Human Rights and the Commons: Bridging Gaps and Exploring Complementary Approaches to the Governance of Land and Natural Resources

Abstract

"In this paper, we focus on the on-going process of negotiation of a UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and other people working in rural areas, with a view to exploring some of the issues concerning the governance of the commons in rural areas, in the broader context of the governance of land and natural resources that is enshrined in this new instrument. Although the term commons is mentioned only once in the UNdDROP, most rights listed in the draft text are relevant to the commons, and we see this process, initiated at the request of the transnational agrarian movement La Via Campesina, as a direct reaction against the enclosure of rural commons to fuel the expansion of neoliberalism."