RETAINING COMMUNITY SOVEREIGNTY OVER LAND

The document serves as a toolkit for local communities to resist land grabbing by governments and corporations. It explains the conflict between customary and statutory law, outlines how to utilize international human rights mechanisms—including UN Special Rapporteurs—and critiques eleven common corporate promises regarding development, jobs, and food security. It specifically highlights the vulnerabilities of women and indigenous peoples and advocates for 'Free, Prior and Informed Consent' (FPIC).

• Land grabbing is driven by interests in cash crops for export (such as palm oil, soy, sugarcane, and maize), mining, oil production, infrastructure, agrofuel plantations, and carbon offset schemes, affecting an estimated 80 to 260 million hectares of land.
• Conflicts over land ownership often arise because national statutory laws, frequently derived from European colonial law, ignore 'customary law'—the unwritten agreements and traditions used by local communities to manage common and marginal lands.
• Governments may use 'eminent domain' to seize privately-owned land for the 'public interest', though the document argues that the government's definition of public interest often prioritizes foreign corporations over local needs and provides inadequate compensation.
• Communities can seek protection through international human rights laws and UN mechanisms, such as writing to Special Rapporteurs or submitting 'shadow reports' to treaty organisations, as land loss affects rights to food, water, culture, and self-determination.
• Corporate promises of development and employment are often misleading; infrastructure like roads may only serve the company, and jobs are frequently unskilled, short-term, or given to migrant workers rather than locals.
• The adoption of genetically modified (GM) seeds and industrial farming techniques can lead to farmer debt due to high seed costs and 'royalties', while also risking the loss of traditional seed varieties and polluting water supplies with chemicals.
• Conservation and carbon reduction schemes (such as REDD) can result in the eviction of local people or the restriction of their access to forests, sometimes replacing natural forests with non-native plantations like eucalyptus and pine.
• Women are disproportionately affected by land grabbing as they often lack land control and decision-making power, and may face specific risks such as exposure to pesticides without protection or sexual harassment on plantations.

APA

Chandrasekaran, K. (2014). RETAINING COMMUNITY SOVEREIGNTY OVER LAND. Friends of the Earth International. https://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/FOEI-toolkit-Part1-Guide-for-communities_low-res.pdf

Chicago

Chandrasekaran, Kirtana. RETAINING COMMUNITY SOVEREIGNTY OVER LAND. Friends of the Earth International, 2014. https://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/FOEI-toolkit-Part1-Guide-for-communities_low-res.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Chandrasekaran |first1=Kirtana |title=RETAINING COMMUNITY SOVEREIGNTY OVER LAND |publisher=Friends of the Earth International |date=December 2014 |url=https://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/FOEI-toolkit-Part1-Guide-for-communities_low-res.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{chandrasekaran2014retaining, author = {Chandrasekaran, Kirtana}, title = {{RETAINING COMMUNITY SOVEREIGNTY OVER LAND}}, institution = {Friends of the Earth International}, year = {2014}, month = dec, url = {https://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/FOEI-toolkit-Part1-Guide-for-communities_low-res.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }