On the fourth of the five days of meetings at the FAO’s headquarters, Real World Radio interviewed De Luna. He said: “Personally I feel that [land] is a right, just as water is a right, just as housing is a right, just as food is a right. The idea of human rights has evolved throughout the years, as competing pressure is exerted on finite and wielding resources. I think we have to humanize these resources, so that everyone gets some sort of justice and everyone is taken care of.

This recognition of land rights by the World Committee on Food Security (CFS) is significant at a time when negotiations were delayed when addressing chapter 12 of the Guidelines on agriculture investments.

The US delegation aimed to left out contents referred to social justice and the protection of peasant, indigenous, nomadic peoples and fisherfolk activists around the world.

“If a member country agrees to these Guidelines, it is hoped that there might be some moral that can influence these countries so that they can design national laws, rules and regulations governing land tenure that will hopefully first of all protect their own citizens from land grabbing, and of course protect their own citizens from being murdered, threatened, losing their political rights”, he concluded.

The full audio and transcript of the interview are available on our website.