This article analyses the creation of new human rights by a contemporary transnational agrarian movement, Vía Campesina. It makes the case that the movement's assertion of new rights contributes to shaping a cosmopolitan, multicultural, and anti-hegemonic conception of human rights. It discusses the advantages and constraints of the human rights framework and analyses the creation of new rights by the movement as a way to overcome the limitations of the 'rights master frame'. It concludes with a discussion of some of the challenges involved in the institutionalization of new rights.

Since the 2007/08 food price crisis there has been a proliferation of multi-stakeholder processes (MSPs) devoted to bringing diverse perspectives together to inform and improve food security policy. While much of the literature highlights the positive contributions to be gained from an opening-up of traditionally state-led processes, there is a strong critique emerging to show that, in many instances, MSPs have de-politicizing effects. In this paper, we scrutinize MSPs in relation to de-politicization. We argue that re-building sustainable and just food systems requires alternative visions that can best be made visible through politicized policy processes. Focusing on three key conditions of politicization, we examine the UN Committee on World Food Security as a MSP where we see a process of politicization playing out through the endorsement of the ‘most-affected’ principle, which is in turn being actively contested by traditionally powerful actors. We conclude that there is a need to implement and reinforce mechanisms that deliberately politicize participation in MSPs, notably by clearly distinguishing between states and other stakeholders, as well as between categories of non-state actors.

This article offers a comparative account of the engagement of two key transnational social movements, the agrarian movement La Via Campesina (LVC) and the International Indigenous Peoples' Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC), in global climate discussions, particularly the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Since 2007 these movements have each developed their own framing of climate justice and sought political and legal opportunities to advocate rights-based policies. LVC has advanced a development paradigm grounded in food sovereignty and agroecology, and IIPFCC has sought to increase indigenous participation in United Nations climate schemes and regain control over ancestral territory. RÉSUMÉCet article présente un compte rendu comparatif de la participation de deux mouvements sociaux transnationaux clés, le mouvement agraire La Via Campesina (LVC) et l'International Indigenous Peoples' Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC), aux débats mondiaux sur le climat, notamment à la Convention-cadre des Nations Unies sur les changements climatiques. Depuis 2007, ces mouvements ont développé leur propre formulation de la justice climatique et cherché des opportunités politiques et légales afin de promouvoir des politiques axées sur les droits. LVC a mis de l'avant un paradigme de développement fondé sur la souveraineté alimentaire ainsi que l'agroécologie, et IIPFCC a cherché à accroître la participation autochtone aux dispositifs des Nations Unies liés au climat de même qu'à reprendre le contrôle du territoire ancestral.

This document is the author's post-print version, incorporating any revisions agreed during the peer-review process. Some differences between the published version and this version may remain and you are advised to consult the published version if you wish to cite from it.

The UN Food Systems Summit was an ambitious and hotly contested event that brought competing approaches to global food governance into relief. In this article, we unpack the rival visions that circulate around how food systems should be governed, focusing on two issues that we feel are at the heart of these divergences: authority and legitimacy. We illustrate how both corporate-philanthropic and food sovereignty networks are struggling to establish epistemic authority of food systems as well as produce legitimacy through very different approaches to participation and accountability.