Land and Natural Resources

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We marked International Women´s Day and Women´s History Month with a global call for an all-agreed fair Social Pact on Care. We started advocating for this 3 years ago when Covid-19 exacerbated the global care crisis. Since then our members have continued to multiply our actions to highlight the need to put care at the center of the political agendas globally.

On 19 December 2022, the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, held in Montreal, ended with the adoption of the “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” (GBF), a landmark agreement on measures considered critical to address the dangerous loss of biodiversity and restore natural ecosystems.

There is no denying that the historical and present responsibility for the climate crisis lies primarily with wealthy, highly industrialized countries and powerful corporate actors. Despite contributing the least to the climate crisis, frontline communities in the Global South are paying the price with the destruction of their territories and the erasure of their cultural heritage.

Over the past two years, dozens of ESCR-Net members engaged in cross-network discussions to develop the analytical report “Building sustainable peace. Transforming conflict-affected situations for women.” The report argues that in dealing with conflict-affected situations, it is vital to adopt an intersectional feminist approach via a human rights framework, and provides seven lessons and principles to guide the work in the field.

Between 13-29 March 2022, intersessional meetings were held in Geneva ahead of COP15, an upcoming major United Nations biodiversity summit. Ahead of these preparatory talks amongst States, ESCR-Net members sent a collective letter calling on all Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to adopt a human-rights based approach overall, and in particular to recognize, respect, protect and promote the overarching right to self-determination, including free, prior and informed consent, the right to land and tenure rights in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework (GBF), which is currently being negotiated and likely to be adopted at COP15. It further called on governments to adopt a ‘land tenure indicator’ as well as emphasized the importance of strengthening protections for human rights defenders.

Ahead of upcoming intersessional meetings in Geneva in March 2022, ESCR-Net members have adopted a...

On 27 April 2021, ESCR-Net co-hosted an online discussion on land rights. Over 50 members from across Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Europe and North America, convened virtually to learn from each other’s experiences and strengthen shared analysis and...

In Lhaka Honhat v. Argentina, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights held that Argentina violated its obligations under Article 1.1 of the American...

In recent years, coordinated by the Working Group on Women and ESCR, grassroots women leaders have been articulating shared positions and advancing collective action on land and natural resources; most recently, via a second exchange and a series of contributions to the UN Committee on Economic...