A/HRC/16/63 international movement of peasants, La Via Campesina, to protect their rights and promote agricultural policies and land reforms in favour of small farmers.66 40. Since 2001, when La Via Campesina began to monitor the human rights situation of peasants worldwide, it became obvious that, in many countries, when peasants organize themselves to claim their rights, they are often treated as criminals, arbitrarily arrested or detained, or become the victims of torture or summary executions by the State or private police forces.67 In 2007, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on human rights defenders concluded that peasant group leaders were often criminalized, and that the second most vulnerable group when it came to the danger of being killed for their activities in the defence of human rights were defenders working on land rights and natural resources.68 In the Philippines, for example, three peasant leaders were murdered between November 2008 and June 2009: Vicente Paglinawan, Vice President of the National Coordination of peasant groups for the island of Mindanao; Eliezer Billanes, secretarygeneral of a peasants’ union; and Renato Penas, Vice President of the National Coalition of Peasant Organizations.69 La Via Campesina commemorates two events each year: the 1996 massacre of 19 landless peasants at Eldorado do Carajas (Brazil), on 17 April, and the death of Lee Kyun Hae, a Korean peasant who stabbed himself to death during a massive protest against the World Trade Organization in Cancun (Mexico) in 2003, on 10 September. IV. Protection of the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas under international human rights law 41. The rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas are not subject to any specific protection under international law. Like all human beings, however, these people benefit from the protection of the international human rights instruments.70 In particular, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights offer significant protection to the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas. Women living in rural areas and indigenous people also benefit from the protection granted by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. A. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 42. Articles 11 and 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights protecting (a) the right to food, (b) the right to adequate housing and (c) the right to health are the most relevant with regard to the protection they offer for the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas. 66 67 68 69 70 14 Desmanais, A. “Via Campesina: Consolidation d’un mouvement paysan international”, Via Campesina. Une alternative paysanne à la mondialisation néo-libérale (Geneva, Centre Europe – Tiers Monde, 2002), pp. 71-134. La Via Campesina, Annual Report: Violations of Peasants’ Human Rights, 2006. A/HRC/4/37, paras. 45-47. PAKISAMA statement on the assassination of Renato Penas. Available from http://focusweb.org/philippines/content/view/301/4/. See Christophe Golay, The Rights of Peasants, CETIM, 2009 (available from http://cetim.ch/en/documents/report_5.pdf); and C. Golay, “Towards a Convention on the Rights of Peasants” in A. Paasch and S. Murphy, The Global Food Challenge. Towards a Human Rights Approach to Trade and Investment Policies, 2009, pp. 102-111.