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9 September 2019
Our Strategic Adviser on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Senior Research Fellow Dr Christophe Golay participated this summer in a series of conferences and training courses on the implementation of the United Nations (UN) Declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas (UNDROP).
Dr Golay notably traveled to Paris, Rome, Bucharest, Budapest, Bangkok and Phnom Penh to discuss the role of states, UN agencies, civil society organizations and social movements in the implementation of the declaration.
Our Research Brief The Implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas and its main recommendations informed the discussions.
The need to implement the UNDROP in Europe was discussed in conferences and workshops in Paris and Bucharest. In Budapest, Dr Golay gave a training with La Via Campesina to 14 participants from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) regional office in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, on their role in supporting the implementation of the UNDROP.
‘In Europe, where states promoted industrial agriculture and commercial seed systems for decades, it is key to convince national authorities and regional institutions to better protect peasants’ right to seeds’, explains Dr Golay. ‘Our Briefing The Right to Seeds in Europe was very useful in these discussions’ he adds.
At an expert seminar held in June at the Geneva Academy, several UN Special Rapporteurs, Independent Experts, members of UN working groups and UN treaty bodies, civil society representatives and staff of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) discussed the role of UN human rights mechanisms in the implementation of the UNDROP.
‘Existing UN human rights mechanisms can play an important role in monitoring the implementation of the UNDROP. However, one of the main recommendations of our publication calls for the creation of a new monitoring mechanism, such as a new UN Special Procedure on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas’ stresses Dr Golay.
Dr Golay also traveled to Rome, where he participated in a conference co-organized with the Permanent Representation of Switzerland to the FAO, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the World Food Programme (WFP), the Permanent Representation of Costa-Rica to the UN Agencies in Rome, and the Department of Political Sciences of University of Roma Tre. Participants discussed the role of FAO, IFAD and WFP in the implementation of the UNDROP, and the contributions of the UN Declaration to the implementation of the UN Decade of Family Farming.
At the end of July, Dr Golay travelled to Bangkok for the annual meeting of the DEMETER research project. On 25 July, he gave a presentation on the importance of the UNDROP for Asian countries during an FAO policy dialogue with external stakeholders at FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific.
He then travelled to Phnom Penh where he participated in several meetings, conferences and workshops on the implementation of the UNDROP in Cambodia, and the roles of UN agencies, civil society organizations, social movements and academia.
‘It is particularly important to push for the implementation of the UNDROP in Asia, as the majority of peasants and other people working in rural areas, as well as the majority of those who are hungry in the world, live in this region’ explains Dr Golay.
Dr Golay will continue to promote the implementation of the UN Declaration and will notably attend a series of conferences throughout Europe on this issue, starting in Brussels on 30 September, followed by Luxembourg on 15 November, and Paris in December.
News
Axel Fassio/CIFOR-ICRAF
The project aims at implementing the rights of peasants in 10 countries of the Global South: Philippines, India Nepal, Kenya, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, South Africa, Bolivia and Mexico.
News
Domenico Zipoli
The report of the second focused review pilot – conducted in St. George’s, Grenada, by our Geneva Human Rights Platform (GHRP) with the Commonwealth Secretariat – shows the benefits that this exercise brings to both the work of UN treaty bodies and the implementation of human rights in countries.
Short Course
Francisco Proner / Farpa/ CIDH
This short course, which can be followed in Geneva or online, aims at presenting the institutions and procedures in charge of the implementation of international human rights law.
Training
Dustan Woodhouse, Unplash
This training course will explore the major international and regional instruments for the promotion of human rights, as well as with their implementation and enforcement mechanisms; and provide practical insights into the different UN human rights mechanisms pertinent to advancing environmental issues and protecting environmental human rights defenders.
Project
CCPR Centre
The Geneva Human Rights Platform collaborates with a series of actors to reflect on the implementation of international human rights norms at the local level and propose solutions to improve uptake of recommendations and decisions taken by Geneva-based human rights bodies at the local level.
Project
kris krüg
We are a partner of the Human Rights, Big Data and Technology Project, housed at the University of Essex’s Human Rights Centre, which aims to map and analyse the human rights challenges and opportunities presented by the use of big data and associated technologies. It notably examines whether fundamental human rights concepts and approaches need to be updated and adapted to meet the new realities of the digital age.
Publication
Publication
Canva
