Defend The Defenders

Preface

Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders *

Throughout the world, communities of human rights defenders are working patiently and peacefully to see the right to adequate food respected, protected and fulfilled. Many are taking action in response to the right coming under threat or being severely violated. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, with 171 State parties, guarantees the right to adequate food and obliges states to progress towards its realisation and refrain from taking measures to undermine it.

Yet people in every region are confronted with states failing to respect their obligations under the Covenant, and in many places find authorities undermining the right’s realisation through the promotion of unsustainable forms of food production and the reinforcement of food systems designed to maximise profits.

Poverty is major factor putting the right at risk in practice. Its elimination, at least in its extreme form, was foreseen under the SDGs but now appears impossible within their timeframe. The same goes for the goal of eliminating hunger.

Human rights defenders refuse to accept this situation, rather, they insist on the obligations of states and on the right of communities themselves to strive for the realisation of their rights, as guaranteed in article 1 of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.

The Declaration on HRDs was agreed by consensus at the UN General Assembly 25 years ago, yet the recognition and protection it guaranteed on paper remains far from the reality for advocates for the right to food.

Their struggles to see the right fulfilled are often connected to combatting unequal access to land, destruction of the environment and climate change, as well as promoting sustainable development and opposing destructive business practices. It is a nexus of issues that creates extremely high risks for defenders, where threats, criminalisation and physical attacks are common.

Many of these attacks are perpetrated by state authorities. Others are committed by private actors but are allowed to rest in impunity. This cannot be allowed to continue. In order to mitigate and avert where still possible the devastating impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental degradation, all of which have an impact on the right to food, states need to see human rights defenders as allies. They should engage with them, protect them and support them.

I hope this publication will help draw attention to the solutions defenders have to share.

(*) This is the original version of the introductory article of the Beet The System ! 2023 Defend The Defender. Cliquez ici pour lire l’article en Français.

Dit artikel hoort bij Beet The System ! 2023 "Defend the Defenders : Stop de criminalisering van verdedigers voor het recht op voedsel". Klik hier om andere artikelen te lezen.