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 consequently on politics. As a result, peasant farmers no longer control the production process or the marketing of their products, not to mention the fact that they are deprived of their land, the main instrument of their labour. The policies of most governments, in contradiction with their human rights obligations, only serve to reinforce this situation, to the detriment of the food sovereignty of peoples and the human rights of peasants.