Legally recognized and secure land and resource rights are fundamental to the advancement of global peace, prosperity, and sustainability. From the development of human cultures to the realization of democracy itself, tenure security underpins the very fabric of human society and our relationship to the natural environment. Today, insecure tenure rights threaten the livelihoods and wellbeing of a third of the world’s population, and with it, the very future of our planet.

This paper analyzes whether national laws acknowledge indigenous peoples and other rural communities in 100 countries as owners of waters that arise within their lands. Results derive from information collected by LandMark to score the legal status of community land tenure. Findings are positive; half of all countries recognize communities as lawful possessors of water on their lands. Three quarters permit communities to manage the distribution and use of water on their lands.

This report provides information on due diligence and effective conflict management through consultation in the context of community land conflicts. It identifies some key steps to follow to integrate community land conflict into enhanced project risk assessments.

This brief presents a review of 161 Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) submitted on behalf of 188 countries3 for COP 21 to determine the extent to which Parties made clear commitments to strengthen or expand the tenure and natural resource management rights of IP/LCs as part of their climate change mitigation plans or associated adaptation actions.4 Of the 161 INDCs submitted, 131 are from countries with tropical and subtropical forests.

Residents of mining areas testified at the Parliamentary High-Level panel on assessment of key legislation and acceleration of fundamental change about the acute disruptions caused in their lives and livelihoods by mining and their concerns are dealt with in several recommended amendments to legislation.

The pleas of thousands of rural people who made difficult journeys to attend public hearings across the country are largely ignored in the amended version of the Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Bill set to be adopted by the National Assembly this week.

Parliament is processing, or is due to process, six bills that have particular significance for the rights of people living in SA’s former homelands. Three draft bills have also been published for comment. Among these are the Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Amendment Bill and the Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Bill, which together echo and seek to entrench important aspects of the Bantu Authorities Act that shaped apartheid.

We believe that law should in principle assist vulnerable communities in changing power relations. Law is fundamentally a ‘neutral’ set of rules that constrains power by requiring decisions and actions of those in power to comply with legal rules, rights and obligations. Unfortunately, we have seen the powerful appropriate law as a tool for only protecting and strengthening their interests.

The following is an account of a grassroots movement led by a group of NGOs and communities who went to the Constitutional Court, the highest court in South Africa, to challenge the law dealing with land claims.

They wanted the Court to declare the Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Act 15 of 2014 unconstitutional; and they won!

This is a judgement in the Land Claims Court which concerned the validity of land claims lodged under The Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Act 15 of 2014. This act was an amended version of the Restitution of Land rights Act 22 f 1994 which differed by extending the time frame for persons, descendants, or communities who were disposed of land after 1913 to lodge land claims.  Previously the cut-off date under the 1994 to lodge claims was 31st December 1998. Under the 2014 Act, claims could up lodged from the passing of the act until 30 June 2019.

Kenya is the most recent African state to acknowledge customary tenure as producing lawful property rights, not merely rights of occupation and use on government or public lands. This paper researches this new legal environment. This promises land security for 6 to 10 million Kenyans, most of who are members of pastoral or other poorer rural communities. Analysis is prefaced with substantial background on legal trends continentally, but the focus is on Kenya’s Community Land Act, 2016, as the framework through which customary holdings are to be identified and registered.

To enable communities to form juristic persons, to be known as communal property associations in order to acquire, hold and manage property on a basis agreed to by members of a community in terms of a written constitution; and to provide for matters connected therewith. (English text signed by the President.)