EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Burma has been praised in recent years for the return to a civilian government and for the implementation of legislative reforms; international economic sanctions are being lifted and President Thein Sein became the first Burmese politician to enter the White House since 1966. However, this common picture does not reveal the depth and complexity of the current situation in Burma. Now is a crucial time.

The Coca-Cola Company believes that land grabbing is unacceptable. Our Company does not typically purchase ingredients directly from farms, nor are we owners of sugar farms or plantations, but as a major buyer of sugar, we acknowledge our responsibility to take action and to use our influence to help protect the land rights of local communities. The Coca-Cola Company commits to the following plan of action to prevent and address land grabs and other land controversies in our supply chain.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE INTRODUCTION: Foreign investment in agriculture has expanded since 2005, although the figures remain modest. The Cambodian government has prioritized investment in the sector, and an important part of the government strategy has been its policies on land concessions. A 2005 sub-decree sets out the procedures, mechanisms and institutional arrangements for offering economic land concessions (ELCs), with the objective of improving crop diversity, productivity, and employment, among other benefits. By 2009, just over a third of ELCs had gone to foreign investors.

The author argues that the democratic reform in Myanmar is rooted in profound internal and external factors. Since the beginning of the reform, the changes in Myanmar have taken tolls in a series of China’s existing interests inside the country. Economically, Chinese investments have come under increasing scrutiny, criticism, and even oppositions, threatening the viability of strategic projects such as the oil and gas pipelines. Politically, the initial success of the democratic reform in Myanmar raises questions about Beijing’s continuous resistance to reform.

In rural Cambodia the rampant allocation of state land to political elites and foreign investors in the form of ‘‘Economic Land Concessions (ELCs)’’— estimated to cover an area equivalent to more than 50% of the country’s arable land—has been associated with encroachment on farmland, community forests and indigenous territories and has contributed to a rapid increase of rural landlessness. By contrast, less than 7,000 ha of land have been allotted to land-poor and landless farmers under the pilot project for ‘‘Social Land Concessions (SLCs)’’ supported by various donor agencies.

Despite the tens of millions of dollars in aid and concessional loans being spent in Cambodia with the ostensible aim of securing land tenure and making the management of land and natural resources more equitable and sustainable, the evidence shows that tenure insecurity, forced evictions and large-scale land grabbing are escalating to alarming levels.

This publication presents the first nationwide analysis of land concessions and leases in the Lao PDR. It comes at a pivotal moment after investment in land has expanded significantly throughout the country, sparking increased dialogue and a greater level of scrutiny regarding the impacts of this expan- sion, both inside the Government of the Lao PDR (GoL) and throughout wider civil society. Investment in land, particularly foreign direct investment, has been championed as an effective development tool by a number of actors.

In Rubber Barons, Global Witness documents the devastating impact of Vietnam’s rush for rubber on local communities in Laos and Cambodia. The investigation also shows how international financiers Deutsche Bank and the International Finance Corporation were backing these land grabs – often in contravention of their own policies. In both Laos and Cambodia, national laws are supposed to protect forests, limit the size of foreign land concessions and require consultation with local communities over land use, but these laws are rarely enforced.

INTRODUCTION: Large-scale land acquisitions are a reality in most regions worldwide. Vast areas of land are leased to foreign as well as national investors on a long term basis of 30-99 years. A growing number of reports, referring to this practice as ‘land grabbing’, show that these mostly very intransparent deals tend to go along with corruption, forced evictions and other human rights violations as well as enhanced competition over water.

Land deals are frequently agreed in secret between governments and investors. This lack of transparency in the allocation of land fosters an environment where elite capture of natural assets becomes the norm, where human rights are routinely abused with impunity, where environmental destruction is ignored and where investment incentives are stacked against companies willing to adhere to ethical and legal principles.

With a view to operationalizing the recently adopted Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Forests and Fisheries, this paper identifies gaps in existing World Bank safeguard policies with respect to tenure.

As Vietnam continues to search for its ideal balance between Communist control and a market-led economy, land rights emerge at the forefront of the discussion concerning the tension between traditional Socialist ideals of people-owned and state managed property versus neoliberal ideals of private property rights. The purpose of this study is twofold.