Land grabs jeopardize peace in Sri Lanka

by Christina Williams

Christina Williams is an attorney and founder of Reinventing the Rules, a website dedicated to covering the latest trends and lessons learned in the rule of law sector. She has worked on human rights campaigns related to Sri Lanka for several years and is currently focusing on women and land rights in the region.

The end of the 25-year armed conflict in Sri Lanka in May 2009 signaled what many in the international community hoped would be the beginning of a new era marked by peace and reconciliation. Over the past five years, however, one of the key instigators of the civil war has resurfaced. Land grabs, which were systematically taking place prior to the armed conflict, are once again accelerating at a frightening pace. Shielded by the rhetoric of security and development, the rise of land grabs has left few positive prospects for long-term peace and stability.

Who is behind the land grabs?

The Sri Lankan military, sanctioned by the Government, has played a primary role in confiscating public and private land from the Tamil population, which predominantly inhabits the North and East of the island. Despite the end of the war, militarization of Tamil areas has been the main reason land grabs continue unabated.

In 2008, during the latter stages of the armed conflict, Sri Lanka reportedly had a force of 60 soldiers for every 1,000 civilians or 1 soldier for every 16.6 civilians in the North. In July 2012, the Economic and Political Weekly of India estimated that there is a “ratio of 1 security personnel for every 5.04 civilians in the Northern Province.” The military, which is almost entirely composed of ethnic Sinhalese from the South, includes at least 15 army divisions and personnel from the navy, air force, civil defense force, intelligence, police, and special task force. This conservative estimate roughly translates into 198,000 soldiers or 70% of the security personnel in 14% of the country. View a map of militarization in Sri Lanka here.

The trend towards militarization has only increased with Sri Lanka’s defense budget for 2014 reported to be the highest allocation of funds thus far, at $1.95 billion or 12% of the country’s total spending.  The rate at which militarization grows in Tamil areas five years after the war ended is a concerning trend given the significance land played as one of the root causes of the war. Land will likely continue to play an important role in determining whether peace and a return to normalcy can be achieved.

Tactics used to seize land

The seizure of land marked as high security zones (HSZ) during the conflict and the unwillingness to return much of this property to the thousands who were displaced has contributed to the slow return to normalcy in the former war zones. While some of the HSZ have been disbanded, existing HSZs still occupy significant amounts of valuable agricultural land and no one other than the army is allowed to enter, including elected officials. During the war the legality of the HSZs rested on emergency regulations, which have now been repealed. Five years after the end of conflict, there is no clear legal basis for the remaining HSZ.

Since the armed conflict ended, the military has continued to confiscate public and private land largely under the pretext of security. While many military camps have been created for the army and navy, the government has also resettled thousands of Sinhalese soldiers and civilians from the South in Tamil areas by incentivizing them with free land and permanent housing. This is occurring while 57% out of 138,651 households already residing in the North remain in transitional or emergency shelters while only 32% have permanent homes. Consequently, land grabs are reigniting fears of a concerted effort by the government to change the demographics of Tamil areas in the North and East. 

Happy International Women’s Day!

by Rhodri C. Williams

I didn’t really come across International Women’s Day until I started work in Bosnia and I never quite knew what to make of it. It had a distinctly east of the Oder-Neisse and non-aligned feeling to it, and the idea of cabining all one’s gender analysis into a single day of the year – and manifesting it through mechanical male-to-female flower transfers – didn’t seem entirely satisfying.

That said, there seems to be a healthy tendency for IWD to be taken as an opportunity for serious reflection on the state of gender equality. And that doesn’t just apply to places with notorious issues like Colombia but also to countries like Sweden, where decades of impressive progress only serve to highlight the unsatisfying fact that equality remains elusive. While a persistent salary-gap is the most obvious symptom, complaints roll in around this time of year ranging from the virtual absence of women from corporate boards to some of the highest rates of harassment in the EU.

For those of you interested in an updated global take on equality, the BBC has a good interactive map broken down both by region and broad themes (health, education, economic empowerment, political participation). However, my absolute favorite graphic on equality for this year is this amazing compilation by the Guardian that breaks down by region and categories of legal rights, including property ownership. While it is not entirely comprehensive (some issues like women’s right to retain their last name after marriage are left out) it still presents an extraordinary tool.

As a final point, expect more on the link between post-conflict humanitarian response, women’s property rights and access to justice on TN soon. This in reflection of the fact that securing equal access and tenure rights for women is increasingly recognized as one of the most meaningful areas linking the work of humanitarian actors concerned with the land claims of the displaced – such as the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) – and those of rule of law and development actors concerned with access to justice.

Women tend to suffer both from disproportionate vulnerability in humanitarian settings and disenfranchisement in development settings. Societies suffer as a result, both in humanitarian cases where disproportionately female-headed households are unable to reintegrate into society, and in development cases where the human and economic potential of women is wasted. As discussed by Dr. Donny Meertens of Colombia here on the Reinventing the Rules blog, securing women’s land rights is now seen as a key to turning these dynamics around, facilitating durable solutions to displacement, social justice and more equitable development.

Syria is hemmorrhaging

As the Syria crisis reaches yet another crescendo, the UNHCR comes out with a really quite astonishing tweet:

2 million refugees There is no end in sight. #Syria is hemorrhaging.

— UN Refugee Agency (@Refugees) September 3, 2013

Whether born of calculation or desperate spontaneity, the composition of the thing effectively conveys a seasoned humanitarian agency that is on its knees in the face of unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe. It will be a hard act to follow. Lets hope it never needs to be.

For a glimpse of the pressure cooker life in a camp in Hatay province, Turkey, see Robin Yassin Kassab’s latest in Foreign Policy. The manner in which camp life produces hyper-compressed vignettes of the windy discourses we are all so familiar with now is striking – and worth quoting at length:

Part of the problem is Western fear of the opposition’s greatly exaggerated Islamist-extremist element. The irony is that the longer the tragedy lasts, the greater the empowerment of once minor and irrelevant jihadi forces.

Atmeh village, on a hill behind the camp, has been turned into a barracks for the foreign Islamist fighters of Hizb ut-Tahrir. These men are not, apparently, fighting the regime, but waiting for “the next stage” — in other words, the coming struggle between moderates and Islamist extremists after the fall of the regime. Syrians, including democratic Islamists, refer to them derisively as “the spicy crew” and shrug off the risk they represent. One assured me it would take “two minutes” to expel them once the regime falls.

But sectarian hatreds — stoked by the regime’s propaganda, its Alawite death squads, and assaults on Sunni heritage — are certainly rising. I met a man whose wife and 11 children were killed in an airstrike and who plans to marry again and produce 11 more children, “just so I can teach them to kill Alawites.” There’s a teenager who boasted, “Afterwards, we won’t leave a single Alawite alive.”

This deliberate attack on the social fabric is perhaps the regime’s greatest crime. When tyrants light the fuse of sectarian war, they are unleashing passions that extend beyond politics. They are killing people who have not yet been born.

Yassin-Kassab’s account is included in a recent list of articles on Syria recommended by Syrian activists. See also the Guardian here for a description of the effect of the conflict in neighbouring Syria – as well as dubious sectarian populism by the Turkish government – on the  mixed but traditionally tolerant population of Hatay province.

Meanwhile, for a refreshingly clear explanation of the dynamics behind the latest, mysterious wave of Syrian Kurd refugees that broke over Iraq two weeks ago (and which for UNHCR must have been the final straw), see Hugh Eakin in the NYRB blog.

And finally, a new Oxfam report, written together with the ABAAD-Resource Center for Gender Equality, shows that women refugees are both disproportionately represented in and impacted by displacement, going hungry to feed their families and facing heightened domestic violence.

Empowering communities to document and protect their land claims: A solution to the global land grab?

by Rachael Knight

Rachael Knight is the Program Director of the Community Land Protection Program at Namati, a new global legal empowerment organization, and author of its recent report on community land titling. She previously served as Director of the International Development Law Organization’s (IDLO) Community Land Titling Initiative, working to document and protect the customary land rights of indigenous groups in Uganda, Liberia and Mozambique.

Community meeting in Uganda (photo credit Namati)

For billions of rural people, land is their greatest asset: the source of food and water, the site of their livelihoods, and the locus of history, culture, and community. Yet more than ever, rural land is in demand. In recent years, governments in Africa have been granting vast land concessions to foreign investors for agro-industrial enterprises and forestry and mineral exploitation. According to recent data, transactions covering at least 57,393,083 hectares of land have been granted or are under negotiation.  Often, governments grant concessions with the goal of stimulating development and strengthening the national economy. Yet such concessions are further exacerbating trends of growing land scarcity and weakening the land tenure security of rural communities.

Even when communities welcome private investment, they may not be consulted about the terms of the investment, properly compensated for their losses, or given a say in land management after the investment is launched. Alternatively, such investments may be undertaken in ways that lead to environmental degradation, human rights violations, loss of livelihoods, and inequity. In this context, protections for rural communities and their lands are urgently needed.

In some countries, national laws allow communities to register or title their lands as a whole and then manage their land according to local needs and interests. Such community land documentation processes – which document the perimeter of the community according to customary boundaries – are a low-cost, efficient and equitable way of protecting communities’ customary land claims. Community land documentation efforts not only protect large numbers of families’ lands at once, but also the the forests, water bodies, and grazing areas that rural communities depend on to survive and are often the first to be allocated to investors, claimed by elites, and appropriated for state development projects. Importantly, formal recognition of their customary land claims gives communities critical leverage in negotiations with potential investors.

However, because these laws transfer control over valuable lands and resources away from the state and into the hands of the community members themselves, governments have so far dragged their heels in implementing them. For example, in the 14 years since the passage of Uganda’s Land Act (1998), not one Ugandan community has yet gained title to its customary lands.

Norwegian Refugee Council releases new Housing, Land and Property training course

by Laura Cunial

Laura Cunial is the lead author and trainer for the NRC/IDMC Housing Land and Property Training Course. She has worked on housing, land and property (HLP) rights and peacebuilding in countries such as Liberia, Kenya, Vietnam and Dijbouti and currently works as an Adviser for the Information, Counseling and Legal Assistance (ICLA) Program with the NRC.

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) have, in collaboration with the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC), developed a training course on Housing, Land and Property (HLP) issues.  The material has been developed under the NRC’s Information, Counselling and Legal Assistance (ICLA) programme  with funds provided by the European Commission Humanitarian Aid department (ECHO).

The development of the HLP Training Course is part of NRC’s effort to further improve its work through the mainstreaming of HLP considerations into all programming.  The humanitarian community recognizes that HLP issues are main conflict drivers and that they should be addressed from the earliest stages of humanitarian interventions. As a result, NRC has invested significant resources to increase its knowledge on HLP and improve its response, including the methodologies used for resolving housing, land and property disputes.

NRC has  been at the forefront for many years in providing assistance on HLP issues to displaced persons and other populations affected by conflict. This has been done both through NRC’s interventions related to the shelter and food security sectors, and through highly specialised ICLA programmes. The HLP Training Course aims at improving the quality and effectiveness of humanitarian response through improved capacity on HLP issues. The course material is designed for all humanitarians implementing response and recovery projects and is not just meant for HLP specialists.

The course material has been tested in several NRC Country Programs. The evaluation of the relevance and quality of each training session was used to improve the subsequent trainings and to refine the modules.  In addition, the material was developed in consultation with the HLP sub-working group of the Global Protection Cluster Working Group. As a result, the training material is versatile and can be tailored to different training needs and target audiences.

The NRC HLP Training Manual is currently available in English, French and Spanish and consists of the following modules:

• Module No. 1: An introduction to Housing, Land and Property
• Module No. 2: The Housing, Land and Property International Legal Framework and Principle
• Module No. 3: Housing, Land and Property during internal displacement
• Module No. 4: Women’s Housing, Land and Property rights
• Module No. 5: Housing, Land and Property in urban contexts
• Module No. 6: Addressing Housing, Land and Property disputes
• Module No. 7: Housing, Land and Property and durable solutions

Since early 2011, NRC has delivered more than 15 HLP trainings in the following locations: South Sudan, Afghanistan, the occupied Palestinian territory, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Switzerland, Pakistan, Colombia and Ivory Coast. Trainees included staff from NRC, international and national NGOs, ICRC, UN agencies  such as OCHA, OHCHR, UNDP, UNFPA, UNHCR and UN HABITAT  as well as national authorities.

The material can be requested by downloading a request form from the training manual web page and sending it to the email address hlp@nrc.no. More information on ICLA and the HLP Training Course are available on the NRC ICLA web page.

Consultancy on the HLP rights of internally displaced women in Iraq

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is seeking a consultant to advise its Information, Counselling and Legal Assistance (ICLA) program in Iraq on addressing the needs of internally displaced women in informal settlements. As set out in the ToRs (which are available in the ‘resources’ section of this blog) the basic issue relates to the tenure security of all IDPs, given that most settlements are located on state-owned land.

The threat of evictions in such scenarios – and the relevant human rights and development standards – are fairly familiar but not consistently applied. Just over a year ago, for instance, I developed an analysis on precisely this topic for the US Institute of Peace Rule of Law Network. Reference in the current ToRs to the planned  “relocation of many IDP communities as a solution in order to reclaim public lands in the capital, as part of the ‘Baghdad Initiative’” (along with a similar ongoing effort in Diyala) indicate that respect for such standards is more important than ever. However, previous analyses of this situation have not necessarily incorporated a level of gender analysis that corresponds to the realities of Iraq’s IDP settlements:

Conflict and forced displacement have led to the loss of land, homes and personal documentation for IDPs in informal settlements in Baghdad, which has impacted particularly on women. Iraq faces a severe housing crisis. Property is expensive and access to credit for housing very limited. These factors combine to force many IDPs and, in particular, female-headed households, to continue living in the settlements. Given the lack of basic infrastructure, poor sanitary and shelter conditions, this is a choice of last resort. One in eight IDP households is headed by a single female. In many settlements, the majority of women are illiterate and in some cases, confined to the domestic environment.

Potential applicants should contact Robert Beer at pm@iraq.nrc.no with any questions (sooner rather than later).

Understanding the outcomes of customary justice: implications for land practitioners

by Erica Harper

The international community has traditionally concentrated its legal development activities on the reform of formal justice sector institutions: the courts, legislature, police and correctional services. As it has become clear that these approaches have been relatively unsuccessful in improving access to justice for poor and disadvantaged populations, attention has shifted to the role that customary justice systems might play in the programming of governments, international organizations and NGOs operating in development, post-conflict or post-disaster contexts. A strong argument can be put forward that, in most developing countries, the state cannot provide justice services to its entire population and it might not be the most cost-effective provider of these services. Moreover, part of the reason that customary systems exist is due to shortcomings in formal justice systems.

Sometimes these shortcomings are connected to issues of physical access or dysfunctions such as discrimination or corruption; they can also be because state justice fails to respond to the needs and social imperatives of disputants in the way that the customary system does. Such arguments have influenced the rule of law programming strategies of many organizations. A review of the current policy and programmatic landscape reveals a growing consensus that, despite some obvious challenges, excluding customary justice systems from reform strategies may not be the best approach for enhancing access to justice and protecting the rights of vulnerable groups. There is a growing appeal for strategies that aim to improve the quality of outcomes resolved at the community level by building on the positive aspects of customary systems, particularly their reach and popularity, and attempting to reform negative practices.

But while there is now greater consensus around the issue of engaging with the customary sector, programmatic guidance on how this should occur remains scant. Moreover, partnering with customary justice systems raises new and important concerns. Principally, how can customary systems be supported while at the same time ensuring that this does not equate with a recognition or formalization of rights-abrogating practices? Such concerns have arguably led to technocratic ‘fix it’ programming, such as reforming customary laws to strengthen procedural or substantive protections, or modifying the state-customary interface with a view to regulating or harmonizing the two frameworks. This is problematic because where customary norms do not align with international human rights standards, there are often complex rationales in play, touching upon issues such as culture, socio-economic factors and security. Approaches that concentrate on bringing customary systems into alignment with international norms can thus be, at best ineffective and at worst harmful.

A further concern is the gap between the proliferation of customary justice programs and the evidence and knowledge base on which such programming is grafted. There have been few comprehensive or empirically driven efforts that reflect on or evaluate the impact of past programming efforts. Nor has there been sufficient critical analysis of the objectives of customary justice programming: is the aim to support or supplement state courts, to act as a venue for a decentralization of state legal services, or to form part of a broader spectrum approach to accessing justice? One result is that development practitioners have tended to re-apply programs designed for use at the state level rather than craft activities specifically for use in customary contexts, and replicate activities perceived to have been effective elsewhere without a proper understanding of what conditions facilitated such results.

These questions promted the International Development Law Organization to conduct research into the impact of customary law programming in developing countries. This research culminated in two volumes: “Customary Justice: From Program Design to Impact Evaluation” and an edited volume: “Working with Customary Justice Systems: Post-Conflict and Fragile States”.

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 18/2011

Its been a busy Spring and is likely to go on that way, so I’m hoping to just keep up with current HLP events with a steady – but temporarily less prolific – stream of postings in the immediate future. There continues to be quite a lot going on in the area, ranging from developing understandings of what the ‘global land rush‘ is all about to recently blogged on confirmations that acts of property destruction and confiscation are deemed crimes against humanity in settings such as Croatia and Kyrgyzstan.

I also look forward to introducing a few new reports and publications I’ve contributed to in the course of my work in recent months. These have tended to focus on issues emerging from protracted displacement, in which the blurring of lines that have traditionally divided supposed dichotomies such as relief vs development; migration vs displacement; and integration vs return has become impossible to ignore.

Finally, I’m very happy to say that my cross-posting arrangement with the Landesa blog continues. Landesa recently produced a pair of postings on women’s land rights in China and India that together touch on the numerous challenges facing efforts to foster meaningful gender equality in land and property relations. Last week’s posting features a survey on the effect on women of expropriation of rural land in China and its conversion to urban use. Tomorrow, TN will host a companion piece on the benefits – and the inherent limitations – of land purchase programs for women in India.

Meanwhile, in the HLP news last week:

-Nice to lead with a local story for once; here is The Local on a Swedish High Court decision upholding the grazing rights of Sami reindeer herders in Northern Sweden. Now that the Court has done some heavy lifting for the Government, one wonders if they will find the gumption to finally fulfill their longstanding pledge to ratify ILO Convention No. 169.

– Advocacy on behalf of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has begun a new chapter with the formal announcement that the traditional relationship between the Brookings Institution and the UN mechanism on internal displacement will continue. The name of the firm will change somewhat, with the Brookings-Bern nameplates coming down and new ‘Brookings-LSE’ ones going up in reference to the institutional home of the new UN Special Rapporteur on IDPs, Chaloka Beyani.

– The International Alliance of Inhabitants published a new report on “the practical strategies and experiences of communities who have directly struggled against forced evictions.”

– The BBC reports on Shell’s recent judicial setback in its attempt to assert ownership over oil terminal land in Nigeria claimed by the local community.

– And, finally, Bosnia commentator Matthew Parish has some fairly tart things to say about the ICTJ Gotovina decision (posted on here in TN) in an editorial in Balkan Insight.

Week in links – week 15/2011

Apologies to TN readers for having been a little incommunicado in the last days! Have been too busy to even chase down some interesting guest postings that are in the works, let alone write, but I hope to pick up the pace again in the next weeks. Lots of interesting items out there in the HLP-related world as usual:

First, on womens’ land rights, the Landesa blog includes an interesting piece on the recent ‘revolution’ in Bengal that resulted from the inclusion of an extra line allowing registration of land grants in both spouses’ names. Earlier this month, the fourth Women’s Land Link Africa (WLLA) Land Academy was held in Arusha, Tanzania, with participants from fourteen African countries.

The Financial Times reported on the land issues now awaiting the attention of Ivory Coast’s new President Alassane Ouattara, now that the technicalities of the succession appear to have been resolved. As anticipated in Barbara McCallin’s earlier guest-post and report, both the technical and political obstacles will be sobering:

Some immigrants – many of whom have now lived in Ivory Coast for decades – have been thrown off their farms and may now want to return. This is a delicate issue for Mr Ouattara, and risks further alienating Mr Gbagbo’s supporters – those who already see the president-elect as a foreigner who favours immigrants. “He can’t be seen as someone who wants to take away the land from the indigenous groups,” the analyst added.

As documented in the report on a recent seminar held by Swedish Water House, the Swedish Government has come around to the notion of a human right to water after a surprising amount of circumspection (compared to peers such as the UK, which took the plunge in 2006). While Sweden is undoubtedly a progressive country, it has for various reasons been historically reluctant to consistently express this outlook in a vocabulary of rights. The official justification given for the delay in this case is somewhat lame – if everyone waited for the results of contradictory and bumbling UN processes instead of pushing them along, who knows where we would be right now. But the apparently enthusiastic embrace of this right by a key player in the water business is more than welcome.

The ICJ case pitting Georgia against Russia that I blogged on earlier here has been dismissed without examination on the merits. For a good analysis of the reception of this news in Georgia and Russia, see this recent piece in Opinio Juris. Presumably, the rather innovative interim measures previously ordered by the Court to protect the property of displaced persons have lapsed as well. More jaded readers may be tempted to wonder whether anyone on the ground will notice… (UPDATE – a bit more analysis by Marko Milovanovic at EJILtalk)

Finally, as if you didn’t have enough to peruse, the Forum for International, Criminal and Humanitarian Law has published a 440 page door-stopper of a book on ‘Distributive Justice in Transitions‘. It focuses heavily on land issues, with lots of case-studies on Colombia, and looks to be a fascinating read.