conflicts, as well as rights violations against farmers, indigenous peoples (IPs), and other rural stakeholders. Farmers are engaging in unfair business contracts, and ancestral domains of IPs are endangered by operations of extractive industries such as mining and quarrying. Such conflict-laden investments in rural Asia are often characterized by non-transparency and stakeholders’ lack of access to vital investment information. The reported number of land and resource conflicts in Asia has increased through the years, with communities and land rights defenders bearing most of the damage. State and private armed forces have physically and psychologically harmed rights defenders who have dared to voice opposition to unwanted or unfair investments. Numerous rights defenders have been killed, imprisoned, and harassed in the course of conflicts over land investments. As Figure 1 shows, data from Global Witness reveals the increasing trend of violence towards environmental rights defenders. In 2017, 63 defenders in Asia were slain. In the same year, 41 land and environmental defenders were killed in the Philippines, making the country the 2nd deadliest place for environmental activists next only to Brazil (Cox, 2018).1 “Land Rights as Human Rights,” a CSO-led initiative Taking into consideration the above-stated shared experiences of Asian countries, the Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC), and the Land Watch Asia (LWA) Campaign, with the support of the International Land Coalition (ILC), convened a six-country working group to implement the initiative entitled “Defending Land Rights and Human Rights Defenders.” This project, jointly undertaken by CSO partners from Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Nepal, and the Philippines,2 aims to contribute to the realization of ILC’s People-Cantered Land Governance Commitments 9 and 10, on effective actions against land grabbing, and on protecting land rights defenders.3 Through the endeavor, CSOs from the six countries aim to: a) popularize of the concept of land rights as human rights through engagement with National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs), b) equip CSO partners in land-human rights 1 For a comprehensive discussion on the nature and prevalence of land conflicts in Asia, refer to the ANGOC paper: In defense of land rights: a monitoring report on land conflicts in six Asian countries (Quizon, 2018). 2 CDA, ARBAN (Bangladesh); STAR Kampuchea (Cambodia); Ekta Parishad, SDF (India); KPA (Indonesia); CSRC (Nepal); and, ANGOC, AR Now!, XSF (Philippines) 3 For more information, visit the ILC website at: http://www.landcoalition.org/en/people-centred-land-governance 84 Upholding Land Rights amidst the Land Rush