Timor Leste Land Law Program

•Applied research and legislative drafting

•Institutional Strengthening with UNTL

•Related Capacity Building (LPU, UNTL, MOJ)

•Quadrilingual Glossary

East Timor - Background

Urban Properties– Occupation and

dispensation of former Indonesian residences;

– Destruction of housing stock

– Returnees;– Claims and disputes;– Informal land market;– Constraints to investment– Gender

 Rural Properties– Areas still occupied by East

Timorese transmigrants;– Dispute resolution; – Legitimacy/availability of

evidence for use in claims and disputes;

– How is the informal land market operating currently;

– Ability of Adat systems to resolve conflicts within and between communities, and vis a vis large commercial interests, incl. gender.

Key Laws• Land dispute

mediation;• Land/title

registration;• Land title restitution,

conversion of formal & traditional rights

• Compliance with ET constitution by foreign owners

Other relevant laws:• State property admin.•Cadastre system

Core Laws: Dispute Mediation, Restitution

Dispute Mediation (local in-place processes): • Who, how, legitimacy, authority, appeal;• Evidence; • Groups: within, between (incl. migrant);• Interface between local and state systems

(LPU role); legal interface – evidence;• Displaced persons (individuals) access to

mediation systems;• Costs, compare to state system.

Restitution Law(requisites & procedures to determine who is legally entitled to

ownership & other use rights – Post occupation & conflict)• Local System (select topics):

– Who distributes land-use rights;– Does freehold, leasehold, expropriation exist;– Nature of boundaries;– Rights possessed by transmigrasi/IDPs (from

point of view of both local communities and dislocatees;

– What elements determine legitimate use / possession rights;

Core Laws:

Core Laws – Restitution Law, cont.

• State System:– Portuguese & Indonesian title regiems

– rights connected to each type of title.• All Tenure Systems, Urban & Rural:

– Means of proof/evidence accepted in relation to property rights – availability, legitimacy;

– Seperable rights – surface rights, buildings, tree, crop, etc.

Where We Are Currently

Legislative Themes Research Input NeededState Property Administration Aug 30, 03Cadastral System End Oct, 03Mediation (key, core) Oct/Nov, 03Land/Title Registration (key) End Feb, 04Restitution (key, core) End April, 04Compliance with ET Constitution

by Foreign Owners (key) End April, 04

NextNext

Other Project Activities

• UNTL Research Center

• University Consortium

• Capacity Building– Legal (LPU, MOJ)– Research (UNTL,

proj employees• Glossary

Post-Conflict Land Tenure Reform ‘Best Practice’?

(Michael Brown)

• Land tenure always a primary issue after conflict

• East Timor case as an approach to post-conflict land tenure - reform– Follows on Mozambique (success);– Academic research;– Deals with ‘study’ in a different way;– Does the East Timor case hold potential as an

example for other countries?

Potential Follow-on Work in ET

– Land Law Dissemination– Enabling Environment – Investment– Irrigation Schemes & Smallholders /

Largeholders• (IU Workshop)

– Coffee Lands and Smallholders / Largeholders

– Land Tenure and Parks and People Issues– University Consortium

Land Tenure Work at Indiana University

                    

 WORKSHOP IN POLITICAL THEORY  AND POLICY ANALYSIS http://www.indiana.edu/~workshop

Elinor Ostrom – extensive experience working on common property problems, esp. irrigation-Asia, forest resources, fisheries, grazing resources-Africa, global environmental change.Focus on institutional design principles.

A primary, longstanding connection – Jaime Thompson

Land Tenure Work at Indiana University, cont.

Department of GeographyAgriculture & Land Tenure • Poverty and property rights in the developing

world: not as simple as wewould like. Land Use Policy

• The relationship between indigenous pastoralist resource tenure and state tenure in Somalia. GeoJournal

• Agroforestry, reforestry and the carbon problem: the role of land and tree tenure. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews

• Restocking refugee pastoralists in the Horn of Africa. Disasters

• Nomadic pastoralism and irrigated agriculture in Somalia: utilization of existing land use patterns in designs for multiple access of "high potential" areas of semi-arid Africa. GeoJournal

• Land tenure and identity change in postwar Mozambique. GeoJournal

• Land registration, tenure security, credit use and investment in the Shabelle region of Somalia. In: Searching for Tenure Security in Africa. The World Bank and Kendall\Hunt Publishing, With Roth & Barrows

Post-Conflict Land Tenure• Post-conflict recovery of African agriculture: The role

of 'critical resource' tenure. Ambio • Land tenure and legal pluralism in the peace process.

Peace and Change: A Journal of Peace Research • Local land tenure in the peace process. Peace Review

• Postwar land dispute resolution: land tenure and the peace process in Mozambique. International Journal of World Peace.

• The role of land conflict and land conflict resolution in a peace process: Mozambique’s return to agriculture. Refuge

• Refugee resettlement on the Horn of Africa: the integration of host and refugee land use patterns. Land Use Policy

• Land dispute resolution in Mozambique: evidence and institutions of agroforestry technology adoption. In: The Role of Property Rights and Collective Action in Developing Countries, Johns Hopkins University Press

• Resource Sharing: small holders and pastoralists in Shalambood, Lower Shabelle Region. In: The Struggle for Land in Southern Somalia: The War Behind the War. Westview Press

• Somali rural property rights: whither the future? Journal of the Anglo-Somali Society.

• Resource tenure issues in the resettlement of Sudan's displaced agriculturalists. Journal of Northeast African Studies.

Land Tenure & USAID

• History of land tenure work at USAID, focus on “the study” – all land tenure situations are unique…..

• Current caution regarding studies at USAID• Potential utility for a “package” or “best

practice” approach? (post-conflict, refugee, investment, agricultural development & food security, institutions & governance, natural resources, etc?

• In addition to the short-term “advisor” approach