Foreign investment in agriculture and extractive industries is increasing pressures on land and natural resources. This handbook is about how to use law to make foreign investment work for sustainable development. It aims to provide a rigorous yet accessible analysis of the law regulating foreign investment in low and middle-income countries – what this law is, how it works, and how to use it most effectively.

This article reviews recent research on contemporary transformations of global land governance. It shows how changes in global governance have facilitated and responded to radical revalorizations of land, together driving the intensified competition and struggles over land observed in many other contributions to this special issue. The rules in place to govern land use are shifting from ‘territorial’ toward ‘flow-centered’ arrangements, the latter referring to governance that targets particular flows of resources or goods, such as certification of agricultural or wood products.

Wars and their aftermaths frequently transform land use and ownership, reshaping 'post-conflict' landscapes through new boundaries, population movements, land reforms and conditions of access. Within a global context of controversial land concessions and farmland acquisitions, we bring to light the continued salience of historical memories of war in the ways land conflicts are being negotiated in Laos.

TAKEN FROM WEBSITE INTRODUCTION: This study by GTZ on behalf of BMZ about FDI in land highlights dramatic increase in land concessions, based on data collected in two provinces for an inventory, which GTZ conducted as no official data on land concessions is available. The Lao PDR is a small land-locked country in South-East Asia with a total area of 236,800 m2 with over 80% mountainous surface. It is estimated that all together concessoins for 2-3 million hectar land were granted, representing 13% of Lao PDR's total land area.

A partir de 2008, houve uma extensa produção e publicação de artigos acadêmicos, basicamente em inglês, sobre um fenômeno denominado corrida mundial por terras ou land grabbing (apropriação de terras). Depois de cinco ou seis anos, essa produção se mantém, mas com construções teórico-empíricas mais elaboradas – inclusive com a reformulação de conceitos e criação de outros como green grabbing (apropriação verde) e water grabbing (apropriação da água) –, especialmente porque as primeiras reflexões eram excessivamente centradas em dados quantitativos e escala (quantidade de hectares transacion