September 2020

Legal tools newsletter

The Legal tools newsletter is sent out every four months to keep you updated on Legal Tools for Citizen Empowerment, a collaborative initiative to strengthen local rights and amplify local voices in natural resource investments.

In this issue we focus on grassroots perspectives on investor-state disputes, and a new project to strengthen the governance of land-based investments.

The site of Eco Oro’s discontinued mining project in the páramo of Santurbán, Colombia.

Investment disputes from below: whose rights matter?

Dear colleagues,

Debates about reforming investment treaties and investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) typically focus on the relationship between investors and states. But investment disputes can involve many actors, including local communities affected by the investment.

A new multimedia project tells the complex and compelling story of Santurbán, Colombia, and the diverse actors with interests in the fragile páramo ecosystem.

Through a collection of blogs, videos and a feature long read, the project explores how ISDS does not reflect complex local realities, and how a locally grounded perspective can help us rethink the way we understand, and address, investment disputes.

– Lorenzo Cotula
Principal Researcher, Legal Tools team

Blogs and webinars

Two women discussing dutring a training in Moshi, Tanzania.

Sustaining coffee producers’ agency in the context of COVID-19

Initiatives to support coffee producers are being disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. IIED hosted a webinar to look at how social enterprise Vava Coffee has worked to change Kenya’s coffee industry, how COVID-19 is affecting these efforts and possible ways forward.

Mining premises on the Lom river in Bétaré Oya (East Region of Cameroon).

It’s not just land: water rights under threat

The acquisition of land for commercial projects can have far-reaching implications for access and use rights to other resources such as water. Developments in Cameroon illustrate this close connection between land and water, and the need for action to secure rural citizens’ water rights.

Stopping land and policy grabs in the shadow of COVID-19

Reports suggest the COVID-19 fallout is providing opportunities for elites to seize lands and rewrite regulations. We need effective responses to secure land rights and lay the foundations for a just recovery.

A young woman is making a phone call in front of a lemon stand.

Using technology to overcome challenges for farmers in value chains

Farmers often have little control over trading arrangements and struggle to access finance, inputs and markets. A webinar discussed how the Eastern African Farmers Federation (EAFF) and its partners have been helping smallholders use technology to overcome these challenges.

Informal food sellers carrying produce baskets on top of their heads in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.

COVID-19 and the sites of rights resilience

As we reflect on the place of human rights in the COVID-19 crisis, we should shine a light not only on ‘the state’ but on the local actors and processes that have contributed to the resilience of human rights constructs in the face of obstruction and repression.

Farmers plant crops in a paddy field in Nepal.

Curbing the impacts of COVID-19 on Nepal’s small-scale farmers

Guest blogger Jagat Deuja puts forward practical measures for minimising damage to Nepal’s small-scale farming sector and ways to build resilient food systems in the longer term.

Project updates

Advancing Land-based Investment Governance (ALIGN)

IIED, Namati and the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) have started implementing “Advancing Land-based Investment Governance” (ALIGN), a new project to support governments, civil society, local communities and private sector actors in improving the governance and practices of land-based investments.

Funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), ALIGN will involve (i) sustained, in-depth work in three sub-Saharan African countries, including Sierra Leone; (ii) an international facility for responsive support to governments, civil society, local communities and other relevant actors, initially covering sub-Saharan Africa; and (iii) designing, documenting and disseminating innovative responses to key challenges relating to land-based investments globally.

In the first few months, priority will be given to monitoring, responding to and anticipating developments occurring in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. ALIGN will involve close collaboration with partner organisations to be identified during project implementation.

Gender and land: Promoting gender-equitable governance in sub-Saharan Africa

In Senegal, IED Afrique are starting work in a new project site: Mbadakhoune, in Kaolack region. The team conducted a scoping mission to understand the local context, meet local authorities, women’s groups and traditional leaders, and discuss next steps.

In Tanzania, the Tanzania Women Lawyers Association (TAWLA) is studying the outcomes of earlier work to support gender-sensitive bylaws in 10 villages, Kisarawe District. The bylaws aim to facilitate women’s participation in local land governance. TAWLA are also planning work to address gender issues in land regularisation processes, covering two villages in the District.

Empowering Producers in Commercial Agriculture (EPIC)

In Malawi, the Women’s Legal Resources Centre (WOLREC) has been working with the Nsuwadzi tea association to improve the partnership with the off-taking estate. WOLREC and Imani Consulting are also working with smallholder tea outgrowers to assess the commercial viability of different agriculture and marketing strategies.

In Nepal, the Community Self-Reliance Centre (CSRC) and the Nepal Agricultural Cooperative Central Federation (NACCFL) have been working with producers in three sites to assess different types of contractual arrangements for access to markets.

Kumvana Mlumbe from WOLREC was nominated to IIED’s outstanding women in development list for her legal empowerment work with women.

LandCam: Securing land rights in Cameroon

The Centre for Environment and Development (CED) convened a meeting of women living in the vicinity of eight agro-industrial plantations to discuss the impacts of agro-industrial plantations on women's land rights. The event culminated in the publication of a policy position statement calling for the respect of women’s right to land and natural resources.

The Network for the Fight Against Hunger (RELUFA) held their very first webinar. The event was tailored for journalists and aimed to build their capacities and raise their interest in reporting on the neglected issue of land royalties in Cameroon.

Publications and briefings

Securing land rights in Cameroon: what hasn’t worked and what should be done

In Cameroon, the land rights of rural communities and indigenous people have been eroded over time. The country’s land legislation dates back to the 1970s and does not reflect local realities. This briefing assesses past initiatives to addresses these challenges and provides recommendations for the current land law reform process. (Also available in French)

(Dis)integration in Global Resource Governance: Extractivism, Human Rights, and Investment Treaties

This article explores the legal arrangements that integrate resource-dependent countries into the global economy. It argues that, while current debates about economic “dis-integration” focus on disruptions in cross-border trade and investment, for people affected by resource extraction it is the prevailing legal regime that dis-embeds and dis-integrates. Addressing these issues requires action to more fully recognise local systems of practice and belief, and more effectively consider human rights in investment processes.

The future of land: commercial pressures and the case for systemic law reform to secure rural land rights

This think piece – part of a collection of essays prepared for the African Development Bank – reflects on changing commercial pressures on land in low and middle-income countries; the role of law in shaping the ways those pressures manifest themselves; the limits of business standards in driving systemic change; and the case for comprehensive law reform to secure rural land rights.