Land Tenure and Legal Pluralism in the Peace Process

Abstract

Land tenure has proven to be one of the most vexing issues in a peace process. The disintegration of land and property rights institutions during armed conflict yet the importance of land and property to the conduct of conflict present particular dilemmas for a peace process attempting to reconfigure aspects of societal relations important to recovery. In this regard understanding what happens to land tenure as a set of social relations during and subsequent to armed conflict is important to the derivation of useful tools for managing tenure issues in a peace process. This article examines the development of multiple, informal "normative orders" regarding land tenure during armed conflict and how these are brought together in problematic form in a peace process. While there can be significant development of tenurial legal pluralism during armed conflict, it is during a peace process that problems associated with different approaches to land claim, access, use, and disputing become especially acute, because an end to hostilities drives land issues to the fore for large numbers of people over a short time frame.

Where do I report my land dispute? The impact of institutional proliferation on land governance in post-conflict Northern Uganda

“…Looking through the lenses of legal pluralism, the co-existence of multiple systems of legal order within a society or confines of the state (Hooker 1975;Griffiths 1986;Unruh 2003) might be a useful way of better understanding how people organize land governance when plural legal systems are in existence and how this fosters struggles and intensifies land disputes. Unruh (2003) notes that legal pluralism with regard to land tenure signifies the presence of different sets of rights and obligations concerning land and property. Legal pluralism does not necessarily mean that systems are equal but that they interact with, influence and oppose each other (Peters 2004).…”

“…The LRA war in Acholi land led to a reshuffle of power because of increasing influence of the Ugandan government. As a result of the war both statutory and customary institutions which are supposed to administer property rights were in disarray (Daudelin 2003;Unruh 2003). War erodes the institutional order in place, and puts it adrift; therefore, new modes of organizing land both customary and statutory may proliferate in order to fill the institutional void created by war.…”

“…This is because those institutions might have "overlapping jurisdiction of authority" (Ribot and Peluso 2003, 170) but also in order to regain their pre-war authority. Areas going out of violent conflict are prone to land disputes because there are multiple actors seeking to access and utilize land (Unruh 2003;Clover 2010). It is thus important to understand how both customary and statutory institutions work to sanction the competing claims to land in post-conflict environments.…”

“…In situations of post-conflict where there is lack of clarity about the role of statutory and customary institutions in land governance (cf. Deininger and Castagnini 2006) room is created for forum shopping in land governance institutions according to what suites people's interests (see Lund 1998a, Unruh 2003. Legal pluralism may facilitate the resolution of land disputes by providing choices (Unruh 2003) or contribute to confusion (Ramirez 2002) because there might not be a clear structure to follow and this might contribute to indecision in land dispute resolution.…”

“…Deininger and Castagnini 2006) room is created for forum shopping in land governance institutions according to what suites people's interests (see Lund 1998a, Unruh 2003. Legal pluralism may facilitate the resolution of land disputes by providing choices (Unruh 2003) or contribute to confusion (Ramirez 2002) because there might not be a clear structure to follow and this might contribute to indecision in land dispute resolution. In sum legal pluralism fuels into institutional competition among land governance institutions and this competition between different authorities may make both customary and statutory systems dysfunctional (Eck 2014).…”