A/HRC/12/31*
page 13
(c) In order to ensure that the rights of the local communities will be safeguarded at all
times, States should adopt legislation protecting those rights and specifying in detail the cases in
which shifts in land use or evictions are allowed, as well as the procedure to be followed.
Moreover, States should assist local communities in obtaining collective registration of the land
they use, in order to ensure that their rights will enjoy full judicial protection. Such legislation
should be designed in accordance with the Basic principles and guidelines on development-based
evictions and displacement, submitted in 2007 by the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as
a component of the right to an adequate standard of living (A/HRC/4/18, annex I), and with
general comment No. 7 (1997) of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on the
right to adequate housing (art. 11.1): forced evictions;14
(d) Investment agreement revenues should be used for the benefit of the local
population. Depending on the circumstances, arrangements under which the foreign investor
grants access to credit and improved technologies for contract farming, or precluding the
possibility of buying at predefined prices, a portion of the crops produced, may be preferable to
long-term leases of land or land purchases;
(e) Host States and investors should establish and promote farming systems that are
sufficiently labour-intensive to contribute to job creation and to the strengthening of local
livelihood options;
(f) Host States and investors should cooperate in identifying ways to ensure that the
modes of agricultural production respect the environment;
(g) Whatever the content of the arrangement, it is essential that the obligations of the
investor are defined in clear terms, and that these obligations are enforceable, for instance by the
inclusion of predefined sanctions in the event of non-compliance;
(h) In order to ensure that investor agreements do not result in greater food insecurity for
the local population, particularly as the result of increased dependence on international markets
or food aid in a context of higher prices for agricultural commodities, the agreements should
include a clause providing that a minimum percentage of the crops produced be sold on local
markets, and that this percentage may be increased, in proportions to be agreed in advance, if the
price of food commodities on international markets reaches a certain level;
(i) Impact assessments should be conducted prior to the completion of negotiations in
order to highlight the consequences of the investment on the enjoyment of the right to food
through: (i) local employment and incomes, disaggregated by gender and, where applicable, by
ethnic group; (ii) access to productive resources of the local communities, including pastoralists
or itinerant farmers; (iii) the arrival of new technologies and investments in infrastructure;
(iv) the environment, including soil depletion, the use of water resources and genetic erosion;
and (v) access, availability and adequacy of food;
14
Official Records of the Economic and Social Council, 1998, Supplement No. 2 (E/1998/22),
annex IV.
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