New ESCR-Net Publication: Seeding Hope? Land in the International Human Rights Agenda

ESCR-Net is pleased to announce the publication of "Seeding Hope? Land in the International Human Rights Agenda: Challenges and Prospects," developed together with the International Council on Human Rights Policy.

This paper was developed in response to a mandate that grew out of a gathering of ESCR-Net’s Social Movements Working Group in Brazil in 2010, where participants called on the Network to explore ways to reinforce and advance efforts to strengthen an international recognition of human rights to lands and territories.  It highlights several issues that are currently being explored by the human rights community with regards to land and explores some possible approaches going forward.  With a particular focus on the need to understand and elevate the demands of social movements, the paper recommends some principles to guide work toward a collaborative human rights agenda on land.

The findings reflect a broad range of informal consultations with a large number of ESCR-Net members, including in a meeting held in Geneva in September.  ESCR-Net is particularly grateful to six members who served as expert readers prior to the paper’s publication: Bret Thiele (The Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), Fernando Gallardo Viera Prioste (Terra de Direitos), Jill-Carr Harris (Ekta Parishad), Magdalena Sepulveda (International Council on Human Rights Policy), Sandra Ratjen (International Commission of Jurists) and Sofia Monsalve (FIAN).

The publication will be available in other languages soon at ESCR-Net.