Event Conference
Redistributing Land, Restoring Rights: Tackling Land Inequality to Overcome Global Crises | HRC59 Side Event
This side event to the 59th session of the Human RIghts Council (HRC59) will present the report “Lords of the Lands. Transnational landowners, Inequality and the case for Redistribution” by FIAN International and Focus on the Global South, and put it into the context of current trends of resource grabbing and increasing land concentration. It will expose how these dynamics drive increasing inequality, persisting hunger, and ecological crises.
About the Event
The world is facing a sharp and deepening land inequality crisis. A small group of transnational corporations and financial actors – dubbed “Lords of the Land” – now control more than 400,000 square km across multiple countries, an area equivalent to the size of Japan. This unprecedented concentration of land ownership and control is reshaping food systems, deepening inequality, displacing communities, and fueling the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution.
Despite the critical role that land and other natural resources play in achieving human rights, ecological sustainability, and social justice, land issues have largely disappeared from global policy agendas in recent years. The upcoming II International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20) and renewed attention to resource justice offer a timely opportunity to refocus global debates on land distribution and tenure governance.
This side event presented the report “Lords of the Lands. Transnational landowners, Inequality and the case for Redistribution” by FIAN International and Focus on the Global South, and put it into the context of current trends of resource grabbing and increasing land concentration. It will expose how these dynamics drive increasing inequality, persisting hunger, and ecological crises. Finally, it will present proposals on how agrarian reforms and redistributive policies can play a central role in strategies to advance social, environmental and intergenerational justice, food sovereignty and just transitions.
Environment @ HRC59
The 59th Regular Session of the Human Rights Council (HRC59) will take place in Geneva from 16 June to 9 July 2025. Consult this regularly-updated page that highlighted the environmental-related activities of this session.
Speakers
Additional speakers to be confirmed.
Ana Maria SUAREZ FRANCO
Secretary General, FIAN International
Joseph PURUGGANAN
Co-Director, Focus on the Global South | Video Message
Morgan ODY
General Coordinator, La Via Campesina
Michael FAKHRI
UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food | Video Message
Therese ARNESEN
Human Rights Officer, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Section, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Sibylle DIRREN
FIAN International, Moderator
Highlights
Links
- Environment @ 59th Session of the UN Human Rights Council
- Lords of the Lands. Transnational landowners, Inequality and the case for Redistribution | FIAN International & Focus on the Global South
- Global land grab highlights growing inequality and need for reform | FIAN International | 3 June 2025
The accumulation of vast amounts of land by a small group of global corporate landowners is fueling inequality and accelerating the climate crisis, according to a new report which calls for land redistribution and global tax reforms to reverse this dangerous trend.