Statutory recognition of rural communities as collective owners of their lands is substantial, expanding, and an increasingly accepted element of property relations. The conventional meaning of property in land itself is changing, allowing for a greater diversity of attributes without impairing legal protection.

The various legal, political, economic and social perspectives that have influenced the land reform discourse in Kenya are examined. The historical perspectives of the land question in Kenya are outlined, and the factors that shaped the content of Kenya's land law and attendant institutional and constitutional regimes are addressed. The operationalization of the legal regimes and policy frameworks emergent from the colonial legacy is also extensively dealt with, focusing on the way the state has sought to balance private and public interests in land through the instruments of law.

The relationship between land ownership and the sustainable use of natural resources is examined within the context of constitutional change in Africa. Using Kenya as an example, it is demonstrated that current constitutional arrangements put excessive emphasis on the protection of private property rights without requiring the corresponding duty of ecological stewardship. This has resulted in the failure of government policies and development practices to fully integrate environmental considerations into growth strategies.

This paper looks at issues of gender and tenure in African customary law. It argues that under all systems of law in many African countries, ownership of land and associated resources is very much anchored in patriarchy. It decries the failure to isolate positive aspects of customary law and the preponderance of women-unfriendly customary law which influences statutory and other forms of law. Part II of the paper provides the conceptual and theoretical premises of the paper. It looks at patriarchy, gender and law and their impact on tenure relations emphasising the male dominance.

This paper examines the role of customary pastoral institutions in managing conflicts. It indicates thatintra‐ethnic conflicts can be managed customarily because of shared norms attributed to the social proximity and cultural homogeneity, whereas managing inter‐ethnic conflicts goes beyond the capacity of elders' council exercising customary law. The introduction of ethnic‐based federalism and historical political relations between different ethnic groups has weakened customary institutions in managing inter‐ethnic conflict.

We examine the emergence of land markets and their effects on forest land appropriation by farm households in Jambi Province, Sumatra, using micro-level data covering land use and land transactions for a period of more than 20 years (1992–2015). Based on a theoretical model of land acquisition by a heterogeneous farming population, different hypotheses are developed and empirically tested. Farm households involved in forest land appropriation differ from those involved in land market purchases in terms of migration status and other socioeconomic characteristics.

The rhetoric of development served as a language for Sotho politicians from 1960–70 to debate the meanings of political participation. The relative paucity of aid in this period gave outsized importance to small projects run in rural villages, and stood in stark contrast to the period from the mid-1970s onwards when aid became an ‘antipolitics machine’ that worked to undermine national sovereignty.

The interrelationship between secure land rights and economic development has gained increasing recognition, as a driver of economic development around the world. For indigenous peoples and communities, women and other vulnerable groups, secure land rights are fundamental for reducing poverty and boosting their shared prosperity. However, two-thirds of the world’s population still does not have access to secure tenure.

This paper briefly explains the unique relationships of Orang Asli with the customary land. It further demonstrates the common views that there is a collision between the Orang Asli notion of land ownership and that of the state. In particular the discussion highlights the interpretation of customary tenure under section 4 (2) (a) of the National Land Code, 1965 and it significance with the Orang Asli customary land.

The land is an integral part of every state. Especially land has sacred and cultural value in most of the Asian traditions apart from its social and economic value. Sri Lanka is an island state which has 25,330 sq. Mi for 21,670,000 ("Department of Census and Statistics-Sri Lanka," 2019) of population and a country which inherent legal pluralism as a result of multi-cultural ethnicity and imperialism.

Characterized as divinely ordained, the Islamic law of inheritance defines women’s rights to property of the deceased with specific roles and responsibilities for each individual. Obviously, the Islamic law of inheritance is a major contribution to the legal system of the world, compared to the customary laws in the pre‐Islamic Arab society that denied any proprietary right by way of inheritance to female relatives including daughters.

Increasing understanding of the role that secure water resources tenure plays in ensuring sustainable livelihoods, just resource governance, environmental protection, and sustainable economic development has led FAO to re-kindle the debate that had begun in 2012, when the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (VGGT) were adopted by FAO, and that had culminated in 2016 with the publication of the FAO seminal study "Exploring the concept of water tenure".