David Deng '10 and Sylwia Wewiora '11 present at International Conference on Global Land Grabbing

David Deng '10 and Sylwia Wewiora '11 present at International Conference on Global Land Grabbing

On April 6-8, David Deng '10 and Sylwia Wewiora '11 presented at the International Conference on Global Land Grabbing, hosted by the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex and organized by the Land Deal Politics Initiative (LDPI) in conjunction with the Journal of Peasant Studies. The conference provided a forum for the continuing debate around large-scale land acquisitions and boasted over 150 attendees.
 
Wewiora, a current member of the International Human Rights Clinic at NYU School of Law, sat on a panel entitled, “Governance: Human Rights,” where she presented Foreign Land Deals and Human Rights: Case Studies on Agricultural and Biofuel Investment, a 118-page report released by the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) in October 2010. Focusing on four case studies, the report examines the human rights dimensions of large-scale land deals and is based on extensive research by Professor Smita Narula, CHRGJ faculty director, and by students in the International Human Rights Clinic, including Wewiora, Deng, Lauren DeMartini '11, Colin Gillespie '11, Geoffrey Johnson '11, and Andrea Johansson (LL.M. '10).

Deng, currently an Arthur Helton Global Human Rights Fellow, helped organize and presented on a panel entitled “Governance: Community consultation and free prior informed consent.” Deng spoke about the importance of community consultation in drafting land deals in Southern Sudan and presented his recently published report, The New Frontier: A baseline survey of large-scale land-based investment in Southern Sudan, which had been commissioned by Norwegian People’s Aid.