GI-ESCR welcomes the publication of CESCR's landmark General comment No. 26 (2022) on land and economic, social and cultural rights
The General Comment advances a progressive interpretation of human rights law related to land.
The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights published the General comment No. 26 (2022) on land and economic, social and cultural rights in January 2023.
GI-ESCR participated in the development of this General Comment by proposing three written submissions to the Committee, jointly with a number of partners, in response to its call for input on its draft general comment.
One submission was related to land and the climate emergency and was co-sponsored by GI-ESCR, Landesa, Earthjustice, the International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific (IWRAW Asia Pacific), former Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing Miloon Kothari, and the independent expert Mayra Gomez. A second submission focused on land, renewable energy and women’s rights, and was submitted jointly by GI-ESCR, Landesa, ProDESC and AIDA. Finally, a third submission about privatization, commercialisation, commodification and financialisation of land was proposed to support the drafting of this general comment, co-sponsored by GI-ESCR, FIAN Germany, Lokichar Action Networks, the Society for International Development, the World Organization for Early Childhood Education, and former U.N. Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Mr Miloon Kothari.
The recently published General Comment on land and economic, social and cultural rights incorporates some of the points raised in these submissions and closely connects to GI-ESCR’s work. Namely, it mentions the issue of financialisation of housing, which “has led to competition between different groups for access to and control over land”1 (paragraph 2(b)), as mentioned in GI-ESCR’s submission. Similarly, GI-ESCR also welcomes the reference to the increasing use of digital techniques in the process titling (paragraph 31), mentioned in our submissions, that have been implemented often without any prior assessment of human rights impacts and without monitoring provisions to ensure accountability. The General Comment is also clear about avoiding the commodification of land, as it establishes that “States should adopt laws and policies to guarantee that titling programmes are not implemented solely to support the sale of land and the commodification of land tenure” (paragraph 31) and that “policies should avoid leaving to land concentration or commodification of land” (paragraph 47). Finally, GI-ESCR also welcomes the recognition of States’ obligation to respect and protect the collective and customary tenure of land (paragraphs 19, 25, 27, 35 and 36).