Implications of the UN declaration on the rights of peasants on the operability of the IFC's performance standard on involuntary land acquisition and resettlement

Abstract

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP), adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2018, remains absent from discussions on global land governance and development finance standards. The status of UNDROP should be of keen interest to policy and industry professionals given the central importance of land related rights associated with the declaration. This is particularly relevant in the context of involuntary land acquisition and resettlement. Our viewpoint examines the implications of UNDROP for the operability of the International Finance Corporation Performance Standard 5 on Involuntary Land Acquisition and Resettlement. The foremost complication is that UNDROP could be used by affected people to refuse a state's assertion of eminent domain. This possibility should be prompting policy makers and other actors to re-think existing frameworks that enable developers to access land through involuntary processes of acquisition.