undrop and the Right to Seeds

Abstract Following in the footsteps of the Nyéléni Declaration, the transnational agrarian movement La Via Campesina ( lvc ) secured recognition for the right to food sovereignty within the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas. Alongside this, the academic community and the agrarian movement itself have developed the concept of “seed sovereignty”. Although it has not followed the same normative trajectory as food sovereignty, it has served (i) to bring together a range of issues scattered throughout the biodiversity “regime complex” (industrial property, concentration, seed regulation, gmo regulation, biopiracy, conservation); (ii) to establish a coherent and integrative intellectual framework, the high point of which was undoubtedly the enshrinement of the “right to seeds” in Article 19 of the Declaration. This chapter traces the history of the concept and the genealogy of Article 19, showing that seed sovereignty, through its appeal to permanent sovereignty over natural resources (which was also clearly visible during the drafting process), sought to anchor the prerogatives granted to peasants and farmers over their seeds in international human rights law. More fundamentally, in its alliance with the right to food sovereignty, it represents a significant attempt to challenge the Westphalian sovereignty – a hallmark of the transnational agrarian movement.