The Universal Declaration of Peasant Rights and the disputes of senses around the right to land

Abstract

This paper analyzes the competing visions that forged the recognition of the right to land in the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants, approved by the United Nations (UN) in 2018. The arguments in favor and in against. We will maintain that this instrument proposes an alternative conception of land as a patrimonial right. With its aporias and challenges, the declaration is part of a continuous process of expansion in the recognition of human rights, which are being re-formulated in relation to social struggles. From a conceptual reading we maintain that the debate on the content and scope of the human right to land has a central impact, because it frames the peasant struggle in a demand that transcends the merely sectoral and challenges to society about the hegemonic rural development model based on agribusiness.