The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas and the Right to Seeds in Africa
Geneva Academy Briefing No. 22
By Karine Peschard, Christophe Golay and Lulbahri Araya
Pursuant to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP), the African Union and African states should ensure that their regional & national laws & policies, as well as international bodies to which they are party, lead to effective protection of peasant rights, including their right to seeds.
The Geneva Academy acknowledges the support of the South Centre for the production of this publication.
Written Statement at the Workshop on Promoting and protecting economic, social and cultural rights within the context of addressing inequalities in the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic
Measurement and elimination of global poverty and inequalities
Carlos Correa, Executive Director, South Centre
7 February 2023
Organized by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
27th CONFERENCE OF THE PARTIES (COP27) OF THE UNFCCC
STATEMENT OF DR. CARLOS CORREA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE SOUTH CENTRE
We all are aware of the magnitude of the climate crisis the world is facing. We are also aware that its impact is not the same for all countries and populations. The disasters we are witnessing affect most severely developing countries which historically have not been responsible for the emissions that put at risk the life in the planet. Those countries, the most affected, have the lowest capacity to address the devastating effects of climate change events and to adapt to and mitigate them.
Climate change is a cross-cutting issue. However, the international system operates in silos and has been incapable of ensuring the adoption of the multiple and coordinated policies necessary to address it. The South Centre, as an intergovernmental organization of developing countries, attaches particular importance to and focuses its work on the intersection of climate change policies with other policy frameworks.
Analysing Intersections between Climate Change and Human Rights
By Daniel Uribe Teran and Luis Fernando Rosales
The effects of climate change on people’s daily lives threaten the full enjoyment of human rights. The Human Rights Council adopted two landmark resolutions recognising the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment (Resolution 48/13), and establishing the mandate for a Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change (Resolution 48/14). Nevertheless, a broader dialogue between the UNFCCC and the UN human rights architecture seems necessary to establish a coordinated and coherent response to climate change and its effects on human rights.
This research paper analyses the intersections of these two legal systems. It does so by identifying how the climate change negotiations and the human rights architecture can contribute to strengthening international cooperation. It also recognises the need for a more profound international debate on the linkages between human rights and climate change consistent with the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities included in the UNFCCC.
SOUTH CENTRE STATEMENT TO THE EIGHTH SESSION OF THE OPEN-ENDED INTERGOVERNMENTAL WORKING GROUP ON TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS AND OTHER BUSINESS ENTERPRISES
Human rights violations in the context of business operations, either directly by transnational corporations or through their supply chains, have disproportionately affected developing countries, as has been consistently highlighted in this OEIGWG.
A constructive participation from all members of the OEIGWG is necessary to achieve the mandate of HRC Resolution 26/9, that is, to establish a comprehensive and effective legally binding framework that can prevent the violation and abuses of human rights and provide effective remedies and access to justice individually or collectively for victims in those jurisdictions where the businesses are established.
While global inequality continues to grow, developing and least developed countries face multiple crises in the context of a weak recovery from COVID-19, massive outflows of capital, decline of Official Development Assistance, monetary policy tightening, increase in food and energy prices and the impact of climate change. This document presents a brief analysis of the situation faced by South Centre’s members and other developing and least developed countries and provides a summary of the activities undertaken by the Centre in the period January – June 2022.
Webinar: Exploring Linkages between Climate Change, International Investment and the Legally Binding Instrument on Business and Human Rights
27 September 2022
Virtual event
Time: 15:30 – 17:00 CEST
Facilitated by the South Centre, this webinar is an opportunity for participants representing developing country governments, civil society and academia to exchange views and discuss the linkages between Climate Change, International Investment reforms and the Legally Binding Instrument, and how to harness their common elements to recover better, build resilience against future crises and achieve the UN 2030 Agenda & the SDGs.
The Human Right to Science: From Fragmentation to Comprehensive Implementation?
By Peter Bille Larsen and Marjorie Pamintuan
In times when the role of science in society is more debated than ever in polarized, politicized and partial terms, what is the role for the human right to science and rights-based approaches? The right to science remains poorly understood and neglected in both national and global human rights processes. Beyond defending the freedom of scientific expression, upholding the right to science is arguably fundamental to resolving key sustainability challenges of our times from climate change and the biodiversity crisis to global health and pandemics. The global COVID-19 pandemic has revealed persistent global inequalities not least in terms of how the privatization of science and current intellectual property regimes hinder just and equitable responses to access science and its benefits. This prompts the need for a shift from single-issue approaches to comprehensive and systematic treatment of the right to science as a bundle of human rights across multiple arenas to counter fragmentation and silo-tendencies.
Farmers, Seeds & the Laws: Importing the Chilling Effect Doctrine
By Saurav Ghimire
As an increasing number of countries are formulating Plant Variety Protection (PVP) laws, a growing number of farmers are affected by plant breeders’ rights. In addition, the seed certification law also affects farmers’ relations with seeds. Discussing the farmers’ interaction with the PVP law and seed certification law in Indonesia, this article establishes that the farmers have internalised the law beyond the scope of the legal text, such that they self-limit breeding, saving, and exchanging of seeds even in legally permissible situations. Based on the chilling effect doctrine, this article argues that the related laws should be relaxed to ensure that they do not over deter farmers from exercising their rights. This article calls for both negative and positive state obligations to address the chilling effect on farmers arising from both state and private actors.
At the occasion of the 50th session of the Human Rights Council, we would like to invite you to the following event:
Good practices, lessons learned and challenges in the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas
Date: Thursday, 30th of June 2022 Time: 18.30 – 20.00
The side-event will be hybrid.
Organizers: Permanent Mission of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Permanent Mission of South Africa, Permanent Mission of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, La Via Campesina, CETIM, FIAN International, Geneva Academy of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, South Center, OHCHR
With the support of: Friends of the UNDROP Switzerland
South Centre Contributions on ‘taxation, illicit financial flows and human rights’ to the report of the Independent Expert to the UN General Assembly, 77th session
The South Centre offers its comments to the report of the Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt and other related international financial obligations of States on the full enjoyment of all human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural rights to the General Assembly, 77th session.
South Centre Statement to the 23rd Session of the Working Group on the Right to Development
15 – 20 May 2022
Although we need to increase the international efforts to effectively realize the RtD, there seems to be insufficient engagement by many countries in the relevant intergovernmental processes. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to encourage and mobilize the participation of all countries in such processes. This Working Group is in a remarkable position to provide a platform for a participatory process that allows for the exchange of views and to build the necessary consensus to move forward.
