The recognition of the right to land, a historic demand by peasant movements, is gaining momentum at the international level. This publication takes stock of this major issue of our times. It is the result of major research and inquiry, and the fruit of close collaboration with La Vía Campesina.

Introduction

Generally speaking, property rights relative to land are conceived of without taking into account human rights. However, these rights are an essential matter since property rights have a very real effect on the enjoyment of the right to food, to adequate housing, to health, to work, to a healthy environment, to development, and without access to land, many peoples and communities find themselves deprived of their means of subsistence, as can be seen just about everywhere throughout the world. It is no exaggeration to say that enjoyment of all human rights, including the right of peoples to decide their future, depends on policies and legislation concerning land.

The absence of agrarian reforms, and practices such as forced displacement, wide-scale land grabs, inequitable trade rules, commodity speculation on food products, environmental destruction, discrimination and exclusion exercised to the detriment of peasant families and other food producers are so many sources of serious and wide-scale human rights violations. It is in this context that one must analyze the demands of peasants regarding land and the importance of recognizing the right to land for them, but also for the right to food of everybody.

While the control of land is just as important in urban areas, if only for the right to adequate housing,1 we shall concentrate our focus in this publication on the right to land in rural areas. Thus, before entering into the thick of the subject, it is appropriate to present what is at stake in matters related to land in rural areas, in particular as seen from the perspective of agriculture and the right to food (Chapter I).

The struggles of peasants for land are illustrated by four example drawn from four continents, with analysis of state policies and practices of four countries, presented by peasant organizations in the field (Chapter II).

The right to land is recognized to varying degrees for certain groups considered vulnerable (indigenous peoples and women, most notably), and, while one can also interpret some provisions of international instruments along these lines, the right to land, per se, is not formally codified in international law. Yet the United Nations mechanisms for the implementation of human rights plead in favor of a recognition of the right to land for peasants and the urgent necessity of undertaking agrarian reform. Looking at the matter from the angle of human rights, the present publication does an overall assessment and analyzes in detail all the major instruments (international and regional) in force concerning, directly or indirectly, the right to land (Chapter III).

The specific examples of jurisprudence from the United Nations human rights protection bodies, regional instances and national courts make possible a grasp of the multiple facets and the complexity of the subject as well as the tendency toward a formal recognition of the right to land for the communities that depend on it (Chapter IV).

The combat for the social function of land (primacy of collective use and general interest as opposed to private property) and security of occupation are at the heart of peasant demands. The draft declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas, negotiations for which are under way at the United Nations, is in line with this. Thus, it seemed to us equally necessary to analyze the history of land as private property and its link to human rights and to compare the legislation on the matter of several countries on different continents (Chapter V).

The present publication has a double objective: on the one hand, it aims to bring support to local and national struggles for land, and, on the other, it is conceived as a constructive contribution to the negotiations on the draft declaration under way at the United Nations Human Rights Counsel for which the right to land constitutes a major challenge.

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- Melik Özden, Director of the Human Rights Programme of theEurope-Third World Centre (CETIM)