Documents
Legally Securing Community Lands: Principles & Paths
Land tenure specialist Liz Alden Wily's principles and paths for securing tenure of community lands (2013).
Land Rights Issues in International Human Rights Law
Up to one quarter of the world’s population is estimated to be landless, including 200 million people living in rural areas. For many of these people, the condition of landlessness threatens the enjoyment of a number of fundamental human rights. Access to land is important for development and poverty reduction, but also often necessary for access to numerous economic, social and cultural rights, and as a gateway for many civil and political rights. However, there is no right to land codified in international human rights law. This article, which was originally written as a briefing paper for the “Forum on Land, Business, and Human Rights” convened in Manesar, India by the Institute for Human Rights and Business in June 2009, provides a brief overview of the legal implications of access to land for a broad range of human rights. Land is a cross-cutting issue, and is not simply a resource for one human right in the international legal framework. Rights have been established in the international legal framework that explicitly relate to land access for particular groups, such as indigenous people and, to a more limited extent, women. In addition, numerous rights are affected by access to land, including the rights to housing, food, water and work, and general principles in international law also provide protections relating to access to land, such as equality and nondiscrimination in ownership and inheritance (Wickeri, Elisabeth and Kalhan, Anil, Land Rights Issues in International Human Rights Law. Malaysian Journal on Human Rights, Vol. 4, No. 10, 2010; Drexel University Earle Mack School of Law Research Paper ; Fordham Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 1921447).
What Rights? A Comparative Analysis
'What Rights? A Comparative Analysis of Developing Countries’ National Legislation on Community and Indigenous Peoples’ Forest Tenure Rights' presents a legal analysis of the national legislation that relates to Indigenous Peoples’ and communities’ forest tenure rights at a global scale by assessing whether the legal systems of 27 of the most forested developing countries of the world recognize the rights of Indigenous Peoples and communities to access, withdraw, manage, exclude and alienate to forest resources and land. The countries included in this study are home to 2.2 billion rural people and include approximately 75% of the forests in the developing world (RRI, 2012).
Land rights and the forest peoples of Africa: Historical, legal and anthropological perspectives
FPP has published a series of five country studies, and an in-depth overview, examining indigenous peoples' land rights in the forested countries of Africa. The country studies have been produced in collaboration with African experts from Burundi, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda (Forest Peoples Programme, 2009).
Securing community land and resource rights in Africa: A guide to legal reform and best practices
This guide, produced by FERN, the Forest Peoples Programme (FPP), ClientEarth and the Centre for Environment and Development (CED), explains key aspects of law and land rights that are important for securing community ownership and control of land and resources – also referred to as secure land and resource tenure. It explains how to identify and create opportunities for law reform and offers examples of reforms that have taken place in several African countries (2014).