This paper focuses on legal and economic instruments of the multi-donor-driven land reform in Cambodia with its overarching aim of achieving tenure security and reparation after the Khmer Rouge. Land tenure applies to state public/state private property and private property. The essential property form for public land management is state public property. This property must be interpreted in the future as the property of Cambodian people that serves all human beings in the country.

Swidden (also called shifting cultivation) has long been the dominant farming system in Montane Mainland Southeast Asia (MMSEA). Today the ecological bounty of this region is threatened by the expansion of settled agriculture, including the proliferation of rubber plantations. In the current conception of REDD+, landscapes involving swidden qualify almost automatically for replacement by other land-use systems because swiddens are perceived to be degraded and inefficient with regard to carbon sequestration.

This paper aims to describe the status of land reform in Cambodia by looking at the background information, general approaches and basic types of land reform from the world’s views and experience, and the efforts taken thus far on land reform in Cambodia. The paper also reflects on key elements, principles, good and bad experiences, innovations, achievements and challenges around the issues of Cambodia’s land reform.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Housing, land and property rights issues affect men and women differently; hence these issues are not gender-neutral and require a gender equality analysis of the problem. While equal rights between men and women are enshrined in the 1993 Constitution of the Kingdom of Cambodia (the Constitution) and in a number of national laws, in practice women are still subordinate to men.

The rise of urbanization and development in Cambodia in recent years has led to a dramatic increase in land prices, with particularly high values for land in the capital city of Phnom Penh. Some government officials have benefited from the high price of land by unlawfully granting land title to private developers in exchange for compensation. Once these officials have granted land title to developers, they forcibly evict from the property existing residents, who mostly come from poor and marginalized communities. There is rampant corruption at every stage of the "development" process.

Debates and critiques around land policy often focus on the neo-liberal agenda of formalising land as alienable property, most notably through land titling schemes. Sometimes these schemes are posited against alternatives such as land reform and community land holding under common property arrangements. Claims and counter- claims are made for land titling as a means to boost smallholder security in the face of involuntary or otherwise unfair alienation of land sometimes under the rubric of land grabbing.

ABSTRACTED FROM SUMMARY: One of the peculiarities of the Vietnamese land system is the existence of a ‘zero state’ with regard to land institutions: all the country’s existing land institutions were put in place in the last 25 to 30 years. However, this does not mean that there is no history of such bodies; indeed, those that are now emerging carry the traces of each past period.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE SUMMARY: Land-grabbing is occurring at a significant extent and pace in Southeast Asia; some of the characteristics of this land grab differ from those in regions such as Africa. At a glance, Europe is not a high profile, major driver of land-grabbing in this region, but a closer examination reveals that it nonetheless is playing a significant role. This influence is both direct and indirect, through European corporate sector and public policies, as well as through multilateral agencies within which EU states are members.

Over the past decade the Asia-Pacific region has experienced tremendous changes in nearly every aspect. These changes have been particularly profound in the forestry sector, where society has dramatically increased its demands and expanded its expectations for goods and services. Almost all countries in the region have moved towards sustainable forest management at the policy level and in many countries institutional structures are also gradually changing.

OVERVIEW: Cambodia is a largely agrarian country that emerged from a history of political strife and instability into a period of steady economic growth. However, the country started from such a low base that even after a decade of growth averaging 7% per annum, GDP is only $650. Cambodia is ranked 176th out of 213 countries in terms of purchasing-power parity. Poverty rates have reduced somewhat, but they remain higher than in most countries in the region and are only slightly lower than in Laos.

Following the »Land Policy Declaration« from July 2009, the Royal Government of Cambodia henceforth has the unique opportunity to implement a land valuation policy by the Council of Land Policy. Land valuation, taxation and capacity building are indispensable elements of a land reform in Cambodia. By improving prior assessment tools for valuation and taxation, Cambodia could serve as an example for the development of taxation in circumstances when rent-seeking, speculation, informal land markets and an unequal land distribution occur.

The Land Law of 2001 was a landmark statute intended to strengthen and protect the rights of ordinary Cambodian landholders. A land titling programme (LMAP) was initiated soon afterwards, with extensive World Bank and donor support. The land occupied by the community of Boeung Kak, in the heart of the capital was excluded from this process, despite evidence of prior residence going back decades. Instead it was classifi ed as having “unknown status” by the LMAP, as “state land” by default, and as a “development zone” by authorities.