E/C.12/GC/26 against land reconcentration following reform, such as land ceiling laws and legal safeguards to protect the collective and customary tenure of land. States parties should engage in long-term regional planning to maintain the environmental functions of land. They should prioritize and support land uses with a human rights-based approach to conservation, biodiversity and the sustainable use of land and other natural resources. 51 They should also, inter alia, facilitate the sustainable use of natural resources by recognizing, protecting and promoting traditional uses of land, adopting policies and measures to strengthen people’s livelihoods based on natural resources and the long-term conservation of land. That includes specific measures to support communities and people to prevent, mitigate and adapt to the consequences of global warming. States should create the conditions for regeneration of biological and other natural capacities and cycles and cooperate with local communities, investors and others to ensure that land use for agricultural and other purposes respects the environment and does not accelerate soil depletion and the exhaustion of water reserves.52 38. 39. States parties shall put in place laws and policies that allow for the recognition of informal tenure through participatory, gender-sensitive processes, paying particular attention to tenant farmers, peasants and other small-scale food producers. D. Extraterritorial obligations 40. Extraterritorial obligations are of particular significance to the implementation of obligations arising from the Covenant relating to access to, use of and control over land. Land transfers are quite often financed or fostered by international entities, including public investors such as development banks financing development projects requiring land, such as dams or renewable energy parks, or by private investors. In reviews of State party reports, the Committee has encountered an increasing number of references to the negative impact on individuals’, groups’, peasants’ and Indigenous Peoples’ access to productive resources as a result of international investment negotiations, agreements and practices, including in the form of public-private partnerships between State agencies and foreign private investors. 1. Extraterritorial obligation to respect 41. The extraterritorial obligation to respect requires States parties to refrain from actions that interfere, directly or indirectly, with the enjoyment of the rights under the Covenant in land-related contexts outside their territories. It also requires them to take specific measures to prevent their domestic and international policies and actions, such as trade, investment, energy, agricultural, development and climate change-mitigation policies, from interfering, directly or indirectly, with the enjoyment of human rights. 53 That applies to all forms of projects implemented by development agencies or financed by development banks. The safeguards developed by the World Bank and other international development banks are a form of recognition of that obligation, particularly relating to investments in land.54 In the wake of the world food crisis in 2007–2008, the number of large-scale investments in land has increased worldwide, causing a variety of problems for persons living on or using the land, including forced or involuntary evictions without adequate compensation. In order to mitigate or prevent such situations, the Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security were developed. Furthermore, the International Finance Corporation performance standards and 51 52 53 54 12 Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security, guideline 8B. A/HRC/13/33/Add.2, annex, principle 6. See E/C.12/BEL/CO/4, E/C.12/AUT/CO/4 and E/C.12/NOR/CO/5; Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, general recommendation No. 34 (2016), para. 13; A/56/10 and A/56/10/Corr.1, pp. 155–168 (on arts. 16–18); and guiding principles on human rights impact assessments of trade and investment agreements. Michael Windfuhr, Safeguarding Human Rights in Land Related Investments: Comparison of the Voluntary Guidelines Land with the IFC Performance Standards and the World Bank Environmental and Social Safeguard Framework (Berlin, German Institute for Human Rights, 2017). GE.23-00043