Hybrid land markets: monetarised customary land transactions in Zambia

This paper examines the growing trend of monetarised transactions of customary land in Zambia, and the impact of these dealings on customary land practices and norms. While transactions of customary land involving money are not a new phenomenon in many parts of Africa, including Zambia, the growing demand for land, especially in areas where land shortages are emerging, has led to a steady growth in these transactions, with the practice becoming more widespread. In the Zambian context, this is directly linked to the policy that allows customary land to be converted into leasehold tenure. Local elites, urban dwellers, and foreign investors are taking this opportunity to acquire customary land which they then convert to leasehold tenure. However, while these dealings have some features of a conventional market, they are, at the same time, bound up in local customary land norms. Although such transactions have been reported widely in the literature, there has been little analysis of their nature and the impact this is having on traditional land practices and norms. Drawing mainly from qualitative data, this paper examines the nature of these transactions and the effects they are having on customary land relations, practices and norms.     

Large-scale land acquisitions,state authority and indigenous local communities: insights from Ethiopia

The convergence of diverse global factors – food price volatility, the increased demand for biofuels and feeds, climate change and the financialisation of commodity markets – has resulted in renewed interest in land resources, leading to a rapid expansion in the scope and scale of (trans)national acquisition of arable land across many developing countries. Much of this land is on peripheral indigenous peoples’ territories and considered a common property resource. Those most threatened are poor rural people with customary tenure systems – including indigenous ethnic minority groups, pastoralists and peasants – who need land most. In Ethiopia large areas have been leased to foreign and domestic capital for large-scale production of food and agrofuels, mainly in lowland regions where the state has historically had limited control. Much of the land offered is classified by the state and other elites as ‘unused’ or ‘underutilised’, overlooking the spatially extensive use of land in shifting cultivation and pastoralism. This threatens the land rights and livelihoods of ethnic minority indigenous communities in these lowlands. This article argues that recent large-scale land acquisitions are part of state strategy for enforcing political authority over territory and people. It examines the implications of such strategy for indigenous ethnic minority groups, focusing particularly on the Benishangul-Gumuz region.     

The right to food in the context of large-scale land investment in Ethiopia

Abstract

Since the global food crises of 2007, smallholder farmers, pastoralists, indigenous peoples and other rural groups in many developing countries have seen their access to land, water and forest resources being threatened and reduced due to the acquisition of those resources by other actors – acquisitions that may have been promoted by state policies. Taking up the case of Ethiopia, this article aims to explore the implications of large-scale agricultural investments for local food security and the right to food. The article argues that in the context of the recent and ongoing large-scale agricultural investments driven primarily by the state, the interpretation and realisation of the right to food becomes a politically contested issue and that such investments run counter to implementing the state’s obligation to protect local people’s access to and procurement of adequate food. It argues that the large-scale agricultural investments both condition and pervert the realisation of food security.     

Why wait for the state? Using the CFS Tenure Guidelines to recalibrate political-legal struggles for democratic land control

Abstract

In 2012, with the adoption of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (or TGs), the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) established a new international standard on natural resource governance. After adoption, the challenge is for these guidelines to be implemented and used. However, no law is self-interpreting or self-implementing, and so how states will interpret and implement these new guidelines cannot be taken for granted. This is especially true in the current global context of land grabbing driven, in many cases, by alliances of state and capital. Consequently, subaltern people, for whom rights in relation to the natural resources on which they depend remain out of reach, face the challenge and potential opportunity of making use of the TGs to recalibrate the political-legal terrain in favour of human rights and democratic control of land and other natural resources.     

The dark underbelly of land struggles: the instrumentalization of female activism and emotional resistance in Cambodia

Facing land grabs and eviction in the name of development, women worldwide increasingly join land rights struggles despite often deeply engrained images of female domesticity and conventional gender norms. Yet, the literature on female agency in the context of land struggles has remained largely underexplored. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, my findings suggest that land rights activism in Cambodia has undergone a gendered re-framing process. Reasoning that women use non-violent means of contestation and are less prone to violence from security personnel, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) push women affected by land grabs and eviction to the frontline of protests. Moreover, female activists are encouraged to publicly display emotions, such as the experienced pain behavior that sharply contrasts with Cambodian norms of feminine modesty. I critically question this women-to-the-front strategy and, drawing on Sara Ahmed’s politics of emotions approach, show the adverse risks for female activists. Furthermore, I demonstrate that the instrumentalization of female bodies and emotions in land rights protests perpetuate gender disparities instead of strengthening female agency in the Cambodian society and opening up political space for women.     

中国国际航空运输管理的几个法律问题

1993年中国民用航空总局颁布的<定期国际航空运输管理规定>已实施12年了.12年来,中国的航空运输已经逐步卷入航空自由化潮流之中.面对航空运输自由化,中国应当抓住机遇,迎接挑战,顺应潮流,根据中国经济建设和民航业发展的需要,认真修订<定期国际航空运输管理规定>,积极、渐进、有序、有保障地推进航空运输自由化进程.     

谁为百姓埋单? ——公私法交叉视野下征收征用的几个问题简析

在国家法治化的进程中,尤其是在我国民法典物权法制定的过程中,征收征用作为一种非依民事法律行为而导致的不动产物权变更制度,在人们普遍关注的保护私人财产权的问题中成为焦点之一.土地征收作为一项依靠行政权力强制取得相对人的房地产财产的制度,在各国的法律制度中都有体现,在我国房地产征收的对象有房、地及房地三种形式,对集体土地的征收表现为土地征收,而在城市国有土地上的征收多表现为房屋拆迁(房屋拆迁属于土地征收性质).本文以房屋拆迁这种征收的形式为例展开论述,对征收征用的几个问题作比较分析.     

土地征收若干问题研究

土地具有特殊性,土地的征收制度对于农民和国家来讲极为重要.新颁布的<物权法>第42条有关土地征收的规定备受农民的关注,同时也引来法学界对此问题的讨论.该条规定延续并体现了2004年宪法修正案关于征收制度规定的精神,但是涉及人民群众切身利益的热点问题--公共利益的界定、征收程序、受偿主体仍没有得到进一步明确.应采用列举加排除的方法对公共利益概念、内容进行确定化,完善土地征收程序,把农民个人作为征收受偿的主体,这样才能切实保障广大农民的利益.     

关于宅基地使用权的立法建议

物权法草案应规定城镇居民的宅基地使用权,对农户占有的宅基地数量不应限制,为保护农民的利益及维护物权法私权的性质,应允许宅基地的流转.     

地方高校学报建设的现状与发展趋势

期刊市场竟争日趋激烈,优胜劣汰形势严峻,人们越来越感受到了高校学报潜在的危机。而地方高校学报整体上的虚弱态势却日益凸显。如果说地方高校学报的出现有它历史背景的话,那么现在学报面临的困难也自有历史的原因,安于现状和一味埋怨都无济于事,我们需要的是对地方高校学报建设现状的反思,找出症结,开拓新的途径。