Find guidance on a wide range of topics to better protect land rights in the context of investments

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Resources for Legal advice

People’s Manual on the Guidelines on Governance of Land, Fisheries and Forests: A guide for promotion, implementation, monitoring and evaluation

Tools and Guides
 

The manual explains how to use the Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure in everyday life to protect the rights of peasants and other communities.

Primer on International Investment Treaties and Investor-State Dispute Settlement

Tools and Guides
 

This primer gives an accessible overview of key aspects surrounding International Investment Treaties and Investor-State Dispute Settlement, and the implications for promoting a rights-based approach to governance.

Promoting participatory law-making for recognition of legitimate tenure rights

Tools and Guides
 

"Participatory law-making” is the process by which citizens actively contribute to policy advocacy and law-drafting. Citizen participation in law-making can improve the quality and legitimacy of policies and laws by ensuring that they reflect and protect the authentic interests of the national citizenry. In the field of land rights, participatory law-making can help ensure the recognition and protection of legitimate tenure rights. The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT) call on states to develop relevant policies, laws and procedures through participatory processes that include men, women, Indigenous Peoples and members of marginalized groups.

Protecting legitimate tenure rights: From concepts to practice

Tools and Guides
 

 

Resource Securing community land and resource rights in Africa: A guide to legal reform and best practices

Tools and Guides
 

This guide explains key aspects of law and land rights that are important for securing community ownership and control of land and resources – also referred to as secure land and resource tenure. It explains how to identify and create opportunities for law reform and offers examples of reforms that have taken place in several African countries.

Respecting the human rights of communities: a business guide for commercial wind and solar project deployment

Tools and Guides
 

This guide provides companies involved in wind and solar projects with information and strategies to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for adverse human rights impacts that they cause, contribute to, or are directly linked to through their operations, products, or services, by virtue of their business relationships. It may also be useful for investors, business partners, government actors, civil society organizations, communities, and other stakeholders. It comes with a Legal Risk Primer.

Respecting the human rights of communities: a legal risk primer for commercial wind and solar project deployment

Tools and Guides
 

This legal risk primer provides the general counsels and corporate legal teams of commercial wind and solar companies with an overview of the key legal risks that may arise from the above community-related human rights impacts. It is a companion to CCSI's business guide on the same topic.

Responsible governance of tenure and the law - A guide for lawyers and other legal service providers

Tools and Guides
 

This guide is aimed at legal professionals working with governments, civil society, the private sector or development agencies as well as law societies, notaries, judges and all those who are interested in understanding the role of law in giving effect to the provisions of the Guidelines (VGGT). The VGGT provide important elements for shaping a well-functioning legal framework to facilitate their effective implementation at the national level. The technical guide reviews the legal implications of the VGGT and provides guidance on assessing national legislation, legal reform and improved implementation as well as the settlement of disputes

Responsible investments in agriculture and food systems – A practical handbook for parliamentarians and parliamentary advisors

Tools and Guides
 

This Handbook provides a comprehensive and systematic overview of the role that Parliamentarians and Parliamentary Advisors can play in the creation of reliable, coherent, and transparent “enabling environments” in the range of areas related to investment in agriculture and food systems. It does so through guidance notes, examples of good practices, and very practical indications, and sets out key stages of processes and mechanisms for MPs and advisors to consider while promoting responsible investment in agriculture and food systems.

Supporting an enabling legal environment for women’s empowerment in food and agriculture

Tools and Guides
 

Empowerment is the “expansion of people’s ability to make strategic life choices”. According to the UN, women’s empowerment has five components: women’s sense of self-worth; their right to have and to determine choices; their right to have access to opportunities and resources; their right to have the power to control their own lives, both within and outside the home; and their ability to influence the direction of social change to create a more just social and economic order, nationally and internationally. The process of empowerment rests on enabling social conditions including social norms and legislative action that supports equality as well as individual will. To promote women’s empowerment in agriculture and food security, countries need enabling legal frameworks.