Natural resources, a matter of human rights, not business
FIAN International, along with a broad alliance of social movements and civil society organizations, denounces the instrumentalization of the 2012-approved Tenure Guidelines and insists that their implementation must be based on the rights and needs of communities.
As land and natural resource grabs in all forms continue unabated around the world, with devastating impacts on the human rights of local communities, the adequate implementation and application of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (Tenure Guidelines) is a matter of extreme urgency.
On this note, a large group of social movements and civil society organizations (CSOs) denounce that a number of States, along with UN institutions and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), are neglecting the rights and needs of the most marginalized people when it comes to implementing the Tenure Guidelines. According to a recent statement, these actors are concentrating their efforts on abetting the corporate sector to use the Tenure Guidelines for the pursuit of business interests instead.
This tendency is illustrated by a series of guides that have recently been published by development agencies, UN institutions and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The statement underlines that these documents divert the Tenure Guidelines from their paramount objective: to contribute to the realization of the human right to adequate food and nutrition by improving the governance of tenure of natural resources for the benefit of marginalized people and communities.
Instead, they trigger an approach that puts the profit interests of private investors and companies at the center and thus legitimizes land and resource grabs. Instead of prioritizing rural, small-scale producer communities according to a human rights approach, these recently published guides assume that all actors – States, individuals and communities, companies, CSOs, amongst others– are “stakeholders” on an equal footing, and talk about “partnerships” between corporations and communities, thereby ignoring existing power imbalances and conflicts of interest among these actors. Rather than putting communities at the center of human rights-based implementation strategies, community members are portrayed as the cheap work force at the bottom of corporate-controlled value and supply chains.
Also, the roles of business and of States are muddled, with State prerogatives and duties being “transferred” to companies and private investors. This is particularly worrisome when it comes to complex issues such as the process of identifying and recognizing legitimate tenure rights, as well as impact assessments of investment projects, consultations regarding land acquisitions by private investors and the resolution of land conflicts.
The signatories of the statement reject the corporate capture of natural wealth, resources, human rights and public policies, and reaffirm their opposition to all attempts to establish profit and market-driven governance of natural resources, food and nutrition. In order to strengthen human rights in the context of food and peoples’ sovereignty, the statement addresses clear demands to States, UN agencies, research institutions and NGOs . The aim is to ensure that the Tenure Guidelines are implemented in accordance with existing human rights obligations, starting with the rights and needs of the most marginalized.
Read the statement here.
For more information, please contact Seufert[at]fian.org