The starting point to stop Land-grabbing by governments and multinationals, which violates natural and traditional systems and laws: the need for laws to protect land rights. 1-. In many countries the political arena pays little attention to the rights of farmers. And yet, “giving away” the land is putting at risk the future of their countries. In the world there are already one billion hungry people. Do we need to increase the number? 2-. Few States have their own laws governing international investments in land, and legal avenues for redress under national law are limited. And yet, the issues at stake are high: - the consequences are serious for local populations and local farmers, - It will eventually be clear that the financial efforts being made to bring hunger and poverty to an end will have been made in vain. 3-. Villagers could redress the issue through international human rights law, focusing on human rights, such as the right to food or to property.

1. Land Grabbing
The Need for an International Legal Framework
Matteo Manfredi
Law Candidate for a Master Student - Catholic University, Milan

2. Land Grabbing
An ambiguous activity:
• It encompasses large-scale acquisition of farmland by foreign governments, international
companies or investment funds in order to produce food, fodder and bio-fuel;
• It is realized through acquisition or long-term lease contracts, for 50 or even 90 years.
• Land “deals” are predominantly in poor or developing countries, where
the land system is based on informal and traditional law,
recognized locally but not by international agreements,
often with no guarantees on land rights for local communities and for peasants to prove
they are land owners or users;
• These contracts are made in exchange for infrastructure or development projects, market
access, wealth assistance, but with no guarantees to ensure their implementation.
Starting point
Land acquisitions are made through investment
contracts that are:
• formally correct with no violation of any international
or national rule,
• socially unjust since there is no specific set of rules on
land grabbing.

3. The Legal “Gap”
The starting point to stop Land-grabbing by governments
and multinationals, which violates natural and traditional
systems and laws: the need for laws to protect land rights.
1-. In many countries the political arena pays little attention to the rights of farmers.
And yet, “giving away” the land is putting at risk the future of their countries. In the
world there are already one billion hungry people. Do we need to increase the number?
2-. Few States have their own laws governing international investments in land, and
legal avenues for redress under national law are limited.
And yet, the issues at stake are high:
- the consequences are serious for local populations and local farmers,
- It will eventually be clear that the financial efforts being made to bring hunger and
poverty to an end will have been made in vain.
3-. Villagers could redress the issue through international human rights law, focusing on
human rights, such as the right to food or to property.

4. Can International Human Rights Law be the Answer?
- The procedures required to seek redress under HR law require financial and technical
resources that are not available to poor people in rural areas.
- Besides, before accessing international human rights courts, those concerned are expected
to first try all available remedies before national courts, and go through their various
degrees of appeal.
Moreover the substantive protection offered by international human rights law presents
shortcomings.
• The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights affirms the right to property but does
not require states to compensate land-holders for losses suffered; it merely requires
compliance with the applicable law;
• International law does not fill gaps in compensation requirements under national law;
• The level of legal protection that States are prepared to
offer to foreign investors contrast with the weak level
of protection available to their own people;
• Bilateral investment treaties (now over 2700 worldwide)
grant investors much stronger protection of their property
rights than is afforded local communities:
- including wide-ranging safeguards against expropriation,
usually involving specific standards of compensation,
- and direct access to international arbitration as a way
to settle disputes.

5. A Possible Solution: Soft Law
1-. In the context of international law, the term soft law covers:
• Most Resolutions and Declarations of the UN General Assembly,
e.g., the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
• Statements,
• Principles,
• Codes of conduct,
• Codes of practice, etc., often as part of framework treaties;
• Action plans, e.g. Agenda 21;
• Other non-treaty obligations such as guidelines, communications, etc.
Note
The Declaration of Human Rights is not legally binding and yet it has been adopted in or
has influenced most national constitutions since 1948. It has also served as the foundation
for a growing number of national laws, international laws, and treaties, as well as regional,
national, and sub-national institutions protecting and promoting human rights.
2-. The terminology of soft law remains somewhat controversial as
- some international practitioners do not accept its existence, while
- others argue there is some confusion as to its status in the realm of law.

6. 3-. Soft law instruments are usually considered as non-binding agreements which
nevertheless hold much potential for morphing into "hard law" in the future.
This "hardening" of soft law can occur in two different ways.
• 1° when declarations, recommendations, etc., are the first step towards a treaty-
making process, in which reference will be made to the principles already stated in the
soft law instruments.
• 2° when non-treaty agreements are intended to have a direct influence on the practice
of states, and to the extent that they are successful in doing so, they may lead to the
creation of customary law.
4-. Soft law is also viewed as a flexible option since:
• it avoids the immediate and uncompromising commitments made under treaties which
often prevent agreement;
• it is considered to be potentially a faster route to legal commitments than the slow pace
of customary international law.
5-. In today's globalized society, it is easy to use the media and the internet to spread the
knowledge of the content of declarations and commitments made at international
conferences and in so doing
make the soft law a socially binding practice.

7. FAO Guidelines
On 11th May 2012, in a landmark decision the FAO Committee on World Food Security (CFS)
endorsed a set of far-reaching global guidelines with the aim of helping governments to
safeguard the rights of people to own or access land, forests and fisheries.
The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and
Forests in the Context of National Food Security outline principles and practices that
governments can refer to when making laws and administering land, fisheries, and forest
rights.
These guidelines are based on an inclusive consultation process started by FAO in 2009 and
finalized through CFS-led intergovernmental negotiations that included the participation of
government officials, civil society organizations, private sector representatives, international
organizations, and academics.
The aim of the guidelines is: to promote food security and sustainable
development by improving secure access to land, fisheries and forests
and protecting the rights of millions of people who are often very poor .
Much public debate has focused on land-grabbing,
which is one of the issues that are dealt with in these guidelines.

8. However the guidelines address a wide range of other issues as well, including:
· Recognition and protection of legitimate tenure rights, even under informal systems;
· Best practices for registration and transfer of tenure rights;
· Making sure that tenure administrative systems are accessible and affordable;
· Managing restitution of land to people who were forcibly evicted in the past;
· Rights of indigenous communities;
· Ensuring that investment in agricultural lands occurs responsibly and transparently;
· Mechanisms for resolving disputes over tenure rights;
· Dealing with the expansion of cities into rural areas.
These guidelines are the product of a three-year
process of inclusive consultations and negotiations
that brought together many stakeholders and
ensured that a wide range of voices were heard.
The result is that we have a meaningful series of
principles and practices that all stakeholders -
States, the private sector, farmers, civil society - can
stand behind and support, and that will work out in
the real world.
http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/142587/icode/

9. A testimony:
Ángel Strapazzón, of Movimiento Campesino Indígena-Vida Campesina, Argentina, said:
We commend the process that was adopted for developing the guidelines, which provided
the opportunity for civil society and representatives of small-scale food producers to
participate at all stages, to draw attention to the real life issues and make concrete
proposals.
The CFS will next take a focused look at the issue of responsible agricultural investments in
general. The body is currently undertaking a year long consultative process that began in
October and could culminate in a set of recommended principles for responsible
investment in agriculture later in 2013.
Made up of governments, UN agencies, civil society
organizations, agricultural research centers, financial
institutions, private sector groups and philanthropic
foundations, CFS is the leading global platform for
discussions on food security issues and serves as a
mechanism for consensus-building at the
International level and policy promotion
at the national level.

10. How can NGOs promote a legal framework?
NGOs and civil society can promote sustainable investment and regulation of the
phenomenon of land-grabbing by ensuring and facilitating a close link between the local
farmers and national and international institutions.
We also need a link between people committed to social justice who work on the
ground, and people at key institutions such as the UN, US Congress, European
Parliament and other institutions.
It’s not enough to organize meetings and analyze topics in a generic way.
We need all NGOs interested in the problem of land-grabbing to work together to find
a solution in order to regulate
large land transactions.
Is it that impossible?

11. The Uganda Land Alliance (ULA) example
ULA -Link http://ulaug.org/ - is an example of a civil society organization that has
recorded considerable success in its advocacy for land policies on behalf of small
farmers. Its success was directly related to the
organization’s ability to utilize research both:
• to inform/empower the poor and vulnerable groups
• to engage policy makers.
ULA distilled relevant research findings and
presented them in ‘accessible’ formats to the small scale farmers, thereby raising public
awareness and empowering vulnerable groups to make their voices heard and have
their demands taken into account by their political representatives. At the other end, the
organization drew on its expertise to engage the more intellectually sophisticated policy
makers.
In engaging policy makers, ULA used a body of evidence based on thorough research to
challenge the assumptions on which the government had based its land reform
proposals. Aided by research-based arguments and information, ULA played a successful
intermediary role, between citizens and the state elite, a dialogue which eventually
culminated in the Land Act of 1998 that is not just driven by economic imperatives but
also addresses issues of equity.