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Dear Friends and Colleagues Corruption Driving the Global Land Grabbing Crisis Communities around the world are being robbed of the land on which they depend. According to Global Witness data, in 2015, an average of more than three people each week were killed defending their land against theft and the ruinous impacts of industry (Item 1). A new report authored by Professor Olivier De Schutter, the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Global Witness, and the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR), highlights how corruption is fuelling the global land grabbing crisis, resulting in millions of land grab victims across the world (Item 2). The last decade has seen an upsurge in land grabs for industries like mining, logging, agribusiness, and infrastructure projects, with local communities rarely consulted or compensated. The actors colluding to grab land tend to be corporations, foreign investment funds, national and local State officials, and the governments of wealthy yet resource-poor nations looking to cheaply acquire land. Corruption enables land grabbing in various ways, for example, when investors pay bribes to public officials in exchange for favorable land leases/acquisitions that violate the rights of local communities, or elites capture the titling process through illegal means and at the expense of local land users. Investors seeking large-scale land acquisitions appear to be targeting countries that suffer high levels of corruption. A clear conclusion of the report is that any efforts to end land grabbing must also tackle corruption, as the two tend to co-exist and are mutually reinforcing. The report gives recommendations for investing companies, financial institutions, home states and host states so as to ensure that land deals protect the rights of local communities and are transparent and corruption-free. With best wishes, Third
World Network ____________________________________________________________________________ Item 1 NEW REPORT EXAMINES HOW CORRUPTION IS FUELLING WIDESPREAD LAND GRABBING AND HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES Josie
Cohen A new report launched today takes the most comprehensive look to date at how corruption is fuelling the global land grabbing crisis, which has seen millions of people displaced from their homes and farmland. Tainted Lands, authored by Professor Olivier De Schutter, the former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, and leading human rights organizations Global Witness and the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR), calls on companies and governments to ensure that land deals are transparent, are corruption-free, and protect the rights of local communities. "As demand for food, fuel, and commodities increases pressure on land, companies are all too often striking deals with corrupt State officials without the consent of the people who live on it,” said Professor De Schutter. ”The last decade has seen an upsurge in land grabs for industries like mining, logging, agribusiness, and infrastructure projects, with local communities rarely consulted or compensated.” At worst, these land seizures are fatal. According to Global Witness data, in 2015, an average of more than three people each week were killed defending their land against theft and the ruinous impacts of industry – the deadliest year on record. Corruption enables land grabbing in a number of ways. It can be simply transactional – when State officials accept bribes from a company to gain access to land, for example. It can also be institutionalised – when decision-making in State bodies such as the police, judiciary, or executive is skewed so that business or political elites can ignore national laws to seize land without facing the consequences. “What this report makes clear is that any efforts to end land grabbing must also tackle corruption, as the two tend to co-exist and are mutually reinforcing,” said Josie Cohen, Senior Land Campaigner with Global Witness. “Disturbingly, what we’re seeing is that investors seeking large-scale land acquisitions appear to be targeting countries that suffer high levels of corruption. Meanwhile, corruption is distorting the outcomes of government and aid programmes designed to help communities gain security over their lands, resulting in millions of land grab victims across the world.” The impacts can be devastating. An investigation published in 2015 laid bare the impacts of corrupt land grabs in northeastern Myanmar, where the military colluded with government officials and private companies to seize 1,800 hectares of land. More than 22,000 villagers were affected and are now suffering from food shortages. One farmer explained, ”We were not rich before. We were not poor either. We could survive on our land. But now with less land, life has become very difficult.” Another exposé revealed how Vietnamese rubber companies used close ties to corrupt political and business elites to establish huge rubber plantations in Cambodia. The companies were also involved in gutting forests of valuable timber, able to ignore land and forest laws thanks to their high-level connections. Tainted Lands explores existing frameworks that could help protect land rights and tackle corruption, including laws such as the UK Bribery Act and the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The report asserts, however, that much more must be done. It lays out a set of recommendations for governments, companies, and the financial sector. Companies, for instance, need to carry out thorough checks on their supply chains and business partners to ensure they aren’t linked to corruption and human rights abuses. Governments must meanwhile ensure that affected communities are properly consulted and have given their consent before land deals can go ahead. “Private sector actors and governments need to do far more to ensure that they aren’t driving human rights harms at home or abroad,” said Sara Blackwell, Legal and Policy Coordinator at ICAR. “Not only is the impact on life and livelihood severe, but for companies and investors, becoming embroiled in a corrupt land deal poses major reputational, financial, and legal risks.” The Tainted Lands report was launched on 15 November 2016 as part of the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. It can be viewed at www.icar.ngo/land-rights. Item 2 TAINTED LANDS - CORRUPTION IN LARGE-SCALE LAND DEALS Olivier
De Schutter, The International Corporate Accountability Roundtable
(ICAR) and Global Witness EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In recent years, there has been an unprecedented rise in the sale and leasing of large areas of land, particularly in developing countries. The regions concerned are those where natural resources and land suitable for agriculture, extractive activities, timber concessions, or infrastructure projects is abundant; workforces are cheap; and access to global markets is relatively easy. The investors in these large-scale land leases or acquisitions—referred to as “land deals” or “land investments” throughout this report—are local government and business elites, foreign investment funds, corporations, or governments of cash-rich but resource-poor countries. This report focuses on one major driver of the adverse human rights impacts of these increasing land investments—corruption. Corruption taints land deals in multiple ways, most notably when investors pay bribes to public officials in exchange for favorable land leases or acquisitions that violate the rights of local communities, elites capture the titling process through illegal means and at the expense of local land users, or investors rely on weak rule of law or corrupt remedial schemes to deny land users’ access to remedy. Even in the absence of corruption, large-scale land investments may worsen rather than reduce rural poverty, encouraging forms of development that are neither environmentally nor socially sustainable. The Author and developers of this report advocate for investments in local communities and small holder farmers to be prioritized as the best means to achieve sustainable development. However, the focus of this report is to shed light on corruption, which intensifies the negative human rights and environmental impacts of the growing system of large-scale land investments and yet remains largely ignored. As such, this report aims to highlight these impacts and provide recommendations for addressing them while at the same time acknowledging the pressing need for systematic reform. Project Background Launched in 2015 by the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR) and Global Witness, the “Tainted Lands” project examines the risk of both grand corruption and petty bribes in large-scale land deals and develops recommendations for what can be done to address corruption at all phases of such land leasing and acquisition. In doing so, the project commissioned Professor Olivier De Schutter, former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, to lead a series of stakeholder consultations and extensive desk-based research toward the development of concrete policy recommendations aimed at eliminating corrupt practices from large-scale land deals. Report Roadmap Section I of this report provides an overview of the phenomenon of large-scale land deals. It assesses the trend at a global level and examines structural obstacles faced by efforts to regulate such deals. Within this context, Section II focuses on corruption as a major obstacle to improving the protection of local communities and indigenous peoples whose livelihood, identities, and traditional ways of life depend on the use of local lands and natural resources. This phenomenon is largely understudied because corruption, by its very nature, is hidden and therefore poorly documented. Outlining the current state of play in relation to corruption and land deals, Section III explores domestic legislation, international treaties, and multi-stakeholder initiatives that have aimed to address various aspects of corruption and land rights issues. In Section IV, the report concludes by offering a set of policy recommendations targeted toward: investors, banks and other financial institutions, States where investments in land are made (host States), and States where investors are headquartered (home States). Report Recommendations The following is a summary of this report’s key recommendations: Investing companies should:
Banks and other financial institutions should:
Host States should:
Home States should:
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