In the natural resources sector, laws are often formulated to regulate the relationship between men and the environment. Ideally, the law can play a vital role in regulating and protecting communities from adverse environmental and social impacts of mining, loss of land, biodiversity and natural wealth, as well as other human rights violations. Almost all countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have developed laws and institutions to regulate and monitor the extraction of mineral resources and their impact on the environment and people.

IATP have consistently argued that trade agreements need to respect and promote human rights, not drive a process of globalisation that privileges commercial interests and pushes public interests aside. This paper concludes that the globalisation enshrined in the free trade and investment agreements of the 1990s and 2000s have led to yet another manifestation of commercial interests trampling human rights - namely land grabs.

This paper draws out the key links between land tenure and poverty eradication. The author argues that in countries where land distribution remains highly inequitable, effectively designed and targeted, it could be a key component of anti-poverty strategies, but significant complementary measures, notably agrarian support services, are also required to achieve real impacts, together with investments in employment and economic diversification.

This rapid evidence assessment (REA) investigates how public overseas investments supported by developed country governments respect legitimate land tenure rights, especially in countries without a strong system for protecting existing tenure rights. The REA assesses material from the limited number of studies (20) available about donor-supported investment projects involving land. Most are from African countries, but the evidence also includes cases from Afghanistan, Guatemala and Cambodia.

Zimbabwe’s fast-track land reform has had a bad press. Reports of violence and intimidation have obscured the reality that formal procedures used to settle black farmers in model villages bear a striking resemblance to earlier colonial procedures. Whilst colonial myths about African farmers as subsistence oriented and inefficient live on, evidence from south-eastern Zimbabwe suggests that the reforms have benefited some poor black farmers

The Kailash Sacred Landscape (KSL) spreads across a vast region that includes remote portions of the Tibet Autonomous Region of China (TAR China) and contiguous areas of Nepal and India. This area is historically, ecologically, and culturally interconnected; it is the source of four of Asia’s most important rivers, and at the heart of this landscape is the sacred Mount Kailash, revered by millions of people in Asia and throughout the world.

This paper provides background information on access to natural resources in Southern Africa. Case studies are used from Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa, to explore customary rights and de facto access to a wide range of wild resources, in particular those of greatest importance to the rural poor.

This policy brief explores the importance of land issues in forced displacement in Kenya, drawing out their implications for current humanitarian and early recovery interventions in the wake of the violence and displacement that followed the 2007 elections. Key messages nclude:

This paper examines the impact of land reform in Vietnam which gives households the power to exchange, transfer, lease, inherit, and mortgage their land-use rights. The authors expect this change to increase the incentives as well as the ability to undertake long-term investments on the part of households.

Traditional land tenure systems in Togo have been undermined but not destroyed by the introduction of private property and ‘modern’ tenure reform. However, confusion over land tenure issues has proved to be an obstacle to efforts to promote efficient resource management and to combat desertification.

Recent arguments have stated that the new livestock development policy will carry a high social cost, that the reality of range degradation in Botswana has been ignored, and that there is no basis for assuming that de-stocking would decrease the productivity of rangeland.