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This paper analyzes changes in property rights, land uses, and culturally based notions of ownership that have emerged following privatization of communal land in a Samburu pastoralist community in Northern Kenya. The research challenges the strict dichotomy between private and collective rights often found in property rights literature, which does not match empirical findings of overlapping and contested rights.

Part of a long-term ethnographic project investigating the process of land privatization and its outcomes, this paper draws on in-depth interviews and participant observation conducted by the author in Samburu County in 2008, 2009, and 2010. Interviews focused on how land is being used post-privatization as well as emerging social norms regulating its use.

Privatization privileges male household heads with powers including rental, sale, and bequeathal of land. However, informal rights to land extend to women and other household members. Exercise of legal rights is frequently limited due to knowledge and resource gaps. New rules regulating land use have emerged, some represent sharp divergences from past practice while others support shared access to land. These changes challenge Samburu cultural notions of individuality, reciprocity, and shared responsibility.

This research illuminates complex changes following legal shifts in property rights and demonstrates the interactions between formal laws and informal social norms and cultural beliefs about land. The result is that privatization does not have easily predictable outcomes as some theories of property would suggest.

Empirical investigation of the effects of legal changes enables fuller understanding of the implications of policy changes that many governments are pursuing privatization with limited understanding of the likely effects.

The purpose of this paper is to provide examples of how rural women in Tanzania have addressed land rights challenges, showcasing three interventions implemented by Tanzanian Civil Society Organizations. It demonstrates that women have used both legal and traditional systems to negotiate and mediate their claims to land. Although the interventions featured have been greatly shaped by the work of civil society organizations, they have equally been influenced by rural women movements and individual rural women. The cases selected provide understanding of women’s land rights issues in both privately and communally held property/land.

This paper presents literature review of the existing secondary data on the subject coupled with the interviews.

Informal and formal approaches have been used by rural women to negotiate their claims on both communal and private lands. CSOs have equally shaped the approaches employed by rural women.

This research was mainly based on the secondary data and few key interviews. There is a need to conduct further analysis of the issues.

This paper highlights the role of CSOs in improving the participation of women in decision-making bodies. The wave of large-scale land-based investments has caused insecurity of land tenure for women. The paper shows some ways to address the problem in communal lands.

Socially, the papers shows the power relations involved in the struggles over land, as well as the role of traditional systems and bylaws in protecting the rights of women.

The paper provides dynamics of gendered approach used by women to negotiate their claims in communally held lands. It also highlights the role and space of local and international CSOs in shaping the local context of resistance on land rights. It is a very useful paper for academics and practitioners working on land rights.

For over 40 years in Nicaragua, the Mayangna indigenous group has fought for legal rights to traditional lands with the expressed purpose of protecting their rainforest. On December 21, 2009, the last of nine Mayangna territories were granted rights by Nicaragua to a majority of their historical claims, in addition to rights to have illegal colonists removed by Nicaraguan police and military. Indigenous leaders pursued land rights as a measure for cultural survival and the protection of their broadleaf rainforest, also the site of a UNESCO International Biosphere Reserve, the BOSAWAS. While Indigenous lands are encroached upon by the frontline of imperialistic consumerism, people like the Mayangna ask for international and national respect for their autonomy, self-determination, land ownership, and even sovereignty.

The Mayangna lead the way to understand necessary steps for protecting the rainforest. Their actions demonstrate the possibility for social justice given respect for true ecologically sustainability. To begin, they fought to obtain ownership of their homelands, thereafter, they battled legally and even with their lives to defend their boundaries and everything within them. The Mayangna insist indigenous land ownership, the protection of their rights, and a respect for their traditional forms of management lead to the continued protection of the rainforest and other areas critical to the survival of the global ecosystem.

The assertion that land registration guarantees landownership security is common knowledge. Thus, efforts at securing landownership in particularly, the developing world have concentrated on the formulation and implementation of land registration policies. However, over the years, whilst some studies claim that land registration assures security, a lot of other studies have established that security cannot be guaranteed by land registration. Also, there is evidence from research that has shown that land registration can be a source of ownership insecurity in some cases. The purpose of this paper is to critically analyse the underpinning principles of land registration and their application in order to establish whether or not land registration can actually guarantee ownership security.

It is a literature review paper that looks at the existing literature on landownership, security and land registration systems. The land registration principles that have been subjected to critical analysis are the publicity function of land registration, the legality of ownership emanating from land registration and the warranty provided by the State in land registration, specifically, under the Torrens system.

An analysis of the underpinning principles of land registration shows that land registration per se cannot guarantee ownership security and this helps to explain the findings of the numerous studies, which have established that landownership security cannot be assured by land registration. The paper concludes by identifying the right role of land registration as well as a mechanism that can effectively protect or secure landownership.

Land registration policies and programmes in the developing world are often funded by the international donor community and the findings provide useful insights regarding the actual role of land registration and for policy change in terms of what can secure landownership.

Even though there are two schools of thought regarding research on the link between land registration on one hand, and landownership security on the other, none of the studies has made an attempt to consider the nexus by critically examining the principles that underpin land registration to support their arguments.

Is China′s “land use rights” legislation which distinguishes transferable “land use rights” and inalienable “land ownership”, a novel concept unknown to human kind before, or a pragmatic reversion to the private property rights system abolished by the communist revolution? Advocates the view that the latter is a more correct interpretation. As part of a “going capitalist” economic reform programme, such a reversion is manifested in the legal recognition of the leasehold tenure after the “responsibility system” in privatizing agricultural production had proved to be successful. As the development of private property rights is a prelude to market transactions, the Chinese land use rights reform should be conducive to the success of the economic liberalization policy of China, provided that there is a contemporaneous advance in the development of the rule of law and technical know‐how, such as valuation and land surveying.

This paper examines the importance of property rights in women’s empowerment in rural India. Arguments justifying the need for granting property rights to women are presented and the distinction is made between legal (formal) and customary (informal) rights. The ineffectiveness of legal right in absence of customary rights has been discussed. Customary rights also become ineffective due to other institutional impediments. These impediments have been discussed. The results of extensive field work in rural West Bengal and Orissa have been presented to illustrate the pattern of development process that poor rural women want and in which the property right is only one component, not the only component.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the demand and supply relationship between urban and non‐urban land, the latter's diminishing supply, arguments for and against its preservation, methods in which preservation might be achieved and one method in particular, with which the authors have considerable experience, that involves the purchase of development rights and density credits.

The research design involved meetings with farmers, city and county officials and members of several land conservation organizations, bringing together several hundred agricultural and residential real estate transactions, quantitative analysis of the transaction data using descriptive and hedonic methods, developing property attribute values and thereby determining the value of agricultural development rights and urban density credits.

Agricultural development rights were valued, on average, at $9,000 per acre. Commercial development rights were valued, on average, at $9.00 per square foot of floor area (FAR).

By acquiring agricultural development rights the process of agricultural land being converted to urban purposes can be slowed or halted. Valuing and selling development rights is a straightforward means of permitting urban density that is understood by developers and easily, objectively and transparently quantified. It is also a good method of raising funds for the acquisition of agricultural development rights.

The valuation process developed and employed does away with the need for individual appraisals of rights to be acquired and sold. Therefore this is a very efficient process. Also, it shows how farmers, preservationists and planners can be brought together to solve a common problem.

In light of the discussions on outer space property management, this conceptual review paper aims to discuss and evaluate if, when and under which conditions certain land management and property right frameworks can apply to allocate and/or restrict property rights in outer space.

This paper applies a pragmatic review approach which seeks to better understand if and how the basic tenets of the land management frameworks could better shape and revise the challenges in outer space regulations.

Despite the fact that regulatory guidelines on outer space rights are existing, the analysis shows that these lack a number of practical tools and measures aiming at intervening if stakeholders do not follow the rules. With the use of land management frameworks, it is possible to derive policy options for making the outer space management more practical and action-oriented, in particular for the removal of space debris. These include amongst others more attention for formulating global public restrictions in outer space, incorporating regulatory guidelines for accessing open space regimes, addressing responsiveness and robustness in adherence and compliance to regulations

Given the conceptual and discursive character of the paper, there are no specific empirical data, yet several recommendations for further research include expanding the boundary work between the land management and regulatory outer space domain.

The insights derived from land management and real estate related property theories could potentially provide new starting points for (re)formulating the regulatory framework for outer space property discourses.

Interpreting the outer space regulations from known and practiced land management perspective helps to bridge the policy–society knowledge and necessity gap on outer space activities.

The specific land management perspective and discursive analysis on outer space debris provide new options for devising and extending regulatory guidelines for assigning responsibilities on outer space debris and debris rights, restrictions and responsibilities.

From the perspective of land mortgages, the purpose of this paper is to understand how farmers can be motivated to utilize environment-friendly formula fertilizers, thereby reducing the use of chemical fertilizers.

Two hypotheses are empirically tested using questionnaire responses from 714 farmers across three provinces in China to establish the relationship and to determine the role land rent plays.

This study finds that farmers who obtain land mortgages will be more willing to apply formula fertilizers in order to obtain higher value of their “own” land. This is because obtaining land mortgages can be considered as the process of titling land management rights. Farmers who have been transferred the land by verbal agreement no longer need to worry about losing it at any time. Hence, they are willing to apply formula fertilizers on their transferred land. Similarly, farmers who have been transferred the land by written contract to obtain more land mortgages will also be willing because the formula fertilizers can not only improve the quality of their transferred land, but also increase its value as collateral. This mechanism is clearer in the area where the average land rent is relatively lower.

No study has yet linked the reform of land mortgages to environmentally friendly behavior. While other studies have focused on the way access to credit changes farmer investments and spending, this particular relationship has not yet been formalized, giving this study theoretical and empirical significance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how illegal settlers and poor families struggle for basic necessities through land invasions, covert practices and illegal sabotage, examining how fundamental rights to subsistence and dignity are superior to private property claims.

The paper combines two qualitative research projects that examined property rights in Kyrgyzstan, conducting semi‐structured interviews with poor groups, elites and state officials. One project was conducted between 2009‐2010, examining two illegal settlements and a squatted building in the capital Bishkek, and the other project took place between 2007‐2008 in four villages in Osh region.

It was found that illegal settlers and poor families deliberate upon the moral aspects of land and property, though sometimes their judgements are distorted by nationalist feelings and racialised identities. Poor and propertyless groups struggle for basic necessities, lacking access to social rights and facing class contempt and state coercion.

The authors criticise de Soto's ideas on legalising squatters' holdings, suggesting that his property rights approach to land offers a flawed moral vision for society and a mis‐understanding of illegal settlements.

International donors need to re‐think development strategies for increasing growth and reducing poverty, and for Kyrgyzstan to abandon the national residential registration system (propiska).

The authors' moral responsibilities approach on property recognises the importance of land and valuable resources for human capabilities, the competing obligations of the state and the role of moral propriety and sentiments in shaping responsibilities towards vulnerable and poor groups.