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(...) The aim of this document is to contribute to clarifying human rights obligations related to access to land and agrarian reform. We believe that clarifying existing obligations will enable a better analysis of the violations of the right to food related to access to land, it will improve case documentation and contribute to improving the efficiency of the justiciability and enforceability of the right to food with regard to access to resources. On the other hand and based on FIAN’s twenty year experience in documenting violations of the right to food connected to land access, we propose a set of practical recommendations for governments in the spirit of contributing to the application of land policy and agrarian reform with a human rights based approach.
We will first provide an overview about the main entitlements of marginalized social groups regarding land and natural resources according to international human rights law. We will then systematically interpret the VG with reference to land and productive resources analyzing the complete text of the VG in light of the main international instruments - both hard law and soft law - explicitly referred to in the VG4. This interpretation will also include resolutions by the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Commission as well as General Comments published by the Human Rights Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), and the progress reports published by the Special Rapporteurs on the Right to Food and the Right to Housing. Owing to the relevance and the specific nature of land issues and issues surrounding indigenous population territory, we will also resort to the ILO Convention 169 on the Rights of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples.