Law - Strengthen justice mechanisms to prevent land dispossessions in Africa

By Moses Adonga, Rachel Ibreck and Godfrey Victor Bulla

Source:  African Arguments

There has been a global awakening to the opportunities and costs of land grabs in Africa. Academics and activists are duly investigating the scope and impacts of large-scale land seizures; the plight of victims has gained recognition; and there are moves to promote ‘responsible’ corporate investments. In contribution to the ongoing debates, we propose a closer focus on the responses of justice mechanisms.

Women cultivate land in Sudan (UN Photo Library).

First, it is questionable whether statutory law represents, let alone protects, existing rights in land. In many parts of Africa, social norms and customary law understand land to be a social good not a commodity; land is felt to be a human right, yet it is not clearly expressed as such in national – still less – international law.

Second, justice mechanisms are ill-equipped to prevent land grabs, given that the mere prospect of an increase in the value of African land produces contention in advance of any actual investment.

Third, the apparatus of justice and law enforcement is being employed to arrest or intimidate those who are resisting investments out of desperation to protect their birth-right and have no prospect of alternative livelihoods. This is a recipe for conflict, but victims of land grabs often still resist peacefully and seek to pursue their rights through the courts. Apart from violence, the justice system may be their sole recourse.

The plight of impoverished Africans whose land is ripe for investment was embodied by a group of elderly women from Amuru district in Northern Uganda on 16 April 2015. In a symbolic protest, they tore off their clothes publicly and threw themselves naked on the ground in front of land surveyors, government officials and soldiers. They demanded to know why government is ‘targeting their land’, leading the protests of a crowd of hundreds of residents of Apaa parish against an illegal attempt to demarcate the boundary between Amuru and neighbouring Adjumani district. The women of Amuru are unlikely to win international plaudits but – like Nobel-laureate Leymah Gbowee’s threat to disrobe at the Liberian peace talks of 2003 – their breach of a social taboo did change minds. The Amuru-Adjumani demarcation team turned back. Read more...