When Civil Society Plants the Seeds of Normative Change -the Role of Non-state Actors in the Adoption of UNDROP

On April 17, 1996, the massacre of nineteen landless peasants in
Eldorado do Carajás, Brazil, became a symbol of rural oppression and sparked
renewed international mobilization for the recognition of peasants’ rights.
The adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and
Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) in 2018 marked a milestone in
international human rights, following nearly three decades of sustained advocacy
by peasant movements and allied non-governmental organizations. This article
examines how civil society actors, primarily La Vía Campesina, CETIM, and
FIAN International, contributed to the co-construction of this instrument by
translating grassroots demands into international legal standards through an
inclusive, participatory, and iterative process. Drawing on the experimentalist
approach to human rights and the concept of vernacularization in reverse,
the study analyzes the extent to which UNDROP reflects bottom-up norm
development. The analysis is based on UN documents, NGO publications, and
eleven semi-structured interviews with key participants. The article applies the
five core features of experimentalist governance as developed by De Búrca and
colleagues, namely shared problem framing, open-ended goal setting, localized
implementation, peer-like feedback, and iterative revision. It demonstrates
how civil society actors shaped both the content and the legitimacy of the
Declaration through dynamic forms of engagement. The analysis highlights the
complementary roles of grassroots movements and professional NGOs, showing
how political legitimacy grounded in lived experience was combined with legal
expertise and diplomatic access. Despite internal tensions over language, legal
format, and strategy, the coalition maintained cohesion through negotiation and
coordination. These dynamics enabled the articulation of new rights, including
the rights to seeds, land, and food sovereignty, within a flexible legal framework.
The findings underscore how civil society actors, through recursive interaction
and transcalar advocacy, acted not as passive participants but as active co-
creators of an innovative human rights instrument.