The gender implications of large-scale land deals

This article introduces a discussion of gender dimensions into the growing debate on large-scale land deals. It addresses the current information gap on the differential gender effects of large-scale land deals through (1) an overview of the phases of large-scale land deals and discussion of related effects on rural men and women based on new literature on large-scale land deals and past literature on the gender effects of commercialization and contract farming; (2) a presentation of further evidence using several case studies on the gender effects of large-scale deals; and (3) a conclusion that looks at knowledge gaps and areas for further research as well as broad recommendations for gender equitable large-scale land deals.     

Food security or commercial business? Gulf State investments in Australian agriculture

Worldwide investments in agricultural land have gained much attention in recent years, resulting in renewed awareness of land as being a scarce and finite resource. This paper investigates a case of South-to-North land deals, namely investments from the Arab Gulf targeting agricultural land in Australia. For the Arab Gulf States that highly depend on external food supplies, investment abroad is one strategy to guarantee future food security. At the same time, leading Australian political and economic representatives have been eager to attract investments from the Gulf. Increasing foreign investment in Australian land has, however, provoked a vivid public debate in Australia. Concepts of foreign direct investment and its role are currently renegotiated on the federal level with regard to Australia's own food security, the ‘national interest’ and the redefinition of ‘Australian agricultural land’. While these concerns also play out on the local level, investments have to be seen within the wider context of Australian ruralities. The paper reveals how food security and commercial and financial interests intersect and become blurred within current transformations of the global agri-food system.     

Plantation rubber,land grabbing and social-property transformation in southern Laos

This paper critically examines theories of accumulation, dispossession and exclusion for analyzing the agrarian transformations that result from contemporary large-scale land acquisitions across the Global South. Building upon Marx's primitive accumulation, Harvey's accumulation by dispossession and Hall et al.'s Powers of Exclusion, conceptual lenses are developed through which to examine how land grabs transform property and social relationships of resource-based production. I examine the concession of 10,000 hectares by the central government of Laos to a Vietnamese corporation for extracting timber and planting rubber in the southern province of Attapeu. This acquisition has excluded farmers from land and resources that constituted their primary sources of (re)production, reconfigured rural property relations, altered the peasant relationship to land and produced new exploitative forms of wage labor.     

关于善意取得制度若干问题的探讨

《物权法》在我国立法上第一次确立了善意取得制度,但是物权法的规定并没有平息关于善意取得的争论,反而使争论更加激烈。善意取得制度既应适用于动产也应适用于不动产,既应适用于基于权利人的意思而由第三人占有的财产也应适用于非基于权利人的意思而由第三人占有的财产。第三人善意的时间应为一个时间段而非一个时间点。善意与非善意的证明责任应由否认第三人善意的人为之。在善意取得制度下应认定无处分权人处分他人财产的合同有效。善意取得制度不适用于具有特殊性质的财产,所有权人可以取回,但所有权人应给善意第三人以补偿。     

Book reviews

During the past two decades agrarian (‘land and farm’) reforms have been widespread in the transition economies of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA), following earlier ones in Asia (China and Vietnam). However, independent family farms did not become the predominant sector in most of Eastern Europe. A new dual (or bi-modal) agrarian structure emerged, consisting of large farm enterprises (with much less social functions than they had before), and very small peasant farms or subsidiary plots. The paper compares five case studies, looking at agrarian actors, property rights, state influence, and rural poverty. These are Russia, Armenia, Moldova and Uzbekistan in the EECCA region, and China's Xinjiang province in Asia. The paper concludes that state influence is still substantial, property rights regimes are quite diverse and rural poverty remains medium to high. State-led agrarian reform, in particular where a redistributive (or restitution-based) land reform was implemented led in some cases to land-based wealth redistribution, but policies and institutions were lacking to support the individual farm sector. More often the outcome was a rapid transfer of land in the hands of corporate farm enterprises, reversing the initial process of ‘re-peasantization’. It seems that the old ‘Soviet dream’ of mega-farm enterprises in the ‘transition to capitalism’ has regained prominence, with huge agro-holdings ‘calling the shots’, providing an insecure future for agricultural workers, peasants and farmers.     

Land grabbing in Latin America and the Caribbean

Land grabbing has gained momentum in Latin America and the Caribbean during the past decade. The phenomenon has taken different forms and character as compared to processes that occur in other regions of the world, especially Africa. It puts into question some of the assumptions in the emerging literature on land grabbing, suggesting these are too food-centered/too food crisis-centered, too land-centred, too centred on new global food regime players – China, South Korea, Gulf States and India – and too centred on Africa. There are four key mechanisms through which land grabbing in Latin American and the Caribbean has been carried out: food security initiatives, energy/fuel security ventures, other climate change mitigation strategies, and recent demands for resources from newer hubs of global capital. The hallmark of land grabbing in the region is its intra-regional character: the key investors are (Trans-)Latin American companies, often in alliance with international capital and the central state. Initial evidence suggests that recent land investments have consolidated the earlier trend away from (re)distributive land policies in most countries in the region, and are likely to result in widespread reconcentration of land and capital.     

行政复议在农村土地征收纠纷解决中的创新

农村土地征收纠纷的解决要以现有法律资源为根本途径。而在现有的法律规定中,最适于解决农村土地征收纠纷的就是行政复议。但现行行政复议法所规定的行政复议却不被农民所看好,因为其存在的缺陷使得它不能很好地维护农民的土地权益。这些缺陷包括：对行政复议的定性错误,规定复议机关可以成为被告,复议机关的自由裁量权过大等。为此,应对现行行政复议法进行修改或在土地管理法中对行政复议作出特别规定,使得复议机关在作出改变土地征收行为的复议决定、农民向法院起诉时,被告仍然是原决定征收的机关而不是复议机关。     

遗失物的善意取得——试析《物权法》第107条的规定

《物权法》第107条是关于遗失物的善意取得的规定。仔细研读这一条款,就会发现它有几个问题需要分析:遗失物是否适用善意取得?第107条规定的原权利人的返还请求权的性质,以及如何理解原权利人的有偿回复义务?第107条属于善意取得制度的特别规定,原权利人的返还请求权兼具有形成权和请求权效力。在有偿回复的情形,原权利人现实提出对价支付是原权利人返还请求权发生效力的条件。     

论农地产权制度改革与生态环境保护

我国现行农地产权制度存在着主体缺位、产权残缺、土地经营权不够稳定并且经营零散和公有资源得不到保护等缺陷,这些缺陷导致农户对农地掠夺性经营,也不利于对农业生态环境的统一安排和管理,要解决这些问题,必须改革农地集体所有制,通过股份制以村民小组为范围建立真正意义"集体经济组织"。     

维护农村妇女土地权益的法律思考

维护农村妇女土地权益问题是影响农村社会稳定与发展的重要问题,引起了党和政府及社会各界的高度关注,国家相继出台了一系列的法律和政策为农村妇女土地权益提供法律保障。然而,这些维护妇女土地权益的法律和政策在实践中很难落实,致使农村妇女土地权益严重受损。本文通过对法律文本和农村风俗习惯的分析,认为妇女土地权利遭受损害的原因主要在于国家立法上的缺陷、民间规约与国家法律的矛盾和冲突、缺乏有力的行政和司法救济手段三个方面。