Land Confiscation in Burma: A Threat to Local Communities & Responsible Investment

ABSTRACTED FROM OPENING PARAGRAPHS: Land confiscation is one of the leading causes of protest and unrest in Burma, having led to the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in recent years. It also undermines Burma’s fragile peace processes. The 2008 constitution and subsequent laws are used to legitimize arbitrary land confiscation, deny access to justice, and perpetuate an environment of impunity. Land confiscation for profitable large-scale development and commercial projects enrich the military, state-owned enterprises, and regime cronies, but result in the loss of livelihood and human rights abuses for local communities. Land confiscation often involves violence, resulting in grievous injury, to force people off their land, or to suppress resistance to land confiscation. Benefiting from land grabs, linked in some cases to ethnic cleansing or war atrocities, poses a risk to foreign investors and increases their exposure to judicial claims. Prevailing censorship and other institutional obstructions hinder access to accurate information required for due diligence processes. It is in the interests of the international corporate community to ensure that legislative and institution reforms include equitable and transparent land acquisition procedures and measures to protect communities from impunity.