A/HRC/26/48 frameworks were inadequate to the task of protecting peasant farmers’ rights and that new standards were required, and that the absence of a human right to land in international human rights law represented a legal lacuna, as land was critical to rural livelihoods. One panellist argued that funding for agriculture was low and that economic, social and cultural rights often received less attention than civil and political rights. That, she emphasized, particularly affected female peasant farmers who, despite providing the vast majority of all agricultural labour, owned only between 1 and 2 per cent of agricultural land; it was consequently critical that the rights to land, inheritance and property be taken into account. She indicated that a human rights-based approach should be a tool in the design of sustainable economic and agricultural policies, and that those policies needed to be supported by appropriate budgetary allocations, noting that human rights protection could be a solution to discrimination and poverty in rural areas and that participation was vital to sustainable development. 20. A number of panellists agreed that justice and the rule of law were often inaccessible for peasants and other people working in rural areas. That situation impeded their enjoyment of their rights. The panellists considered that, although it would not be a legally binding instrument per se, a declaration was important as it would influence jurisprudence relating to the rights of peasants. The panellists argued that there was a need for additional laws to protect peasant farmers, as existing laws did not provide them with adequate protection, and a need to assess the situation of dispossessed peasant farmers after they had relocated to urban areas, where they had limited access to services and were vulnerable to repeated evictions. One expert noted that the situation of peasants and other people working in rural areas was compounded by the absence of an inclusive development policy that took their needs into account. The panellist also highlighted that some countries were developing new strategies and legislation in relation to peasants’ rights, pointing to the specialized agricultural courts in Mexico as an example, despite the fact that the courts’ competence did not extend to conflicts involving environmental issues. Moreover, the panellists also noted that, in several Latin American countries, efforts had been made to promulgate laws establishing safeguards for peasants following evictions and to amend laws to incorporate the “precautionary principle”, which facilitated preventive decision-making in the face of risk. 21. In a round of questions, the panellists were asked to elaborate on issues such as discrimination and poverty. Panellists argued strongly that if both of those issues were to be addressed, political will was needed, and that stronger international legislation and national laws would help to combat discrimination and protect peasant farmers. The panellists also argued that the draft declaration could help to address poverty by using the human rights framework of protection, even though the draft did not currently refer to State obligations. Furthermore, the panellists discussed the need to include the freedoms of expression, assembly and association in the declaration, and, responding to one delegation’s concerns, several panellists agreed on the importance of those rights in ensuring the meaningful participation of peasants in decision-making. C. Panel discussion III. The need for a United Nations declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas 22. The panellists voiced their support for a United Nations declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas, commenting that such a declaration could: play a role in defining and protecting the rights of peasants that converge with those of farm workers; help to increase the coherence and visibility of existing rights; facilitate the recognition of new rights, such as the rights to land, to seeds and to biodiversity; help to define those rights as individual rights that could be exercised collectively; give a strong 7