This think piece sets out to:

L’un des problèmes cruciaux auxquels font face les peuples africains est celui de la gestion des terres fertiles. C’est le cas du peuple akposso. Dès les origines, ce peuple avait établi sa tradition dans le domaine foncier et n’était pas prêt à partager ses terres avec autrui. Mais pendant la colonisation, l’Allemagne et la France ont eu leurs propres codes fonciers. De même, en 1974, l’Etat togolais a entrepris une réforme agro pastorale. L’étude de cette évolution du droit foncier montre des différences entre le droit foncier coutumier akposso et le droit foncier moderne.

La Constitución Política de la República de Panamá de 1972 (CPR), “reconoce y respeta la identidad étnica de las comunidades indígenas nacionales”, y dispone que el Estado debe establecer programas tendientes al desarrollo de dichas culturas y su protección.  Este texto revisar la normativa legal que reconoce las comarcas indígenas como territorios indígenas autogobernados. 

Planning for climate resilience growth is increasingly important for the natural resource dependent economy of Tanzania. Central government does not have the knowledge, reach, skills or resources needed to plan for the range of livelihoods within Tanzania; but local governments, if granted the authority and resources, could plan with communities in the flexible, timely and appropriate manner that climate variability demands.

The first set of the land laws were enacted in 2012 in line with the timelines outlined in the Constitution of Kenya 2010. In keeping with the spirit of the constitution, the Land Act, Land Registration Act and the national Land Commission Act respond to the requirements of Articles 60, 61, 62, 67 & 68 of the Constitution. The National Land Policy, which was passed as Sessional Paper No. 3 of 2009, arrived earlier than the Constitution, with some radical proposals on the land Management.

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Unfolding analysis reveals two types of land disputes prevalent in postwar northern Uganda: cases that involve a legitimate cause of action and those that do not.1 Since mediation and alternative forms of dispute resolution rely on parties’ willingness to negotiate in good faith, cases featuring ‘bad faith’ and land grabbing—where powerful parties intentionally exploit another person’s vulnerability in order to illegally2 claim land—pose a serious challenge for local land dispute mediators. Such mediators must wrestle with whether and how to remain neutral in the face of injustice.

This special issue of Policy Matters focuses on the outreach and impact of Dr. Elinor Ostrom's groundbreaking research on common property (or commons) theory. Her work was instrumental in shaping contemporary analyses of resource management and conservation, especially at a local level. This collection of research papers, essays, commentaries, and songs build upon her work and provide case studies demonstrating the practical application of her theoretical contributions. 

To ensure that there is sustainability at the community level in its land rights and governance training programme, Land Rights Research and Resources Institute (HAKIARDHI), a Tanzanian national level organization that spearheads land rights of small-scale producers, uses land rights monitors (LRMs) in its program areas. In each of the selected villages of the program districts, two LRMs (a man and a woman) who have received land rights training from HAKIARDHI are democratically elected by villagers.

We believe that law should in principle assist vulnerable communities in changing power relations. Law is fundamentally a ‘neutral’ set of rules that constrains power by requiring decisions and actions of those in power to comply with legal rules, rights and obligations. Unfortunately, we have seen the powerful appropriate law as a tool for only protecting and strengthening their interests.

This article argues that there is a transformation in the relationship between land, peasant communities and its members or comuneros. In the case of the communities of the Peruvian northern coast, this transformation links with a double dynamic: (i) the increasing external pressure on the resource from the private-national and transnational capitals, and (ii) the emergence of new means and motivations of access to land among the communal members.