EXPOSING CORRUPTION BEHIND MID-SCALE LAND APPROPRIATIONS Elizabeth Donger & Rachael Knight Namati: Innovations in Legal Empowerment

 National elites often forcibly appropriate areas of ranging from 20 hectares to 1,000 hectares with broad impunity.  These mid-level land appropriations may present the greatest and most frequent threat to communities’ customary and indigenous land rights.  Yet no one is tracking them, and they receive little to no international attention.

Existing efforts to combat global trends in land grabbing do not comprehensively address: 1)The role of local and national elites in land seizure. 2)The prevalence of medium-scale land appropriations. 3)The relationship between land appropriation and corruption. This study is an initial effort to cast light on this under- examined problem and give voice to affected communities.

 36 cases of mid-scale land appropriation.  31 semi-structured interviews with land rights activists and global experts in 17 countries across Asia, Latin America and Africa.  Desk research on media coverage and academic literature.

 Government  Business  Law enforcement  The military  The judiciary  Powerful religious leaders  Traditional authorities.

 Speculation  Access to valuable natural resources (water, forests, wildlife, minerals)  Agricultural production  Tourism  Forced assimilation and destruction of ethnic or indigenous groups  Territorial control and political power during conflict or post-conflict situations  Private urban development  Benefit from large scale foreign investments

 Harassment, intimidation, threats and violence  Illegal fencing  Encroachment  Occupation of underused land  Illegally issued land titles  Fraudulent land titles  Manipulation of community land administration  Misuse of compulsory acquisition / eminent domain  Misallocation of protected land to private interests  Illegal allocation of state land to private interests  Abuse of government settlement schemes Illegal Quasi- Legal

2010/2013: Pitalito, Huila Department

2011/2013: Lake Kariba, Siavonga District

2014: O’Chra village, Keo Seima District

Immediate, transformative impacts:  Bodily harm  Displacement  Loss of livelihood  Loss of personal property. These dispossessions concentrate land in the hands of elites, which can lead to conflict and structural instability. Medium-term impacts:  Chronic food insecurity  The breakdown of traditional communities  Unemployment  Exposure to discrimination in all areas of civil and economic life.

 Direct negotiation  Petitioning local or national government  Petitioning foreign governments or international institutions  Litigation through domestic courts  Legal action through international courts  Demonstrations  Reoccupation of the land  Armed response  Media coverage

The international community has yet to develop strategies to resist these kinds of land appropriations. Successful strategies to combat bad faith elite land appropriation will combine both top- down and bottom-up advocacy tools:  Increased media coverage;  Robust institutional reforms to hold elites accountable;  Meaningful empowerment of local communities to understand their land rights and develop tools to collectively defend them.

 Awareness and public dialogue  Non-profit reports  Data collection by governments and advocacy groups.  Community paralegal programs  Accountable, organized land administration  Community land documentation and protection  Mapping initiatives  International legal frameworks for responsible investment that can be applied nationally  Early warning systems  Direct community action  Litigation