UK – Land

The UK 2016 NAP

2. The State Duty to Protect Human Rights

The existing UK legal and policy framework

Government commitments [page 9]

(viii) Continue to work through our embassies and high commissions to support human rights defenders working on issues related to business and human rights in line with EU Guidelines on human rights defenders.

Case Study- Support for Land Tenure and Other Property Rights [page 13]

The UK Government is committed to supporting the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (Land Guidelines, VGGT) including through commitments to accelerate VGGT implementation during its G8 Presidency in 2013.

The UK supports the VGGT:

Through its funding to the Food and Agriculture Organisation in a three-year programme for £4.9 million to raise awareness, improve tenure governance, and support global reporting on progress with VGGT implementation;

Through its leadership in the 2013 G7 commitment to implement the VGGT through country partnerships with interested governments. These partnerships aim to accelerate and target support to countries’ existing land governance programmes in conjunction with businesses, in particular farmers, and civil society;

The global donor working group on land chaired by the UK (DFID) in its inaugural year has published a global land programme database and map. The database includes an initial 589 programmes in 127 countries with a combined worth of US$4.9 billion. All programmes are mapped against relevant sections of the human rights based VGGT;

Jointly with US, Germany, France, the AU Land Policy Initiative and FAO, the UK has developed a land investment due diligence framework based on the VGGT and other international standards, to guide private sector investments under the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition.

In 2015, under the German Presidency, the UK joined a new G7 commitment to align all its Overseas Development Assistance-supported investments with the VGGT. This is being taken forward over the coming years.

DFID is increasing its work on land, bilaterally and at the global level (for an overview of what we do to drive responsible land investments by the private sector, see our 2nd Land Policy Bulletin.

4. Access to remedy for human rights abuses resulting from business activity

Government commitments

Case study- Supporting human rights defenders in Colombia, Mexico and Brazil [page 22]

The UK supported International Service for Human Rights to deliver an intensive training and advocacy programme for human rights defenders working on issues relating to business and human rights in Colombia, Mexico and Brazil. ISHR also created a toolkit to equip human rights defenders to engage with and influence business and supported an advocacy mission to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for the purpose of briefing diplomats and decision-makers on the situation of human rights defenders working on issues of business and human rights in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico and obtaining recommendations in that regard.