Campaign “Protection of Peasants’ Rights”

Peasants are key to food security, the fight against climate change and the conservation of biodiversity security. Yet their rights are systemically violated and they are subject to multiple discrimination.

80% of the people that suffer from hunger and extreme poverty live in rural areas and most of them are peasants

Each day peasant farms disappear because of the lack of remunerative prices or access to productive resources, and peasants are evicted from their lands or killed when they defend their rights.

CETIM is committed to a better protection and promotion of the rights of peasants alongside La Vía Campesina. The international peasant movement brings together more than 164 organisations in 73 countries. It represents about 200 million peasants. FIAN International is also a long-standing partner in this vital fight. The first victory came in 2012. A majority of the Member States of the Human Rights Council voted in favour of the resolution “Promotion and protection of the human rights of peasants and other people living in rural areas” (21/19). This resolution was presented by Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador and South Africa. It establishes an intergovernmental working group. This new body is tasked with drafting and adopting a Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas.

After more than 17 years of struggle, CETIM and its partners see their efforts rewarded. A new international instrument was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2018. It is the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants.

The final vote represents the culmination of a historic process for rural communities. With 122 votes in favour, 8 votes against and 54 abstentions, the forum of UNGA representing 193 Member States, ushered in a new promising chapter in the struggle for the rights of peasants and other rural communities throughout the world.

This Declaration is an international legal instrument that can change the lives of millions of peasants around the world. This is why the CETIM, La Via Campesina and its allies are mobilising to support the implementation processes. And this at the international, regional and national levels.

In October 2023, the United Nations Human Rights Council, with an overwhelming majority of member states in favour, took a historic step by voting in favour of Resolution 54/9 to create a follow-up mechanism to the Declaration, in the form of a new UN Special Procedure: a Working Group of experts is now mandated to work on the promotion and implementation of the UNDROP.

For more information on the Declaration and the struggle for peasants’ rights:

Toward the adoption by the United Nations of an international declaration on the right of peasants and other persons living in rural areas !

Geneva, 1st September 2012 – It is with immense satisfaction that the small-scale farmers union Uniterre, representing in Switzerland the international peasants movement La Vía Compesina, and its partners in this undertaking, the Europe – Third World Centre (CETIM) and FIAN Switzerland, announce that the Human Rights Council has deemed it necessary to better protect […]

On the working document on peasants and their fundamental rights

HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL Consultative Committee – 3rd session 03 – 07 August 2009 [Excerpt from the statement] As the working document presented by Mr Jean Ziegler clearly shows, peasants have always been, and still are today, the first victims of violations of the right to food. Since the dawn of time, peasants have been driven […]

Support for the Advisory Committee’s study on the food crisis

HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL 10th session 02 mars – 27 mars 2009 [Exerpt from the statement] This study is innovative in several respects. It is also welcome, because in the scandalous context of famine and malnutrition worldwide, which long predates the food crisis that has been affecting many countries in the South for over a year […]

Support for the study by the Advisory Committee on Peasants’ Rights

HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL 10th session 02 March – 27 March 2009 [Extract from the declaration] Existing human rights instruments do not meet the specific needs of peasants in the context of globalisation. The rules of international trade favour the law of the strongest, in other words the stranglehold of transnational corporations on the economy and […]

The right to work and the realization of the right to food

HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL 10th session 02 March – 27 March 2009 [Extract from the statement] The report on the mission to the World Trade Organization finally allows everyone to see the links between the various areas of international relations and puts an end to the fallacious arguments claiming that there are issues that should not […]