Localizing the Human Rights Council: A case study of the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants

ABSTRACT

The Human Rights Council (HRC) can enact and proclaim global human rights standards. To date the impact of local communities on such international standard-setting remains unclear. This study analyzes how local communities gain access to the HRC's mechanisms and investigates whether standard setting “from below” has been taken up by the HRC. As a case study, the research studies the trajectory of the network of organizations that have lobbied for a Declaration on the Rights of Peasants at the HRC.

Funding

This research has been funded by the Interuniversity Attraction Poles Programme initiated by the Belgian Science Policy Office, more specifically the IAP “The Global Challenge of Human Rights Integration: Towards a Users' Perspective” (www.hrintegration.be).

Notes

1. The problems with the binary logic implied in the terms “the local” and “the global” have led some scholars to favor network analysis as a way to study transnational human rights advocacy (see Keck and Sikkink 1998; Goodale 2007).

2. Scholars, such as Bob (2009) and Shawki (2014: 308), have identified the key actors in the emergence of new rights: the claimants and their champions; the gatekeepers, which include leading human rights NGOs as well as the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and human rights intellectuals; states; and opponents of the new right(s).

3. Thanks to Koen De Feyter for pointing this out.

4. Note that, for indigenous people, there is a UN Voluntary fund that is established to assist representatives of indigenous communities and organizations to participate in the deliberations of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations.

5. La Via Campesina 2006.

6. Note that CETIM was initially not convinced of supporting La Via Campesina and wanted to focus on implementing existing rights. But because the demand for support largely came from below, CETIM decided to support the initiative (for a description of this, see Claeys 2015: 57).

7. In his first statement, the SR had urged the HRC to hold such a session (see De Schutter 2008).

8. La Via Campesina 2012.

9. This mechanism was installed after the reform of the CFS in 2009. Although still in its initial stages of development and facing many challenges, the CSM aims to support civil society organizations to influence policy processes and outcomes at the global level in relation to food security and nutrition. Civil society organizations (CSOs) now have an institutionally embedded mandate to participate in the decision making of the UN Committee on World Food Security. De Schutter indicates that the reform of the CFS is grounded in “the recognition that governments will only manage to make true progress towards food security if they accept to work in a bottom-up fashion, by learning not only from one another's experiences, but also from the experience of those who are on the frontline of combating hunger” (De Schutter 2013: 4). The CSM aims to be an inclusive mechanism and to give priority to the organizations and movements of the people most affected by food insecurity and malnutrition, that is, smallholder producers, fisherfolk, pastoralists, indigenous, urban poor, migrants, and agricultural workers.

10. In several provisions of the declaration, “the right to reject” is reiterated such as in the context of seeds (Article 5 [2&3]), agricultural values (Article 9 [3]), biological diversity (Article 10 [3,4 & 6], land (Article 4[9]), and the environment (Article 11[3]) (Human Rights Council Advisory Committee 2012: 22).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Arne Vandenbogaerde

Arne Vandenbogaerde is a postdoctoral fellow at the Law and Development Research Group at the Faculty of Law of the University of Antwerp (Belgium). His main research interest lies in international human rights law, in particular the issues of human rights obligations for new duty bearers and the local relevance of human rights.