Expert Seminar: The Right to Land and Other Natural Resources

Olivier Chamard / Geneva Academy

28 November 2016

Should the UN declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas (UN Declaration) include a right to land and other natural resources? Should this right include individual and/or collective entitlements? Is agreed language available to define this right in the UN Declaration being negotiated at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC)? How do states' representatives and leaders of La Via Campesina see the future of the negotiation process?

More than 60 participants – leading experts, states’ representatives, academics and civil society’s representatives - discussed these issues on 17 November during our expert seminar on the right to land and other natural resources, co-organized with the Government of Switzerland, the Permanent Mission of Bolivia to the UN in Geneva, and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES).

On this occasion, Ambassador Nardi Suxo Iturry (Permanent Representative of Bolivia to the UN in Geneva), who is leading the negotiation of the UN Declaration, presented her views on the future of the negotiation.

The results of the discussion will feed into the 4th session of the HRC working group in charge of negotiating a UN Declaration (15-19 May 2017).

This expert seminar forms part of our research project on the rights of peasants.