Category: Non classé

Time to act: Securing a sustainable future through corporate accountability

Posted on by Amanda Cordova Gonzales

In spite of an increasingly robust international human rights and environmental legal framework, when it comes to trade and investment agreements, transnational corporations are often granted rights that are stronger than local communities’ tenure and human rights, without including any corporate obligations, especially their obligations to respect and comply with remedies.

In the briefing paper “Time to Act: Securing a Sustainable Future through Corporate Accountability” FIAN and other organisations address the challenge to ensure that growing recognition of the RtHE across governance spaces is translated into enforceable and coherent obligations for states and corporations alike. The paper outlines how the UN legally binding instrument (LBI) on business and human rights can contribute to close that gap with binding regulation of corporate conduct to prevent harm and secure access to justice and remedy in transnational contexts.


“The LBI can play a pivotal role in operationalizing states’ obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, for example by reinforcing meaningful participation, Free, Prior and Informed Consent, and robust environmental, gender and human rights impact assessments” says Ayushi Kalyan, corporate accountability coordinator at FIAN International. ”Such provisions would enable and require States to take timely action to modify, suspend, halt or refrain from trade, investment, or concession agreements that threaten livelihoods, contaminate land and water, undermine biodiversity, or contribute to climate change.”

The paper highlights multiple examples how corporate operations are causing severe environmental pollution in water, air, and soil, damage to local agriculture, expropriation and displacement of communities, etc. It  refers to recent developments in international jurisprudence which have clarified States’ duties to regulate private actors, enforce compliance, and ensure effective remedies – especially the Advisory Opinion (AO) of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the obligations of states in respect to climate change  and the Advisory Opinion (AO) of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) on climate emergency and human rights.

It concludes with a set of recommendations

  • to States:

-Constructively participate and strengthen the Updated Draft of the legally binding instrument on transnational corporations and human rights by ensuring that it establishes clear obligations for corporations and states, liability across jurisdictions, and effective remedies for affected communities; 
-Integrate into domestic law stringent human rights due diligence, liability and other prevention mechanisms grounded in the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment

  • to intergovernmental and UN bodies

-ensure that environmental policies genuinely reflect and serve the needs and priorities of those most impacted by environmental degradation and ensure coordination between human rights and environmental governance processes in line with the most progressive standards for protection.  

  • to civil society including trade unions

-Center the voices of grassroots communities and social movements as essential actors and promote community-led and people-centered solutions to the ecological crisis;
-Leverage the language of the legally binding instrument and jurisprudence on the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment in environmental justice advocacy, and share information about this instrument in relevant spaces.

For more information, please contact Sabine Pabst pabst@fian.org

IPC releases its position paper on agrarian reform ahead ICARRD+20

Posted on by Tom

Twenty years after the first ICARRD, land, water, forests and oceans are increasingly concentrated in the hands of corporations and financial actors, driving dispossession, inequality and ecological collapse. Small-scale food producers, Indigenous Peoples, pastoralists, fishers, rural women and workers continue to be excluded from their territories and decision-making spaces.

The IPC urges governments to move beyond voluntary commitments and adopt binding, measurable actions to ensure redistributive land reform, equitable access to natural resources, democratic governance, and agroecological rural development. Without secure collective rights to land and territories, there can be no food sovereignty, no just transition, and no lasting peace. At ICARRD+20, IPC brings forward a clear political vision to reclaim land and dignity worldwide.

Download here

Vacancy Announcement: Communications Specialist

Posted on by Tom

 
We are seeking you as a communications specialist to join our communications team. In this role, you will help promote our work and strengthen the visibility of both FIAN International and the right to food and nutrition at the global level. 
 
You will be part of FIAN International’s International Secretariat team and collaborate with representatives from national FIAN sections and partner organizations. 
 
Profile, Experience and Skills 
 
We are seeking an experienced communications professional with a background in the non-profit sector—ideally in social justice and human rights—who combines strategic thinking with strong digital production skills. 
 
You bring a degree in communications, journalism, or a related field, and/or three to five years of relevant professional experience, including digital communications. You have excellent writing and editing skills in English and can translate complex issues into clear, engaging messages for diverse audiences. You are experienced in identifying target audiences, shaping strategic communications angles, and positioning organizations effectively across mainstream and alternative media. 
 
You have hands-on experience managing social media campaigns (e.g., BlueSky, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn), producing digital content, and working with website CMS and e-newsletter tools. Proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite (or similar tools) for video/photo editing, graphic design, and layout is required; familiarity with SEO and a willingness to learn new tools are assets. 
 
You bring experience collaborating across international organizations, networks, and grassroots groups, and are comfortable coordinating external service providers. You work effectively in intercultural and remote teams, manage competing priorities, and demonstrate strong organizational and time-management skills. 
 
You have a solid understanding of human rights—particularly the right to food and nutrition, food sovereignty, and food justice in an international context—as well as experience in communications-related risk management. 
 
Key responsibilities 
 
You design, implement, and evaluate digital communications strategies and plans, in close coordination with policy teams. 
 
You support and amplify FIAN International’s work by producing and editing high-quality communications materials, including website content, social media posts, visuals, infographics, short videos, newsletters, popular education materials, and educational resources. 
 
You strengthen FIAN International’s visibility and media presence by pitching stories, responding to media inquiries, and coordinating interviews with organizational spokespersons. 
  
Languages 
 
Excellent proficiency (C1-C2) in English is required. Additional knowledge of French, Arabic, or other languages is an asset. 
  
Location 
 
This is a remote position and can be based anywhere. In line with our commitment to strengthening representation and power-shifting within global civil society, we particularly encourage you to apply if you are from and based in the Global South. A reliable high-speed internet connection is required. 
  
Terms 
 
We ideally look to cover a full-time position (100%, i.e. 40 hours a week) but could consider splitting between two part-time positions. The initial contract is for one year with the possibility of renewal. Occasional evening/weekend work might be needed, as well as two international trips per year, of seven days each. The employment modality depends on your country of residence and legal feasibility. 
  
Salary 
 
FIAN International applies a location-based salary scale, taking into account cost of living, local and international NGO benchmarks, and relevant experience. 
 
 What we offer 
 
You will join a highly committed international team working at the forefront of struggles for the right to food and nutrition. We offer a collaborative, values-driven work environment, meaningful engagement with global movements for social justice, flexible working arrangements, 30 days of paid leave, and an equipment stipend to support your work. 
 
Equal Opportunities Commitment 
 
We are committed to equal opportunities and maintain zero tolerance for discrimination. We ensure fair and respectful treatment for all, regardless of origin, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, religion, socioeconomic background, or any other protected status. We actively foster an inclusive environment and encourage applications from individuals from underrepresented or historically marginalized communities. 
 
We are equally committed to safeguarding the welfare, dignity, and rights of everyone we work with. We uphold zero tolerance for abuse, exploitation, harassment, and neglect, and ensure timely, rights-based and person-centered responses that prioritize the dignity, safety, and agency of those affected. 
 
Start date: As soon as possible, depending on the conditions that arise in the application process. 
 
Application deadline: March 10th, 2026. 
 

 How to apply 
 
Please send the following documents by email—combined into a single PDF (not bigger than 10 MB in the format: “your-name.pdf”) to employment@fian.org: 
 
– A motivation letter  
– A curriculum vitae (CV)  
– Contact details for three references 
– Include links to relevant publications, videos, social-media, podcasts etc. 
 
Please indicate in your application whether you are interested in a full-time or part-time position; this preference will not affect the assessment of your candidacy. 
 
Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and invited to an interview and a written exercise.

Dowload the vacany call here.

Global Social movements rally around ICARRD+20 as struggles over land, natural commons, and territories intensify

Posted on by Tom

From Palestine to Venezuela, from Cuba to the Arctic, a renewed imperial scramble for territory, minerals, water, and energy is underway. Financial investments, military occupation, economic blockades, and so-called security, development, and green transition projects are increasingly used by governments, corporations and elites to dispossess peoples and grab power over strategic resources. As a result, the world is witnessing escalating land concentration, the dispossession of territories, natural commons, and growing inequality. As global social movements of small-scale food producers, we are determined to unite in Cartagena to expose how these global power struggles directly impact rural and urban working-class communities and to fight for public policies that respect our rights and autonomy.

As a result of this capitalist and imperialist expansion, the global food system is also in deep crisis. It is collapsing under climate breakdown, industrial monocultures, and extreme inequality. We, the peasants, Indigenous Peoples, and small-scale food producers who feed most of the world and protect ecosystems, are facing a new wave of dispossession driven by militarisation, big technology, organised crime and the commercialisation of climate action.

We, representatives of social movements from over 70 countries, organized through the International Planning Committee on Food Sovereignty (IPC), and attending ICARRD+20 as part of the Common Political Action Agenda emerging from the 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum, call on the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) to establish robust, participatory, and regular assessment mechanisms to monitor the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (VGGT).The UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) must be central pillars of comprehensive agrarian reforms, guiding states to protect collective rights, ensure participation, uphold free, prior and informed consent, and defend territories against dispossession.

ICARRD+20, which will take place from 24 to 28 February 2026, comes twenty years after the first conference in Porto Alegre. In the intervening decades, land concentration has intensified and new forms of land and water grabbing have expanded. As social movements, we insist that the conference must move beyond technical recommendations and voluntary pledges.

We are calling for comprehensive agrarian reform grounded in four pillars: recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ and customary rights over land, territories and water; redistribution of land and natural commons, including limits on corporate and military accumulation; restitution for communities dispossessed by land grabbing, colonialism, occupation, and conflict; and strong regulation of land markets to protect food-producing territories from extractive, speculative, and military uses.

A comprehensive agrarian reform is central to democracy, peace, and climate justice. Any meaningful agrarian reform must centre women’s equal land rights, secure dignified futures for rural youth, and recognise the rights, safety, and belonging of sexually diverse and gender-diverse people in rural territories. Without political commitments and effective global monitoring and cooperation mechanisms, land grabbing simply takes new forms.

Our struggle for agrarian reform today is inseparable from our fight against imperialism, authoritarianism, and ecological collapse. ICARRD+20 is a critical moment to intensify our united efforts to reclaim land, territories, restore dignity to rural peoples, build food sovereignty, and defend the foundations of life itself. As the IPC Working Group on Land, Forests, Water, and Territories, we will organize a Social Movements and Indigenous Peoples Forum on February 22 and 23 to prepare our collective proposals for the Conference.

Defending Life, Building Food Sovereignty!

People’s Control over Land, Water and Territories, NOW!

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FOR PRESS

  • List of Global Social Movements: LVC, IITC, WFFP, WFF, WAMIP, WMW, FIMARC, MIJARC, HIC, URGENCI
  • List of Regional Social Movements: AFSA, CAOI, COPROFAM, ECMIA, MAELA, PROPAC, ROPPA, USFSA
  • Key Dates
    • Social Movement Forum: 22–23 February 2026
    • Academic Forum: 20–22 February 2026
    • Official ICARRD+20 Conference: 24–28 February 2026
    • Press Conference: To be confirmed (virtual or Cartagena)

3rd Nyéléni forum: Building global solidarity for systemic transformation

Posted on by Tom

From 6 to 13 September 2025, the city of Kandy in Sri Lanka hosted the 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum. Small-scale food producers, consumers, Indigenous Peoples, trade unions, human rights defenders, climate and health justice advocates, urban poor communities, women and gender-diverse groups, practitioners of the social and solidarity economy, scholars, artists and other representatives from grassroots movements and civil society organizations gathered at the National Institute of Co-operative Development. Together, they built a Common Political Action Agenda (CPAA) for systemic transformation towards economic, social, gender, racial and environmental justice.

Over the years, the Nyéléni process has enabled collective movement building, offering a space where grassroots movements share struggles, analyse trends, and work together toward common solutions. Building on the legacies of the first and second Nyéléni fora, both held in Mali, this third forum expanded its reach by joining forces with the climate justice, people’s health, and social solidarity economy movements.

Reflecting its diversity, the forum brought together participants from all regions of the world, with a team of 72 volunteer interpreters organised by the collective COATI, working tirelessly to ensure language justice and interpretation into 18 official languages.

At its core, the forum reaffirmed that food sovereignty is inseparable from global solidarity. From Palestine to Congo, from Haiti to Sudan and beyond, participants voiced their commitment to resist oppression in all its forms and to build a world rooted in dignity, justice, and care. Standing with Palestine — and with all peoples facing occupation, war, and dispossession— was recognized as a shared responsibility and a reflection of the movement’s collective vision of justice.

The forum culminated in the acclamation of the Kandy declaration and the anticipation of an enriched CPAA, both intended to serve as a political compass guiding the actions and vision of movements worldwide striving for food sovereignty and justice.

This edition of the Nyéléni newsletter shares a selection of the forum’s highlights, capturing several of the participants’ perspectives. As the Kandy declaration states: “Across all the diversities we represent—to strengthen our struggles – we are raising our voices together, declaring: Systemic Transformation—Now and Forever!”

IPC for Food Sovereignty, Transnational Institute (TNI)    

Illustration: Mural created by the Fearless Collective during the 3rd Nyéléni Forum in Kandy, Sri Lanka.

Click here to download the English editionNyeleni_Newsletter_Num_62_EN (pdf) or read it directly on the website!          

For any further information, contact info@nyeleni.org – www.nyeleni.org

On the International Human Rights Day, we demand a transformation of the UN that strengthens accountability and serves peoples not budgets

Posted on by Tom

In our work with communities affected by human rights violations, people often tell us that visits and recommendations by the Human Rights Council’s Special Procedures – such as the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food – and recommendations by Treaty Bodies bring visibility to the risks and harms they face, guide states in preventing or redressing those harms, and ensure accountability for obligations under the UN Human Rights treaties.

While the Human Rights System has failed to stop genocides and other grave atrocities, the work of Special Procedures and Treaty Bodies- carried out by independent experts serving without pay – has played out a decisive role in correcting injustices, and stands out as one of the most important parts of the system for human rights holders.

Despite this reality, the UN80 reform (UN80 Initiative) threatens to reduce budgets essential to ensure the work of the human rights mandates, including by cutting the technical support provided by the OHCHR that is necessary to respond to letters of allegations from rights holders, prepare affidavits, and conduct other critical monitoring work. The UN human rights pillar is already severely underfunded, receiving only about 1% of the total UN budget, and the proposed cuts would once again disproportionately impact human rights work – further weakening protection for those most at risk. We are concerned because mergers of mandates that are essential have already begun and the reduced number of country visits introduced in 2025 has been announced to continue unchanged in 2026, with only one visit planned. Furthermore, while the work of these mandates is mainly based in Geneva, the decisions are taken by the UN General Assembly in New York, through a very opaque process, without due consultation with a diverse group of civil society and affected communities or even the concerned human rights mandate holders.

“The UN’s credibility and legitimacy have already been seriously questioned due to its failure to stop the genocide in Gaza, the many abuses by transnational corporations and the destruction of our nature. Further weakening the human rights mandates would deepen the crisis of legitimacy. We need a transformation of the UN that puts people and planet at the center and strengthens those mechanisms that serve the people, not a rushed, cost-cutting reform that superficially treats the symptoms while leaving the structural causes untouched” says Sibyle Dirren, permanent representative of FIAN in Geneva.

We call on all UN member states to pay their contributions to the UN and to actively defend the full and uninterrupted functioning of Special Procedures and Treaty Bodies. Members who have committed to respect, protect and fulfill human rights, shall ensure that any reform guarantees accountability, access to justice, and effective remedy. A reform that is done with the people serving the system without pay, the Special Rapporteurs and the members of treaty bodies, and those they are mandated to defend, the human rights holders. We call on civil society to unite and raise their voices for a real transformation of the UN.

Contact person: Sibylle Dirren, dirren@fian.org

Data is power: understanding the complexities of violence against women street vendors

Posted on by Tom

Women constitute a majority of market and street vendors worldwide. Every day, we can see them at the marketplace and on the streets, making a living to support their families, and making a significant contribution to the local economy – who we focus on in this edition of Supermarket Watch.

According to data from the Street Vendors Barometer, a participatory research led by StreetNet International with the Global Labour Institute (GLI), 64.2% of women vendors in Zimbabwe experience physical abuse from customers, with many reporting harassment and intimidation that jeopardise their safety and dignity. Some of the women are survivors of domestic abuse who turned to vending as a means of survival rather than choice. Gender specific economic precarity exacerbates their vulnerability, as only 7.8% of the women have maternity coverage, and most of them work long hours under insecure and exploitative conditions. Overall, vendors in Zimbabwe lack access to basic infrastructure. For one in five of them, the ground is their workplace with no shelter. Extreme weather has been disastrous for the incomes of these vendors, especially for those selling perishable goods like fresh food, fruits, vegetables or fish.

Meanwhile the survey found that 56.9% of women vendors in Argentina do not have access to toilets at their workplace, a problem that disproportionately affects women. Of those who have access to sanitation facilities, only 32.9% have access to gender-separated toilets, an invaluable source of safety and comfort for women vendors, posing concerns for their health and problems with menstruation. The survey also found that 40.9% women vendors face violence and harassment, frequently from police authorities and fellow vendors. From the findings, the lack of sanitary facilities, insecurity and extreme weather intensifies both economic and psychological stress, reinforcing women’s exposure to physical and emotional harm.

The data detailed above paints a grim reality, yet it might also help change it. The participatory research carried out by the Street Vendors Barometer is meant to visibilise and empower women vendors and market traders facing gender-based violence. Participatory research transforms women vendors from subjects of the research into equal partners of the process, which generates lived-based data to expose the gendered aspects of economic exclusion. It provides a practical organising tool, strengthening solidarity and uncovering shared experiences across countries.

The Street Vendor Barometer has confirmed two important issues faced by market and street vendors, particularly by women vendors: one is the fight against harassment and evictions of small traders; the other is the fight for social protections, such as access to health services and income security. And it has amplified the demands of women vendors for the right to formalise their work and to live free from violence. In this edition, we also share a case of how women from Uganda’s lakeshore communities showcased the influence of transforming data into compelling evidence to support women’s engagement in policy debate and building solidarity to fight for just food systems.

Read the latest issue here.

For more information contact Laura Michéle michele@fian.org

Fisher peoples denounce false climate solutions

Posted on by Tom

Despite binding obligations under international human rights and environmental law, states consistently fail to protect the rights of fisher peoples. Instead of addressing the root causes of the climate crisis, governments continue to promote so-called climate change solutions that entrench inequality and dispossession.

Ahead of the summit – held in parallel to the official UN Climate Change Conference – a new report by FIAN International and the World Forum of Fisher Peoples (WFFP), Rising Tides, Shrinking Coasts, and Sinking Rights: Climate Crisis and the Struggles of Fisher Peoples, reveals how the climate crisis is undermining the livelihoods, food systems, and cultures of millions of fisher peoples and coastal communities.

Based on ten case studies from Bangladesh, Belize, Brazil, Ecuador, Indonesia, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, the report demonstrates that the climate crisis is already a human rights emergency. Across all regions, fisher peoples, collectors, and coastal communities report systematic violations of their rights to food and nutrition, territories, housing, health, and culture.

Fishing and coastal communities have already made many concessions to their governments on access to fisheries. Now they are on the frontlines of the climate catastrophe and they demand real solutions. This is a defining moment for how this global resource – the ocean, lakes and rivers – are managed for future generations.

Right to food and nutrition under threat

Millions of livelihoods are threatened by a range of false climate change solutions, ranging from Marine Protected Areas that exclude traditional fishers and carbon credit schemes that enable resource grabbing, to industrial aquaculture promoted under the guise of food security or climate resilience and large-scale infrastructure projects that serve corporate interests.

“Carbon credit projects are being sold as climate solutions but in reality they displace fishing communities and privatize the mangroves that sustain life. In Thailand, corporations now plant monoculture mangroves for carbon profit while erasing the diverse ecosystems and community rights that have protected these coasts for generations,” said Ravadee Prasertcharoensuk from Sustainable Development Foundation, Thailand, a national member of WFFP.

“Under the banner of ‘blue carbon,’ the state hands over public lands to private investors, leaving only 20 percent of the benefits to the people who have lived and cared for these forests. Climate justice cannot be built on exclusion and greenwashing—it begins with restoring community control and recognizing that the real climate custodians are the people of the mangroves.

The report reveals how core elements of the right to food and nutrition – availability, accessibility, adequacy, and sustainability – are increasingly under threat. As ecosystems collapse under climate change and fish stocks decline, fisher peoples who have long acted as guardians of biodiversity and coastal ecosystem, and as providers of nutritious food, are being displaced from their territories and deprived of their livelihoods.

Many are now forced into precarious forms of labor or are made dependent on inadequate and inconsistent external aid. This further undermines both their right to food and nutrition and their food sovereignty.

Despite the worsening crisis, states – often in close partnership with private corporations – continue to exclude fisher peoples from climate policy and decision-making. Instead of supporting community-led adaptation strategies grounded in human rights and local knowledge, they continue to promote top-down interventions that exacerbate inequality and marginalization.

A call for rights-based climate action

For decades, the peoples of the sea and the mangroves have resisted the theft of our lands and the destruction of our ecosystems. In Ecuador, we have replanted mangroves, defended our coasts, and demanded justice for the social and ecological debt owed to our communities.

“From the womb of the mangrove and the sea,” said Líder Góngora, director of Coordinadora Nacional para la Defensa del Ecosistema Manglar in Ecuador, “we, the gatherers and fisher peoples, have been restoring the mangrove ecosystem – a national public treasure and the heart of our life and culture – through our own socio-ecological efforts since the late 1980s.”

“Our struggle is collective. It rises in defiance of the criminal shrimp industry in Ecuador and across the world. We defend our living spaces, our legends, and our ancestral stories rooted in the marine territories that sustain us.”

True restoration means restitution: returning stolen territories and protecting the peoples who have cared for them with love and resilience for generations.

FIAN International and WFFP urge all states and intergovernmental organizations to fulfil their human rights obligations, including under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas.

Genuine solutions must recognize fisher peoples as rights-holders, knowledge-holders, and key actors in the struggle for climate justice, food sovereignty, and the protection of aquatic ecosystems.

Download report here.

For more information please contact Yifang Slot-Tang slot-tang@fian.org

World Food Day: end corporate stranglehold over food systems

Posted on by Tom

The latest report by UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Michael Fakhri reveals that corporate power in food systems has become so concentrated that a small group of companies now shape what is grown, how it is grown, working conditions in food production and what consumers pay – prioritizing profit maximization over the public good.

The report – which cites submissions from FIAN International – calls for urgent action to curtail corporate power over food systems, ensure fair and stable food markets, and hold corporations accountable for human rights violations.

Land concentration

It shows how corporate dominance of food systems is driving hunger, inequality, and environmental destruction – with land grabbing by transnational corporations at the heart of the crisis.

This was highlighted in FIAN’s report with Focus on the Global South “Lords of the Land: Transnational Landowners, Inequality and the Case for Redistribution”, which exposed the growing power of the world’s ten largest transnational landowners who control a staggering 40.4 million hectares – an area roughly the size of Japan.

“The concentration of land in corporate hands is both a driver and symptom of a broken food system,” said Philip Seufert, co-author of the report.

“Our research shows virtually all of the world’s largest landowners have been linked to land grabbing, human rights abuses and violations, and environmental destruction. Redistributive land and fiscal policies are essential for realizing the right to food and achieving climate justice.”

Unprecedented concentration of power

The Special Rapporteur’s report details how just four firms control more than half of the global commercial seed market and more than 60 percent of the pesticide market, while corporate concentration extends across the entire food system.

It also highlights how global price hikes reflect high concentration of suppliers’ market power, with transnational corporations raising prices beyond increased costs to hide profiteering. Meanwhile, corporations create demand for ultra-processed products through marketing strategies disproportionately targeting minorities, disadvantaged groups, and children.

“Corporate power over food systems has reached unprecedented levels. Our food systems have become dangerously dependent on corporations, granting them a dominant power that undermines food sovereignty and captures decision-making spaces that should belong to the people.

“This corporate concentration of power makes our food systems extremely fragile and bound to the interests of the agrifood industry. This is having devastating consequences for people and the planet,” says Ana Maria Suarez Franco, Secretary General of FIAN International.

While corporations accumulate vast territories and extract enormous wealth, more than 700 million people go hungry and over 2 billion face food insecurity. This is not a failure of the food system. It is the predictable outcome of an economic system that rewards the rich and privileged while penalizing the poor and marginalized people.

Legal tools

The Special Rapporteur recommends that states use corporate law to regulate corporations, employ all legal tools to curtail corporate power, and commit to finalizing negotiations on a legally binding instrument to regulate transnational corporations. The report also calls for redistributive agrarian reforms, progressive taxation, and greater support for peasants, Indigenous Peoples, fisherfolk and rural communities.

FIAN fully endorses the Special Rapporteur’s recommendations. It is time for governments to commit to dismantling corporate control over food systems and prioritize human rights, food sovereignty, and agroecology.

For more information please contact Philip Seufert seufert@fian.org

No profit without accountability: recognising the right to a healthy environment

Posted on by Tom

Communities around the world are affected by unchecked and unregulated transnational corporate power, leading to poisoned water supplies, lost farmland, destroyed food systems and lost livelihoods. Yet, too often, corporations escape accountability while communities are left without remedy or justice, as outlined in a new study focusing on environmental issues, No Profit Without Accountability – For People and the Planet, aimed at shaping UN discussions.

The upcoming session of the Human Rights Council’s open-ended intergovernmental working group in October 2025 – the eleventh annual round of discussions – has enormous potential for curbing excessive corporate power and protecting communities and the environment. States will be negotiating the final articles of the updated draft of the legally binding instrument(LBI) to regulate transnational corporations in international human rights law. FIAN and other international civil society groups insist that the LBI must include an explicit recognition of the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment and integrate this right – along with broader environmental and climate change considerations – throughout its substantive provisions.

“It’s very simple. If the LBI does not include strong environmental protections, it will fail the very communities it is meant to protect,” says Ayushi Kalyan, corporate accountability coordinator at FIAN International.

Enforceable international standards

Communities and human rights and environmental defenders have long campaigned for this addition to international human rights law.

In Latin America, families are still fighting for justice decades after Sweden’s Boliden Mineral dumped toxic waste in Arica, Chile, causing widespread health problems for people living near the dump site. In Palestine, corporations like Heidelberg Materials are alleged to have contributed to the pillaging of natural resources from occupied land. Across Africa and Asia, extractive projects are dispossessing Indigenous Peoples and rural communities of their territories and food systems. Each case highlights the urgent need for clear, enforceable international standards that prioritize human rights and environmental protection over corporate profit.

The International Court of Justice and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights have both affirmed states’ obligations to regulate private actors and prevent transboundary environmental harm. More than 80 percent of UN member states already legally recognize the right to a healthy environment.

“The LBI must explicitly recognize the right to a healthy environment, protect defenders from reprisals, and ensure that victims have real access to justice,” says Stephan Backes, extraterritorial obligations coordinator at FIAN International. 

Close the gap

Negotiators now have the responsibility to close the gap at the global level by embedding this right in the heart of the LBI.

The study released today proposes concrete legal texts to states to strengthen the provisions in the LBI, ensuring, among other things, that it includes environmental due diligence, precautionary measures, and the primacy of human rights and environmental obligations over trade and investment agreements. States should carefully consider and integrate these recommendations in their submissions during the next round of negotiations in October and continue leveraging these proposals in their ongoing advocacy in relevant national, regional and international spaces and processes.

As the world edges closer to climate collapse, this LBI process is a critical opportunity to hold corporations accountable. States must not squander it.

For more information, please contact Ayushi Kalyan Kalyan@fian.org or Stephan Backes Backes@fian.org,