A/HRC/39/67 Annex IV Additional explanations provided by experts Collective rights Recognition of the collective form or communal property of the land is a fundamental condition to guarantee access to justice and provide security to peasant families in terms of the full exercise of their economic, social and cultural rights. Collective rights enrich the human rights system, provide it a pluricultural perspective that brings them closer to the notion of universality. Without collective rights, human rights can hardly be considered universal. Collective rights are not contrary to individual rights. Rather, they should be seen as complementary rights which, in many cases, are the way to guarantee individual rights. They are fundamental because the connection that individuals have to their communities has a cultural, a spiritual and a subsistence dimension. Peasants and rural communities, using customary and collective practices have been preserving these ecosystems for centuries. If we look at the collective dimensions of the right to food and the right to land, the right to food requires States to ensure that individuals, either “alone or in community with others have physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement”. It is important to consider the right to food as a collective right as well as an individual right. Collective rights also do not undermine State sovereignty. Collective rights are therefore an essential precondition for the ability of peasants and other people living in rural areas to enjoy human rights, ensure food security, and help protect our planet’s biodiversity. Moreover, collective rights do not undermine individual rights; on the contrary, they would strengthen their protection, as has been recognized by several human rights mechanisms. The former Special rapporteur on the right to housing has noted “without the adequate legal recognition of individual as well as collective land rights, the right to adequate housing, in many instances, cannot be effectively realized. Preamble It is important to retain the concept of food sovereignty. The term Mother Earth, included in the preamble, gives a thorough understanding of the pluricultural nature of the Declaration, as well as the relationship between peasants and the land, nature and natural goods. Article 1 Definition of peasants In the draft Declaration, the definition of “peasant” emphasizes the relationship with land and environment as means of production. It includes activities that produce certain results which are not necessarily profitable. The vulnerability of peasants and other people working in rural areas derives from their economic activity and that former international instruments for specific groups have been adopted to solve discrimination derived from an intrinsic condition of the affected groups. 54