ABSTRACT
Soft law instruments is used as the expression of a new international way of regulating transnational matters which, despite its unconventionality, requires a careful analysis of its elaboration process and contents, in order to shed light on the evolution of the international legal system. The author go through international environmental treaty law and human rights law in order to reconstruct a definition of land. In international environmental law, land is first mentioned by the 1972 United Nations Declaration on Human Environment. The chapter talks about a study conducted by the committee of food security pointed out that, thirty-one transnational documents exist regulating investments in agriculture and land tenure. During the period in which the international covenants were drafted, the agrarian question was attracting the attention of states in many regions. In the 1950s, several countries developed agrarian reforms based on the redistribution of land.
