In this issue we focus on the changing nature of pressures on land

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The changing nature of pressures on land

Dear colleagues,

Publicly available information suggests that fewer transnational land deals have been concluded in recent years, but a recent IIED report finds that, on the ground, pressures continue to be felt – partly as a result of multiple and not always well-coordinated investments in infrastructure and natural resources sectors. Public-private partnerships underpin some of these trends, as a recent blog note explores.

Ways to secure rural land rights as pressures intensify featured prominently in a recent parliamentary event in Cameroon, where lively debates are taking place about safeguards against land expropriations and ways to secure indigenous peoples’ land rights. There is growing experience with practical ‘legal empowerment’ approaches to support rural people at the grassroots, including securing community land rights, facilitating access to redress and addressing gender differentiation.

As international investment treaties provide the basis for a growing number of investor-state arbitrations linked to natural resource disputes, civil society has developed ways to bring community perspectives to arbitral proceedings, and new IIED research sheds light on approaches to entrench in the treaties standards of responsible business conduct.

— Legal Tools team

Blogs and webinars

Creating a global 'land rights family': from knowledge to action

Brendan Schwartz presents two new initiatives around community land rights: the first enables civil society organisations to share knowledge; the second supports communities to seek legal redress.

Civil society submissions in investor-state arbitration: Do they work?

IIED and the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) hosted a webinar on February 6, 2018, to discuss how civil society groups can bring forward community perspectives, human rights and environmental issues in investor-state arbitration. A blog by Legal Tools associate Thierry Berger and CCSI's Jesse Coleman summarises highlights from the discussion.

Public-private partnerships and aid's 'private turn': addressing the investment law dimensions

Public-private partnerships are increasingly resorted to in efforts to achieve the SDGs. Lorenzo Cotula and Celine Tan argue that their legal and financial implications must be carefully considered.

Legal empowerment: what we do, what we've learned

A few reflections from IIED’s Lorenzo Cotula on approaches to strengthen the rights of rural people in the face of natural resource investments.

Events

Land and Poverty Conference 2018

The Legal Tools team is attending the World Bank Land and Poverty Conference 2018 this week in Washington D.C., which will focus on “Land Governance in an Interconnected World”.
On Tuesday 20 March, Lorenzo Cotula will make some remarks at the launch of the UNCTAD-World Bank notes on responsible investment in agriculture.
On Wednesday 21 March, Brendan Schwartz will present an analysis of Cameroon’s compulsory land acquisition regime. On Wednesday also, Lorenzo Cotula will chair a panel on agricultural growth corridors, before discussing community-investor negotiations at a Namati- and CCSI-led session.

Community Land Protection Initiative

In February 2018, the International Land Coalition (ILC), Namati and IIED launched an ambitious new initiative to bring together community rights land practitioners from across the globe to share tools and experiences on how best to secure and protect community land rights, all of them students and teachers at the same time. The meeting created a new network of solidarity amongst groups from Peru, Ecuador, Cameroon, Tanzania and Indonesia. The cohort will be sharing lessons from the field at the ILC's Global Land Forum in Indonesia this fall.

Regional workshop on land rights and legal empowerment

In January 2018, IIED’s Brendan Schwartz travelled to Dakar to attend a regional workshop convened by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The workshop brought together a group of African research and practitioners to refine methods on how to best support women’s and indigenous peoples' land rights. Together with IDRC and the Centre pour l’Environnement et le Développement (CED), IIED is working on these issues in Cameroon by testing methods for legal empowerment, community dialogue and participatory data collection to improve land rights in areas with increasing land pressures.

Lessons from the field

Strengthening women’s voices in land governance in Senegal and Tanzania

Legal Tools’ Philippine Sutz recently visited project sites in Senegal and Tanzania where IIED has been working with local partners to strengthen women’s voices in land allocation processes at the local level. In the Kisarawe district, our partner Tanzania Women Lawyers Association (TAWLA) is working with local authorities to adopt and implement gender-sensitive bylaws in all 64 villages of the district. In Senegal, IED Afrique is working in Darou Khoudoss with the municipal council to strengthen their knowledge of rules on land allocation and women’s rights. Philippine Sutz shared thoughts on the topic in a Q&A.

EPIC: a new initiative to empower rural producers and communities

Empowering Producers in Commercial agriculture (EPIC) is a new four-year initiative coordinated by IIED with funding from DFID. Launched in early 2018, EPIC aims to empower rural producers, their associations and their wider communities to influence public decisions and private sector conduct in favour of bottom-up, locally beneficial and sustainable investments in commercial agriculture. EPIC will generate insights from practitioners working on this theme around the world, and will develop field-level legal empowerment interventions in two countries to be identified through an ongoing scoping phase.

Supporting parliamentary debate on land law reform in Cameroon.

In December 2017, the LandCam project and REPAR – a network of parliamentarians – convened a high-level parliamentary dialogue on Cameroon’s land law reform.Experts from Burkina Faso and Mali shared their countries' experiences with land law reform. Recommendations from the collective final communiqué (upcoming) include legally recognising customary land rights, supporting groups facing discrimination, and reinforcing local conflict resolution mechanisms. A more detailed account of the meeting is available.

Publications and briefings

Raising the bar on responsible investment: what role for investment treaties?
Can international investment treaties promote responsible business conduct in areas such as human rights, labour relations, land rights and the environment? This briefing reviews recent treaty practice and charts possible ways forward.

Towards fair and effective legislation on compulsory land acquisition in Cameroon
Compulsory land acquisition can severely undermine livelihoods and cause conflict in investment or development projects. Cameroon’s ongoing law reform is an opportunity to both protect land rights and facilitate projects that are genuinely in the public interest. This briefing summarises applicable international and national developments in four main areas: eligible rights, public purpose, compensation and due process.
This briefing is also available in French.

Trends in global land use investment: implications for legal empowerment
This report discusses evolving patterns in land use investments, changes in investment policy frameworks such as public-private partnerships and international investment treaties, and their implications for legal empowerment approaches.

Indigenous peoples’ land rights in Cameroon: progress to date and possible futures
Through a series of national workshops, Cameroon’s government, civil society, experts and indigenous representatives took stock of advances made in relation to the land and resource rights of indigenous peoples. This briefing explores the international and national policy context that framed the process and summarises the main outcomes of the workshops.
This briefing is also available in French

The state of exception and the law of the global economy: a conceptual and empirico-legal inquiry
It is often said that effective rules provide a necessary foundation for the global economy. Taking a legal-theoretical perspective, this article – published in the journal Transnational Legal Theory – explores the role of the exception in structuring transnational economic activities.

“Land, property and sovereignty in international law”
Land has long held a central place in international law. Taking a long-term historical perspective, this article in the Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law explores how indigenous peoples and foreign investors increasingly resort to international norms (e.g. under human rights and investment treaties) to handle land disputes – particularly in connection with large-scale natural resource projects.

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