Burkina Faso and Sweden under review at UN CESCR Committee
Investments by Swedish National Pension Funds in projects involved in human rights abuses and violations were under the spotlight along with the non-inclusion of the right to food and nutrition in Burkina Faso’s national law.
FIAN International and its sections drew attention to the human rights violations and abuses in the two countries at the 58th session of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR). While Sweden was singled out for its human rights’ breaches in the field of extraterritorial obligations, Burkina Faso’s non-stipulation of the right to food and nutrition in national law and the harm caused to communities affected by land acquisition were severely criticized.
Civil society stressed that the Swedish National Pension Funds had some investments in projects related to mining, agricultural land and the fossil fuel industry involved in human rights abuses of local communities. This has been further illustrated with three specific cases in the recent parallel report by FIAN Sweden, FIAN International, Swedish Fellowship of Reconciliation (SweFOR) and Solidarity Sweden-Latin America (SAL), submitted for the Committee´s analysis.
“The Swedish government should be held accountable for breaches of the right to food and nutrition and related rights taking place in the mining project in Guatemala. It should also make available the necessary information in order for independent parties to carry out a human rights-based analysis in the case of agricultural land investments in Brazil. Finally, the Swedish State should initiate divestment from the fossil fuel industry and mandate the pension funds to actively make investments that promote sustainable development and human rights,” reads the report.
And more than 7000 km south of the Scandinavian country, Burkina’s national law does not specify the right to food and nutrition itself. Such a legal gap is accentuated by the non-ratification of the optional protocol on Economic Social and Cultural rights (OP-ICESCR) and land policies that accelerate the phenomenon of land-grabbing. This leaves the population’s right to food and nutrition unprotected and widely unfulfilled, especially when it comes to peasants.
As pointed out in a report to the Committee by FIAN Burkina Faso and FIAN International, the cases of Essakane and Kounkoufouanou communities, which have been respectively displaced and forcibly evicted from their lands and have not yet obtained full compensation for their violated rights, are clear examples of the State’s breaches of human rights.
In addition to expressly recognizing the right to food and nutrition within its future Constitution and other laws and regulations, Burkina Faso should ratify the OP-ECESCR. Particularly on the identified cases, the government should adopt urgent measures to address human rights violations and abuses due to the mining activities in Essakane and ensure full compensation for all those affected. By the same token, all rights of the community Kounkoufouanou must be restored and those responsible for human rights abuses be held accountable.
In several weeks, the Committee will release its conclusions. It is expected that the different legal and policy issues that lead these countries to neglect the economic, social and cultural Rights, are addressed. FIAN and its partners will follow up closely the implementations of Committee’s concluding observations.
