timor leste land law program applied research and legislative drafting institutional strengthening...

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 Needed

State Property Administration Aug 30, 03Cadastral System End Oct, 03

Mediation (key, core) Oct/Nov, 03

Land/Title Registration (key) End Feb, 04

Restitution (key, core) End April, 04

Compliance 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 Geography

Agriculture & 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