Land Rights: UN Experts Warn Dispossession Is Driving Record Concentration of Land and Water Ownership

Summary

On 16 October 2026, the United Nations Working Group on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas warned that war and occupation, corporate land deals, carbon and conservation schemes and laws that ignore customary tenure are stripping peasants, fishers, pastoralists and Indigenous Peoples of their territories. According to a press release issued that day by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in New York, the experts said these pressures are driving land concentration to historically unprecedented levels.

"The old drivers of dispossession remain at work. New mechanisms now compound the old," said Shalmali Guttal, Chair-Rapporteur of the Working Group. This report summarises the Working Group's findings, its recommendations to States and international bodies, the context in which the report was issued and the relevant international standards.

Background: The Mandate and the Report

The Working Group was established by the Human Rights Council in resolution 39/12 to promote the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP), which the General Assembly adopted in resolution 73/165 on 17 December 2018. Its five members, listed in an OHCHR statement of the same day, are Shalmali Guttal (Chair), Carlos Duarte, Davit Hakobyan, Uche Ofodile and Geneviève Savigny.

The report, titled "Land and sea territorialities under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas" (A/81/211), is dated 16 July 2026 and was transmitted to the General Assembly's eighty first session by the Secretary-General. It draws on submissions from States, civil society organisations, peasants, Indigenous Peoples and researchers received through an OHCHR call for inputs. The civil society platform Defending Peasants' Rights published the text on 8 October 2026.

The report uses the term "territory" to cover land, water, coastal seas, fisheries, forests and pastures. It argues that access to these areas determines both food security and the exercise of the rights set out in the Declaration.

Findings on Land Concentration

The Working Group describes what it calls a structural paradox: international law has advanced on peasants' territorial rights since 2018, while the concentration of land and natural resources has reached historically unprecedented levels. Citing a 2026 global study by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Land Coalition and the French agricultural research centre CIRAD, the report states that 85 per cent of agricultural holdings, more than 400 million, are smaller than two hectares and control only 9 per cent of cultivable land, while the largest 0.1 per cent operate more than half of all agricultural land.

The report stresses that concentration is not confined to the global South. It cites figures showing that in the European Union 3.1 per cent of holdings controlled 52.2 per cent of agricultural land in 2013, and that in the United States the largest 4.4 per cent of farms by area controlled 61 per cent of agricultural land in 2022, according to the US Department of Agriculture's census. It adds that corporate investors have acquired 26.7 million hectares of agricultural land worldwide since 2000, 42 per cent of it in Africa.

Less Visible Forms of Dispossession

According to the OHCHR release, some forms of dispossession leave little or no trace, including the gradual buying up of small and medium sized farms, digital land registries that can erase customary claims, and laws that treat pastures and water points as vacant land. The report notes that 42 per cent of the Earth's land surface is held under customary systems, of which only 8 per cent has formally documented rights.

Climate, Conservation and Aquatic Territories

The report warns that national net zero carbon commitments could require up to 1.2 billion hectares of land and that carbon credit projects covered at least 9.1 million hectares in low and middle income countries by 2024, frequently without the free, prior and informed consent of the communities concerned. It cites the same 2026 study as finding that nearly 60 per cent of customary lands in 64 countries face threats from industrial activities, with renewable energy projects the most frequently documented threat.

On fisheries, Ms. Guttal said, according to the OHCHR release: "Small-scale fisheries supply close to two thirds of global catches for direct human consumption. Depriving fisherfolk of access and concentrating it in the hands of the few requires the immediate attention of Governments." The report also describes pastoralism, which it says sustains between 200 and 500 million people, as among the least legally recognised forms of tenure.

Rural Women

The experts found that fewer than 15 per cent of rural women hold secure land rights. According to the release, carbon, conservation and aquaculture projects often fall on territories where women use land without holding formal title.

Armed Conflict and Occupation

"Armed conflicts and prolonged occupations accelerate dispossession, with effects that outlast the conflict itself," Ms. Guttal said. The report refers to the displacement of smallholders from Sudan's Gezira Scheme, to land confiscation in the West Bank and damage to agricultural land in Gaza, to the flooding of farmland in southern Ukraine after the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam in June 2023 and the confiscation of agricultural property in Crimea, and to the displacement of some 100,000 people from Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023. It also notes patterns in northern Myanmar, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Sahel.

At the time of writing, the Taskforce had not identified published responses to the report from the Governments of the States it names. Any official responses will be reflected in future updates.

Positive Practices Identified

The report also highlights measures it regards as promising. These include Nepal's community forestry programme, which it says has transferred management of 2.24 million hectares of forest to more than 22,000 community user groups; Colombia's peasant reserve zones; Brazil's marine extractive reserves; Chile's territorial use rights in fisheries; Mali's pastoral charter; and the charfia fishing system of Tunisia's Kerkennah archipelago. It also cites the 2020 judgment of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Lhaka Honhat v. Argentina, while noting that the ruling had not been fully implemented as of April 2026.

Recommendations

"Formalising unequal ownership is legally insufficient," Ms. Guttal said. The Working Group calls on States to recognise customary and collective tenure, including over fishing grounds and pastures, on an equal footing with private property, to cap land accumulation and to redistribute land to the landless, young people and other marginalised groups. It also recommends moratoriums on transferring customary lands to corporate investors where concentration is high, territorial impact assessments for carbon, conservation and energy projects, and mandatory human rights due diligence for business.

The report further asks the Human Rights Council to develop a periodic monitoring mechanism, and calls on FAO, international financial institutions and the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to integrate the Declaration into their work. "Restitution must cover territories, not only land, for all who have been driven out," Ms. Guttal said.

Relevant International Standards

Article 17 of UNDROP recognises the right of peasants to land, individually and collectively, including access to water bodies, coastal seas, fisheries, pastures and forests. The Declaration was adopted by recorded vote, with 121 States in favour, 8 against and 54 abstaining, and is not a binding treaty. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights addresses land in its General Comment No. 26 (2022), and article 14 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women protects the rights of rural women. The FAO Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (2012) and the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small Scale Fisheries (2014) provide further non binding guidance.

Taskforce Note

The Global HR Taskforce will continue to monitor developments, including any discussion of the report at the General Assembly, responses from the States concerned and action by the Human Rights Council on a monitoring mechanism. Sources: OHCHR press release, "Many forms of dispossession driving the record concentration of ownership to land and water worldwide: UN experts," 16 October 2026, as republished by The National Tribune; Report of the Working Group on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas, A/81/211, 16 July 2026; Defending Peasants' Rights, "New Report by the UN Working Group on UNDROP on territorialities of land and sea," 8 October 2026; Devdiscourse, 17 October 2026; OHCHR statement ahead of COP17, 16 October 2026; General Assembly resolution 73/165 (2018); CESCR General Comment No. 26; Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.