A/HRC/32/35
pressing social need. In addition, under Principle 9 of the General Guiding Principles, there
is a particular international obligation for States to protect against the displacement of
indigenous peoples, minorities, peasants, pastoralists and other groups with a special
dependency on and attachment to their lands.
70.
The Kampala Convention calls upon States Parties to “endeavour to protect
communities with special attachment to, and dependency, on land due to their particular
culture and spiritual values from being displaced from such lands, except for compelling
and overriding public interests”. It requires States to “ensure the accountability of non-State
actors concerned, including multinational companies and private military or security
companies, for acts of arbitrary displacement or complicity in such acts” and to “ensure the
accountability of non-State actors involved in the exploration and exploitation of economic
and natural resources leading to displacement”. International standards relating to the
operations of business enterprises, including the 2011 Guiding Principles on Business and
Human Rights, require States and businesses to comply with all applicable laws and to
respect human rights.
71.
Development and business-related activities can create or exacerbate complex
displacement scenarios. The rights of some communities, including indigenous or minority
communities, such as their rights to the land on which their identity rests, can prove
inconvenient in the face of development or economic interests. Militarization of areas
allocated for resource development has been evident, with some companies using private
military or security companies to enforce their encroachment onto some territories. Tactics
to divide communities or bypass and undermine local leadership structures have been
employed and may involve corrupt practices or payments that lead to breakdown of the
social fabric of communities.
72.
It is essential to establish national legal and policy frameworks relating to
development, land and non-State actors that intersect with and complement legal provisions
relating to internal displacement and the rights of internally displaced persons, and conform
to international standards. For example, the International Labour Organization Indigenous
and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169) relates to the rights of indigenous and tribal
peoples and incorporates the right to free, prior and informed consent for indigenous
peoples. Articles 6, 7 and 9 of the Convention establish that consent must be acquired
before indigenous communities are relocated or before development is undertaken on their
land. Where displacement is approved or agreed to following an appropriate and rigorous
consultation and participatory process, internally displaced persons must be provided with
appropriate compensation, support and durable solutions in line with international
standards.
73.
This is not often the case; compensation is often pitiful and unable to sustain
livelihoods and the responsibility to ensure that development-induced displacement leads to
a durable solution by relocation or settlement elsewhere in the country is avoided.
Development-induced displacement and resettlement processes have resulted in
landlessness, joblessness, homelessness, marginalization, food insecurity, increased
morbidity and mortality, loss of access to common property and ancestral lands and social
disintegration, and have a cumulative impact seen in massive impoverishment 22 and even
death.
22
See Michael M. Cernea “Risks, Safeguards and Reconstruction: A Model for Population
Displacement and Resettlement”, in M. Cernea and McDowell (eds.), Risks and Reconstruction:
Experiences of Resettlers and Refugees, pp. 11-55 (World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2000).
17
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