A New Era of Customary Property Rights? – Liberia’s Land and Forest Legislation in Light of the Indigenous Right to Self-Determination

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 439-462
Author(s):  
Ricarda Rösch
Keyword(s):  
Property Rights ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Forest Legislation ◽  
Customary Land ◽  
The Right

After the end of Liberia’s civil war in 2003, the country embarked upon the reform of its forest and land legislation. This culminated in the adoption of the 2009 Community Rights Law with Respect to Forest Lands and the 2018 Land Rights Act, which NGOs and donors have described as being amongst the most progressive laws in sub-Saharan Africa with regard to the recognition of customary land tenure. Given these actors commitment to human rights, this article takes the indigenous right to self-determination as a starting point for analysing customary property rights and their implementation in Liberia. This includes the examination of the Liberian concept of the 1) recognition and nature of customary land rights, 2) customary ownership of natural resources, 3) jurisdiction over customary land, 4) the prohibition of forcible removal, and 5) the right to free, prior and informed consent.

scholarly journals Could Mapping Initiatives Catalyze the Interpretation of Customary Land Rights in Ways that Secure Women’s Land Rights?

Land ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 344 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaynor Paradza ◽  
Lebogang Mokwena ◽  
Walter Musakwa
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Mineral Resources ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Host Community ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Legislative Changes ◽  
Customary Land

Although land forms the basis for marginal livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa, the asset is more strategic for women as they usually hold derived and dependent rights to land in customary tenure areas. Initiatives to secure women’s land tenure in customary areas are undermined by the social embeddedness of the rights, patriarchy, lack of awareness by the communities, legal pluralism, and challenges of recording the rights. As pressure on customary land tenure increases due to foreign and local land-based investment interests, land titling initiatives, tourism, and mineral resources exploration, communities and women within them are at real risk of losing their land, the basis of their livelihoods. Women stand to lose more as they hold tenuous land rights in customary land tenure areas. Accordingly, this study analyzes case studies of selected mapping initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa to interrogate the extent to which mapping both as a cadastral exercise and emerging practice in the initiation of participatory land governance initiatives, catalyze the transmission of customary land rights in ways that have a positive impact on women’s access to land in customary land tenure areas. The results indicate that mapping initiatives generate opportunities, innovations, and novel spaces for securing women’s access to land in customary tenure areas which include catalyzing legislative changes and facilitating technology transfer, increasing awareness of women’s interests, providing opportunities for women to participate in decision-making forums, providing a basis for securing statutory recognition for their land rights, and improving natural resource stewardship. The potential challenges include the community’s capacity to sustain the initiatives, the expense of the technology and software, widespread illiteracy of women, power asymmetries and bias of the mapping experts, increased vulnerability of mapped land to exploitation, the legal status of the maps in the host community and /or country, compatibility with existing land recording systems, statutory bias in recording land rights and the potential of mapping initiatives to unearth existing land boundary conflicts. These challenges can be mediated by sensitive planning and management to ensure real and sustainable land tenure security for women. The paper contributes to debates around customary land tenure dynamics, specifically the issues pertaining to registration of primary and derived customary rights to land. These includes policy debates and choices to be made about how best to secure tenuous customary land rights of women and other vulnerable people. The paper also contributes to our understanding of what instruments in land registration toolkits might strengthen women’s land rights and the conditions under which this could be done.

scholarly journals The Legal Status of Customary Land Tenure Systems and the Protection of Communal Property in Cameroon

2018 ◽  
pp. 102-126
Author(s):  
Walters Nsoh
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Communal Property ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Broad Interpretation ◽  
Customary Land ◽  
Land Tenure Systems

The ownership and utilisation of communal property are very much tied to the modern land tenure systems of most sub-Saharan African countries, which nevertheless still rely on the customary land tenure system to operate. But how exactly do the customary land tenure systems which remain operational in many parts of Africa fit into contemporary land ownership and use structures? Drawing on a broad interpretation of (African) customary land tenure and its elements, including its communal interest element, this chapter assesses the extent to which law and practice in Cameroon are developing and protecting communal property. Using developments in the protection of collective forest rights as an example, it demonstrates the continuous difficulty in reconciling Western land law principles on the ownership and use of communal property with customary land tenure systems in post-colonial sub-Saharan African societies, and the implications this may have for the wider rule of law in contemporary sub-Saharan Africa.

Disentangling intra-kinship property rights in land: a contribution of economic ethnography to land economics in Africa

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
JEAN-PHILIPPE COLIN
Keyword(s):  
Property Rights ◽  
Institutional Economics ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
The Family ◽  
African Context ◽  
Family Land ◽  
Land Economics ◽  
Customary Land ◽  
Bundle Of Rights ◽  
The Right

AbstractThe issue of property rights in land has taken central stage in research in institutional economics regarding developing countries. In the African context, numerous studies have dealt with the individualization and commodification of customary land rights. The issue of intra-family land rights tends however to remain a black box, regarding the content of the bundle of rights and duties, the identification of the right holders and the transfers of rights within the family. Drawing from the insights of institutional economics as well as economic and legal anthropology, this paper presents a conceptual framework to rigorously explore the issue of land rights through an economic ethnography.

scholarly journals Innovative Geospatial Solutions for Land Tenure Mapping

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Koeva ◽  
C Stöcker ◽  
S Crommelinck ◽  
M Chipofya ◽  
K Kundert ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Governance Capacity ◽  
Horizon 2020 ◽  
Market Opportunities ◽  
Sketch Maps ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Fit For Purpose ◽  
Sub Saharan

There are millions of unrecorded land rights in sub-Saharan Africa, which are still not mapped. Therefore, there is a clear demand for innovative solutions for land tenure recording, as also written in the target 1.4 of UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In response to this need, the consortia of “its4land” European Commission Horizon 2020 project developed the “its4land toolbox” based on the continuum of land rights and fit-for-purpose approach. The advanced technological solutions of the toolbox include smart sketch maps, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), interactive boundary delineator, as well as sharing and publishing land information via geocloud services. The solutions are based on specific needs, market opportunities, and readiness of end-users. Moreover, aiming in scaling up broader governance implications are examined. During the project lifetime, the main technical tasks included tool development, prototyping, and demonstration of the tools to local, regional, national, and international users and stakeholders. Furthermore, equal emphasis was placed on needs assessment, governance, capacity, and business modeling. The current paper presents the unique its4land land administration toolbox in which the key exploitable results of the project are integrated in a joint used case in Rwanda. Keywords: Fit-for-Purpose; Land Tenure; UAV; Boundary Delineation; Land

The Law and Land Grabbing: Friend or Foe?

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Liz Alden Wily
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Land Acquisitions ◽  
Customary Rights ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Large Scale Land ◽  
Customary Land

AbstractThis paper reflects upon the role of law in the contemporary surge in global large-scale land acquisitions. Its point of reference is the land security of several billion rural poor who traditionally own and use untitled lands that are classified as state lands or unowned public lands in national laws. Most of the affected lands are off-farm areas including forests, marshlands, and rangelands. Investors target these lands in belief they are unowned. Governments concur, selling or leasing these lands on grounds of being technically the lawful owner and despite awareness that these lands are occupied and used. Despite the longstanding nature of such conflicts as well known and long debated, the present land rush brings unresolved contradictions between statutory and customary law and associated meanings of property firmly to the fore. Using Sub-Saharan Africa as the example, this paper examines the legal effects. It is shown that while millions of local land rights are threatened, the land rush also vitalises demands for improved national law status for unregistered customary rights, including those such as forest and rangelands purposely held by communities in common. To this extent, the contemporary rush could prove as much legal friend as foe to majority land rights in agrarian economies. This is partly because the current rush, unlike those that have gone before it, occurs in an environment of advanced popular communication, emergent mass empowerment, and has the advantage of a pre-rush era of legal improvement in the handling of indigenous and customary land rights that has established alternative precedents. Opportunities to coerce modification of classical dispossessory paths of economic growth strongly exist. Global advocacy for secure community land rights is rapidly advancing.

The challenge of reforming land governance in Kenya under the 2010 Constitution

2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 537-566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen M. Bassett
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Public Land ◽  
Land Access ◽  
Imperial Presidency ◽  
Marginalised Groups ◽  
Land Relations ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The Right

AbstractIn August 2010, Kenya's citizens adopted a new Constitution. Intended to rein in an imperial presidency, the Constitution initiated one of the most ambitious governance reforms seen in Sub-Saharan Africa. ‘Devolution’ establishes 47 counties with extensive powers led by a directly elected governor and legislative assembly. The transition has exposed fault lines as actors struggle over the delineation of power. This paper presents the fight between the National Land Commission and the Ministry of Lands over the right to manage public land in the period 2013–2016. The paper argues that the difficulties associated with land reform arise because of the centrality of land allocation to the maintenance of power in the country. NLC's potential to transform land relations – by addressing land grabbing, effecting land redistribution, and ensuring land access by marginalised groups – is limited. This is due to the paucity of unallocated public land and the continued strength of Kenya's statist land tenure regime.

scholarly journals TOWARDS INNOVATIVE GEOSPATIAL TOOLS FOR FIT-FOR-PURPOSE LAND RIGHTS MAPPING

2017 ◽  
Vol XLII-2/W7 ◽  
pp. 37-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Koeva ◽  
R. Bennett ◽  
M. Gerke ◽  
S. Crommelinck ◽  
C. Stöcker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Innovation Process ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Horizon 2020 ◽  
Market Opportunities ◽  
Fit For Purpose ◽  
Sub Saharan

In large parts of sub Saharan Africa it remains an ongoing challenging to map millions of unrecognized land rights. Existing approaches for recognizing these rights have proven inappropriate in many cases. A new generation of tools needs to be developed to support faster, cheaper, easier, and more responsible land rights mapping. This is the main goal of its4land, an European Commission Horizon 2020 project that aims to develop innovative tools inspired by the continuum of land rights, fit-for-purpose land administration, and cadastral intelligence. its4land is using strategic collaboration between the EU and East Africa to deliver innovative, scalable, and transferrable ICT solutions. The innovation process incorporates a broad range of stakeholders and emergent geospatial technologies, including smart sketchmaps, UAVs, automated feature extraction, as well as geocloud services. The aim is to combine innovative technologies, capture the specific needs, market opportunities and readiness of end-users in the domain of land tenure information recording in Eastern Africa. The project consists of a four year work plan, € 3.9M funding, and eight consortium partners collaborating with stakeholders from six case study locations in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Rwanda. The major tasks include tool development, prototyping, and demonstration for local, national, regional, and international interest groups. The case locations cover different land uses such as: urban, peri-urban, rural smallholder, and (former) pastoralist. This paper describes the project’s activities within the first 18 months and covers barriers discovered, lessons learned and results achieved.

scholarly journals Rethinking Rights and Interests of Local Communities in REDD+ Designs: Lessons Learnt from Current Forest Tenure Systems in Cameroon

ISRN Forestry ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Ngendakumana ◽  
E. G. Bachange ◽  
P. Van Damme ◽  
S. Speelman ◽  
D. Foundjem-Tita ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Community Forestry ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Lessons Learnt ◽  
Positive Elements ◽  
Forest Tenure ◽  
Recognition And Enforcement ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Forest Users ◽  
The Right

It is increasingly becoming clear that reforms based on the claims of local forest communities regarding the right to natural resources will be needed to adequately address issues of sustainable development in Sub-Saharan Africa. The current institutional and policy frameworks of Cameroon and other SSA countries have bestowed exclusive land tenure rights to the State, while curtailing access of local farmers to forest and forest-based resources on which they depend for a living. It is therefore unlikely that successful forest conservation and implementation of REDD+ can be possible without recognition and enforcement of customary tenure. This paper aimed to sense smallholders' perceptions on rights and risks in the current forestry policy arena linked with the climate change debate in Cameroon. Using semistructured questionnaires and focus group discussions about 7 key informants and 66 community forest users were investigated about the current tenure systems and the risks of related conflicts. Findings from the field provide empirical evidence on the sources of conflict. Based on failures and positive elements of community forestry, the lessons learnt could enrich the on-going REDD safeguard debates and serve as guiding milestones towards the effectiveness of this initiative across the country and the continent.

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