‘Best Practice’ Options for the Legal Recognition of Customary Tenure
Development and Change, Vol. 36, No. 3, p. 449, 2005
28 Pages Posted: 19 Feb 2012
Date Written: 2005
Abstract
Is there a ‘best practice’ model for the legal recognition of customary tenure? If not, is it possible to identify the circumstances in which a particular model would be most appropriate? This article considers these questions in the light of economic theories of property rights, particularly as illustrated by the World Bank’s 2003 land policy report. While these theories have their flaws, the underlying concept of tenure security allows a typological framework for developing legal responses to customary tenure. In particular, this article suggests that the nature and degree of State legal intervention in a customary land system should be determined by reference to the nature and causes of any tenure insecurity. This hypothesis is discussed by reference to a wide variety of legal examples from Africa, Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific. The objective is not to suggest that law determines resource governance outcomes in pluralist normative environments, but to improve the quality of legal interventions in order to assist customary groups to negotiate better forms of tenure security and access to resources.
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
Tenure Security and Land-Related Investment: Evidence from Ethiopia
By Klaus Deininger, Songqing Jin, ...
-
Land Sales and Rental Markets in Transition: Evidence from Rural Vietnam
By Klaus Deininger and Songqing Jin
-
Investment and Income Effects of Land Regularization: The Case of Nicaragua
-
By Daniel Ayalew Ali, Klaus Deininger, ...
-
Legal Knowledge and Economic Development: The Case of Land Rights in Uganda
By Klaus Deininger, Daniel Ayalew, ...
-
Evolving Tenure Rights and Agricultural Intensification in Southwestern Burkina Faso
By Michael Kevane and Leslie Gray
-
Property Rights in a Very Poor Country: Tenure Insecurity and Investment in Ethiopia
By Daniel Ayalew Ali, Stefan Dercon, ...
-
Do Overlapping Property Rights Reduce Agricultural Investment? Evidence from Uganda
By Klaus Deininger and Daniel Ayalew Ali