The UN Declaration on Peasant Rights is a massive victory for humanity!

The Global Forest Coalition celebrates the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas. On 17 December 2018, the United Nations General Assembly in New York approved the UN Declaration with 121 votes by member states in favour, 54 abstentions, and 8 against.

We congratulate the almost two decades of work put in by our comrades in social movements and organisations like Via Campesina, Indonesian Peasant Union (SPI), FIAN, CETIM and so many others that worked to turn this dream into reality.

Peasants and people working in rural areas have increasingly been subject to violence, evictions, harassment, and multiple threats. They are being criminalised for exercising what are their human rights, like seed saving. Rural women are particularly affected. This UN Declaration is an unprecedented recognition in international law of their rights, re-emphasising the obligations of member states.

This human rights victory will allow all rural food growers, peasant farmers, farm workers, pastoralists, and hunter gatherers to legally challenge harmful policies, including free trade agreements and other aspects of the broader neoliberal economic model. This can become a powerful tool in the struggle for food sovereignty and to create a just and sustainable food system.

More details on La Via Campesina website here.

18 Dec, 2018
Posted in Defending Rights