Avoiding conflict through early and effective management of land disputes

by John W. Bruce

The last decade or so has seen growing recognition of the major role played by competition for land in generating conflict. However, the often extremely complex and embedded nature of such conflicts—and associated political sensitivities—is such that both international and national actors have in many cases shied away from fully engaging with them. In other cases, forms of intervention have not always sufficiently taken into consideration their major—and potentially recurring—causes. The challenge is to better understand the role played by land, combined with related factors, in the generation of conflict—both in terms of the conditions that create a vulnerability to conflicts and events that tend to trigger violent conflict—as a basis for preventing or de-escalating violence.

I had worked on land issues from a development standpoint in Mozambique, Sudan and Cambodia, but a 2009 study in Rwanda for the Overseas Development Institute and follow-up work with UN-Habitat made me aware that the humanitarian community working in peacebuilding contexts had developed new ways of looking at land conflict and useful short-term approaches for addressing it. The land tenure in development community had little knowledge of these and often saw land policy and administration exclusively through an economic development lens. At the same time, those in the humanitarian community working with post-conflict land issues lacked familiarity with the role of land tenure in development processes and sometimes did not appreciate what was needed to lay the basis for sustainable, sound land governance.  These bodies of understanding and differing perspectives about land issues had not been integrated-an integration that is essential to the development of effective strategies for prevention and mitigation of land-related conflict.

With these challenges in mind I agreed to work with the Initiative on Quiet Diplomacy (IQd) to develop a handbook on Land and Conflict Prevention The handbook is one of a series providing third party actors with practical guidance in addressing issues that are frequently the sources of tension before violent conflict (re)erupts. IQd’s approach to me coincided with a train of thought that began when I worked with UN-Habitat on post-conflict land issues. I was struck by the fact that the valuable thinking that had been going on in the post-conflict context needed to be walked back through time, as it were, into the pre-conflict period, asking “What do we know about land and conflict that can be mobilized for prevention?” The result is a blend of ideas and practical guidance for preventing land-based conflict drawn from both the post-conflict and developmental contexts.

Upcoming guest posts: (1) post-disaster rights to housing, and (2) land in conflict prevention

It is a great pleasure for me to both introduce two very interesting new reports and announce that their authors will shortly be providing a more personal introduction through guest-postings on TN.

First, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Ms. Raquel Rolnik, has prepared her latest report, which will be presented at the 66th session of the General Assembly in October. Where Ms. Rolnik’s previous report (introduced briefly in TN here) focused on the right to housing in the wake of both conflict and disaster, the current report focuses more narrowly on disasters (a theme the SR also took up in the context of a recent trip to Haiti). Ms. Rolnik’s report cannot be officially distributed until after its presentation to the GA in October, but is currently available on her website. While the report makes for interesting reading as such, I’m particularly pleased to announce that the SR and her team will soon provide further insights in a guest post on TN.

Second, Quiet Diplomacy has just launched a new Handbook on Land and Conflict Prevention. While this might sound like a contradiction in terms to some, the Handbook offers “step-by-step guidance for conflict prevention actors … in finding the space for legal, institutional and policy reform in the land sector, and promoting just and workable solutions.” It sounds like a tall order but one that is all the more important in era when the corrective approach adopted in texts like the Pinheiro Principles is increasingly required to accommodate new distributive demands. And once again, I’m very pleased to announce that the authors, John Bruce and Sally Holt, will shortly be sharing some of their insights on TN.

Note from the field: Colombia’s new Victims’ Law in context

by Megan Ballard

Megan J. Ballard is an associate professor of law at Gonzaga University. She has previously guest-posted on TN regarding debates surrounding the right to restitution. Her current posting comes in response to Sebastián Albuja’s recent update on the Colombian Victims’ Law. The text of the Law (in Spanish) is now available under ‘key documents’ on IDMC’s Colombia page.

Thanks for this update on Colombia. I just returned from a quick research trip there and had a number of interesting discussions with lawyers and others involved in Colombia’s property restitution efforts. I heard many people echo repeatedly three of your points: 1) passage of the “Victim’s Law” is an incredible accomplishment; 2) assuming good-faith efforts to implement it’s provisions, there are a number of challenges ahead; and 3) suspicion that government actors might have ulterior motives in adopting this legislation.

This is an amazing step, for the reasons you mention. In addition, the change in the definition of “victims” from an earlier draft to the final bill is an impressive one that will allow this legislation to apply to a significantly larger number of people. As of mid-April, the draft defined a victim as a person whose fundamental rights have been impaired since 1991 or later. The final law, defining victims as people who have been harmed since 1985, is a huge accomplishment.

You are correct to note the challenges, even if there is a good faith effort to implement this legislation. While you point to special mechanisms to help meet these challenges, some may not be new mechanisms, but repurposed ones. For example, the new “special agency” is likely to be the “Project on Protection of Land and Patrimony of Internally Displaced Persons (Proyecto)”, formerly under the auspices of Acción Social, but recently moved to the Agricultural Ministry.

Similarly, the legislation creates a new registry of forcibly abandoned property, but this will use the former registry (Registro Único de Predios y Territorios Abandonados – RUPTA) as its basis. Maybe repurposing existing mechanisms will be an efficient way of getting the restitution ball rolling. But given what I understand to be widespread lack of confidence on behalf of victims in either the initial Proyecto group or the RUPTA process, I don’t know how renaming these mechanisms will generate credibility.

They know the solution – Land purchase programs for rural women in India

by Deborah Espinosa
This guest post was originally posted on Landesa’s Field Focus blog, which provides expert insight on the issues surrounding land rights and international development. Deborah Espinosa is a senior attorney and land tenure specialist.

She was one of at least 40 landless women who demanded to meet with us that day.  They had heard that we would be visiting their village to talk with women in self-help groups (SHG) who had participated in the Indira Kranthi Patham (IKP) Land Purchase Program, one of several programs that the Indian State of Andhra Pradesh was implementing.  She was determined that we hear her message. That day was one of the more difficult days of my career as a lawyer advocating for land rights for the world’s poorest.

The AP Land Purchase Program, which Landesa and RDI-India helped the State design, assisted landless women in organizing to negotiate with large landowners and purchase and subdivide agricultural land for themselves and their families.  From 2004 to 2009, 5,303 women paid US $604,418 (just over $100 each) to purchase 4,539 acres of farmland.  The women paid a total of 25% of the purchase price, 15% of which they borrowed.  The government subsidized the remaining amount.  For weeks, our team  had been traveling throughout the state, talking with formerly landless women whose lives had been transformed through the program.  Most of the women had owned the land for about four years, with titles to their land in their name alone.  State law permits only one name on the patta, or title, and the State required that the patta had to be in the name of the wife (if married) or a female head of household.

The women whom we interviewed reported significant benefits associated with shedding the “landless” cloak and becoming a full-fledged landowner.  They reported increased income and the ability to start saving, improvement in their family’s health due to having more food to consume and higher quality food, and the ability to access credit from banks and village moneylenders.  They also perceived an improvement in their family’s status within the community as evidenced by having better marriage opportunities for their children.  Although the women reported that there still was room for improvement on all fronts, for them, becoming a landowner had profound effects on their family’s welfare.

Week in links – week 12/2011

The current march of historic events continues apace with the aftermath of the Sendai quake still causing headlines and a new chapter in the annals of R2P being written in the skies over Libya. Quite a few bits of less dramatic but very interesting HLP-related news as well, many detailed below.

Some interesting things coming up on TN as well – in addition to a number of individual guest-postings currently in the works, I am very excited to announce that Landesa has offered to periodically cross-post pieces from their excellent Field Focus blog. Look out for a debut piece early this week.

Turning to the news, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) just released their global overview for 2010. The conclusions are sobering, with a new rise in overall conflict-related internal displacement and the consolidation of a number of negative trends such as protracted displacement situations and displacement due to generalized violence (e.g. criminal activities as opposed to ordinary armed conflict).

The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, recently submitted his annual report, this year with a plug for ‘agroecology’ – a cultivation technique identified by Mr. De Schutter after an “extensive review of the scientific literature” as most likely to help states “achieve a reorientation of their agricultural systems towards modes of production that are highly productive, highly sustainable and that contribute to the progressive realization of the human right to adequate food.” Kudos to Mr. De Schutter for sparing the rest of us the scientific literature and moving the debate over global agriculture in an interesting new direction.

In the wake of the triple catastrophe in Japan, the New York Times reports on how much of the affected coast was inhabited by elderly persons unlikely to rebuild. In the clinical terminology of climate change, the obvious question is whether the abandonment of many of these obliterated towns and villages will ultimately come to be seen as a form of adaptation to be replicated in other parts of the world. As the Times notes, it is hardly the first time the question has come up:

“We faced exactly the same question after Katrina,” said John Campbell, [a] visiting scholar at the University of Tokyo. “There was a big discussion about whether we should rebuild the Ninth Ward, since it was below sea level, and so on. In terms of economic rationality, it didn’t make any sense, really. But on the other hand, it’s where these people lived, and there were emotional reasons to do it.

Meanwhile the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) released its mid-term review, halfway through the ten year period envisioned for implementation of the Hyogo Declaration and Framework for Action. In an almost morbid quirk of timing, the document was released two days before the catastrophe in Japan, rendering its calls for greater attention to disaster risk eerily antiquated: “…the Hyogo Framework for Action is the world’s only blueprint for staving off losses caused by natural hazards, often overshadowed by news on losses from war, unemployment or inflation.” With all due respect to Col. Ghadafi’s current bout of attention-seeking, this shouldn’t be an issue now.

After quite a lot of coverage earlier this year, the renewed efforts to achieve land restitution in Colombia fell off TN’s radar somewhat. However, things seem to be moving forward – here, NPR reports on how some land has already been returned to displaced owners (it is unclear on what basis this has occurred) as well as on how restitution remains tied to broader agricultural reform goals.

Finally, having cited EurasiaNet earlier on the lengths gone to by Azerbaijan’s IDPs to avoid locally integrating in order to maintain their prospects for return, I have now found a companion piece on Transitions OnLine on how far Armenians in contested territories will go in order to maintain their competing claims:

The people here acknowledge that life in villages is difficult and boring, especially when there is no electricity. But they persevere. “This land needs to be tended,” Khachatryan says. “My children have to plant trees, harvest crops, and have children here to understand this is the homeland and it needs to be kept,” Khachatryan says, lighting the oil lamp with care.

The week in links – week 09/2011

I thought I would begin this one with a plug for a Roger Cohen column. It ostensibly focuses on the unfolding of ‘Obama-ism’ as a nascent foreign policy doctrine, but beautifully makes the point that just as 2001 was seen as interring the spirit of 1989, 2011 may signal an equally new and more hopeful turning point in human affairs. The uplifted tone invites a certain amount of skepticism, but one can also choose to simply indulge in a moment of abandoned optimism.

Events in North Africa have obscured what would otherwise be headline (well at least visible) news from other parts of Africa. Perhaps most notably, Cote d’Ivoire continues its slide toward civil war. Turtle Bay recently reported that South Africa’s contributions to the mediation efforts have been viewed with some skepticism, as it is not clear whether an effort is afoot to impose the type of power-sharing agreement that has worked so brilliantly in Zimbabwe.

In Zimbabwe itself, political repression by Mugabe’s paramilitaries and displacement continue apace. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has unsurprisingly upheld the country’s draconian land reforms, as reported in ASIL’s most recent ‘International Law in Brief’. Finally, returning to South Africa, the BBC reports this week on a bid by Georgia to poach  white farmers disgruntled by the far less arbitrary but ambitious and problematic land restitution program there.

A year on, BBC also provides a useful followup report on the earthquake in Chile. Although Chile’s relatively advanced state of preparedness spared it from loss of life on anything like the scale seen a month earlier in Haiti, the economic consequences were devastating. BBC points out that the cost of the damage was one-third of all costs caused by disasters worldwide in 2010 and amounted to one-fifth of Chile’s GNP. As in Haiti, the greatest challenge a year on is presented by the need to move survivors from ad hoc shelter arrangements to more sustainable housing.

Another dimension of the Arab unrest: Its the land, stupid

by Rhodri C. Williams

Having spent the last few weeks apologizing copiously for exceeding the remit of this blog every time I have written on the current Middle East turmoil (as here and here), I am now beginning to sense that I might not have been so far off base after all. It turns out that land issues – and particularly anger at decades of tenure insecurity, crooked deals and discriminatory allocations – have been one of the seeds of the current unrest.

The case of Egypt is particularly illustrative at a number of levels. First – and most practically important in a country that remains almost 60% rural – former President Mubarak presided over a quiet reversal of earlier land reforms in the 1990s with profound negative implications for rural smallholders. According to a very revealing posting in the Landesa blog, Mubarak’s predecessors had accorded former tenant farmers significant tenure security, but in a form that never extinguished the ownership rights of powerful rural landlords. The failure to complete the land reform process by according ownership rights to smallholders would ultimately be its undoing:

In 1992, with little fanfare, and the acquiescence of President Mubarak, the Egyptian legislature adopted a five-year phase out of the registered tenancy provisions of the 1952 land-reform law, beginning with an immediate tripling of rent levels. By 1997, tenants would once again be as they had been under the old monarchy: evicatable at the landlord’s pleasure, and subject to any rent the landlord wished to charge; or replaced by hired day labor.

There is no happy ending to this story. During the five years 1992-97 that is precisely what happened. Roughly one million tenant households (about six million people, or close to one in ten Egyptians) went from being secure, moderately prosperous farmers who enjoyed owner-like status and paid a low fixed rent, to being traditional insecure sharecroppers, or someone’s source of day labor.

At the same time as rural smallholders were losing their shirts, a new generation of politically connected business interests had begun to benefit from sales of peri-urban land for as little as $1 per square meter, often without competitive tenders. One of the interesting aspects of this story is the extent to which the graft underlying the ensuing real estate boom was not prominently covered in the international media despite the intense domestic resentment it generated. A comparison of two articles in the Financial Times, one from September 15, 2010 (‘Egypt’s building progress’), and the other from February 13, 2011 (‘Focus on Egypt land deal fortunes’) is instructive:

Week in links – Week 3/2011

- Preliminary results of the referendum in southern Sudan indicate an overwhelming majority in favor of secession after a surprisingly orderly process. The potential for serious violence in Abyei appears to be the main cloud on the horizon, with Foreign Affairs highlighting a worrisome link with the ongoing conflict in Darfur. A further aspect of the Abyei dispute that has gotten less attention in the mainstream press (but is well reflected in humanitarian reports such as OCHA’s latest bulletin) is the fact that its location not only invites conflict over oil and grazing land, but also constitutes a significant choke point for North to South return movements:

Organized returns have been suspended since 9 January, as a result of a series of security incidents involving returnees from northern to southern Sudan. Small convoys of spontaneous returnees have continued, with some reports of continued harassment and obstruction along the journey in Southern Kordofan and Abyei. Another convoy was reportedly shot at on 17 January in Abyei. Security incidents come despite a 13 January agreement reached between traditional leaders of the Misseriya and Ngok Dinka to cease hostilities and allow safe passage of returnees.

- The institute formerly known as RDI has departed the terse world of beltway bandit-style acronyms and re-fashioned itself as Landesa, in an unusually lyrical reference to the fact that LANd so often determines DEStinies. Its transformation has been accompanied by the founding of a promising blog on land and development issues.

- The initial posts in the Landesa blog include a considered response to a recent New York Times article on the effects of the global land rush in Africa, which itself draws on last September’s World Bank report on the topic.

- Landesa also blogs on the destabilizing effects of feudal land relations in Pakistan. Pakistan’s failure to reform its highly inequitable land relations were a rallying point for the Taliban in their bid to take over the Swat Valley, with the ironic result that the success of the Army’s campaign to retake the area was determined by whether large landholders could be convinced to return and recreate the inequitable conditions that fueled the insurgency.

- And finally, on a non-HLP vein, a wonderfully concise summary by Tihomir Loza in Transitions OnLine of the so-near-and-yet-so-far state of Bosnian ethnic politics.

IDMC report: Colombia restitution bill represents significant progress but concerns remain

by Sebastián Albuja

IDMC has just published a report on land restitution for IDPs in Colombia, entitled ‘Building momentum for land restoration: Towards property restitution for IDPs in Colombia.’ The report examines progress towards property restitution for IDPs in Colombia, placing a restitution bill recently introduced by the Government in the context of previous initiatives, analyzing its contents and potential obstacles, and offering recommendations to guarantee victims’ rights in the process. We are glad to introduce the report here and we invite TN readers to download it at our website.

Protracted internal armed conflict and massive human rights abuses by illegal armed groups in Colombia have resulted in extensive loss of land by internally displaced people (IDPs) over the last decades. The number of IDPs is estimated to be between 3.3 and 4.9 million, most of them peasants, indigenous people and Afro-Colombians. Roughly half of all internally displaced families owned or occupied land before their displacement, and virtually all of them have lost it as a result.

Displacement and land loss have also meant loss of livelihoods—around half of Colombia’s IDPs were above the poverty threshold before displacement, compared with only three per cent afterwards.  Giving IDPs back their land is therefore an urgent task as it is a hugely complex one.

There have been several attempts to start a restitution process in the last five years, but none of them have been successful, mostly because the government’s will to return land to IDPs has been shown lacking. The Constitutional Court has taken steps to encourage restitution.  In January 2009, it ordered the government to take comprehensive steps to redress the land rights of IDPs and to put in place mechanisms to prevent future violations.

The newly-installed Santos administration pledged during the election campaign to restitute land to Colombia’s IDPs and has now taken steps to fulfill its promise by bringing a bill for land restitution to Congress in September 2010. The bill offers a realistic opportunity to provide restitution, based on government support that previous attempts lacked.

More on the new Colombia restitution bill

I’m happy to announce that Sebastián Albuja of IDMC will be guest-posting in the next ten days or so in connection with the release of a new report on restitution issues in Colombia. Sebastián previously posted some very interesting initial observations on the Santos restitution bill, and has been kind enough to send a preview of what the IDMC report will cover:

The report addresses the issue of restitution for IDPs in Colombia in connection to the bill recently brought by the Government to Congress for a land restitution law.  The report provides an analysis and description of the problems that the reparations program must overcome and its challenges, and a description of processes for reparations that have taken place up to now as the context in which this brand new bill will be debated. It also evaluates the latest bill, including its positive aspects in terms of its legal adequacy vis-a-vis international law on restitution, issues that the bill raises and questions it leaves unanswered.

In the meantime, an interesting piece has been published by Olof Blomqvist on OpenDemocracy. The author is realistic in portraying both the political obstacles to passage of the bill and the practical obstacles to its implementation, but ends on a strikingly upbeat note:

Almost two months into his presidency, Santos has already made several high-profile attempts to distinguish himself from his predecessor. While the land reform effort has not received much international media attention, it could end up being the most important. Successful implementation could reap rewards not just in terms of security and economic development, but also go some way towards providing reconciliation for the millions of Colombians affected by paramilitary and guerrilla violence.

So for a splash of cold water, its worth reading the latest OCHA Colombia humanitarian bulletin, which documents ongoing displacement and land-grabbing in Córdoba and Chocó Departments.