Social Sustainability
Subsistence Rights
Rights to the minimum means of survival — food, water, land and resources on which traditional livelihoods depend.
Definition
Subsistence rights are the entitlements of every person to the material minimum needed for survival and a dignified life — rooted in the ICESCR rights to an adequate standard of living, food and water, and elaborated in the jurisprudence of treaty bodies. For Indigenous peoples and rural communities, they extend to continued access to the land, waters and resources on which subsistence livelihoods depend, as affirmed in UNDRIP and ILO Convention 169; development projects that destroy subsistence resources violate rights even where compensation for cash losses is offered.
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