective efforts. We call on all peasants’, fishers’, pastoralists’ and rural workers’ organisations, as well as all forces defending food sovereignty and agroecology, to:
– Make UNDROP their own: It should not be viewed as a document enshrined in the temples of international law, but as a living instrument that can be invoked in the fields, at assemblies of organizations and social movements, and in negotiations with governments. The fundamental rights enshrined in the UNDROP (the rights to seeds, land, food sovereignty, a decent income, and biodiversity, among others) can and must become legal foundations for the strategies of struggle and resistance adopted by rural organizations.
– Mobilize at all levels: From local communities to national policymaking, from regional coordination to global advocacy, each level requires the direct participation of UNDROP rights holders.
– Use the Working Group as a forum for grievances, a platform for dialogue, and a mechanism for sharing experiences: The Working Group is the only entity within the United Nations system specifically tasked with addressing the rights of peasants and rural workers. It can receive communications, organize country visits, publish thematic reports, and provide peasant organizations with a direct channel for dialogue with international experts and governments.
This requires a strategic and sustained advocacy approach to secure the fundamental rights of communities that have been historically marginalised by a dominant economic system that prioritises profit and endless growth at the expense of the social and ecological balance on which the future of our planet depends.
The renewal of the Working Group’s mandate is therefore another victory for the global peasant movement—but it is also a call to organise, mobilise and deepen the struggle.
Globalise the Struggle! Globalise Hope!
