ABSTRACTED FROM INTRODUCTION: Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) in Thailand make a vital contribution to the advancement of human rights and are in urgent need of recognition and protection. Since the May 2014 coup, they have increasingly become at risk of violence, discrimination, and other violations of their human rights. Women have been systematically excluded from public consultations and decision-making processes, particularly on issues related to land and natural resources.

ABSTRACTED FROM WEBSITE INTRODUCTION: This briefing looks at the particular situation of people displaced by armed conflict. It will do so from the perspective that displacement is complicated in its own right, but any proposed solutions to displacement must also be understood in a wider context of rapid land polarization. Failure to take this perspective risks more harm than good. For people affected by displacement, land is much more than just an economic asset.

In 2012, the Government of Myanmar passed the Farmland Law and the Vacant, Fallow, Virgin Land Law, with an aim to increase investment in land through the formalization of a land market. Land titling is often considered “the natural end point of land rights formalization.” A major obstacle to achieving this in Myanmar is its legacy of multiple regimes which has created “stacked laws.” This term refers to a situation in which a country has multiple layers of laws that exist simultaneously, leading to conflicts and contradictions in the legal system.

Namati offers this brief in the hope that Myanmar’s national reforms and the implementation of the country’s new National Land Use Policy can grow from the lived experience of ordinary Myanmar citizens. Namati and our partners assist farmers in Myanmar to claim their land rights through a community paralegal approach. Community paralegals are trained in relevant laws, community education, negotiation, and mediation skills to work with farmers to resolve a variety of land rights issues.

The Asia-Pacific region is a hotspot for forest landscape conflicts which are played out between local communities and outsiders such as government agencies and private companies. Increased competition for limited natural resources, rapid sociopolitical change, and expanding markets for forest products and land have heightened tensions and intensified conflicts over resource-use priorities. There are numerous methods for addressing conflict, including negotiation, arbitration, adjudication and mediation.

INTRODUCTION: Myanmar stands at a historic crossroads: one where the optimism of a "critical juncture" that is "more promising than at any time in recent memory" meets apprehension over what could happen if a "host of social crises that have long blighted our country" go unaddressed. After more than sixty years of civil war and ‘social crises’, land grabbing figures are high. New legislation is designed to move land out of the hands of rural working people and into the hands of ‘modern farmers’ and foreign and domestic big business actors.

In Myanmar, movements for gender justice strive to foster personal and collective security, vibrant livelihoods, and political engagement during a period of rapid and uncertain transition. This article draws from the experience of the Gender Equality Network (GEN), a coalition of over 100 organisations in Myanmar. It examines three cases in which GEN sought to document existing forms of resilience and expand these mechanisms through national-level advocacy. The first describes current attempts to publicise, and eventually eliminate, violence against women (VAW).

Over the past 10 years, transnational land grabs for rubber tree plantations have proliferated across Laos. Plantation concessions are being established on village lands that are represented as ‘degraded’ and legally classified as ‘state forests’, expropriated by government officials in the name of poverty alleviation with promises that plantations will provide new wage labour opportunities for those dispossessed.

Economic and legal reforms have triggered waves of conflict over property rights and access to urban land in Vietnam. In this article I develop four epistemic case studies to explore the main precepts and practices that courts must negotiate to extend their authority over land disputes. Courts face a dilemma: Do they apply state laws that disregard community regulatory practices and risk losing social relevance, or apply community notions of situational justice that undermine rule formalism?

Transforming conflict is a key component of sustainable forest management. Transformative conflict mediation is an approach to transforming conflict that aims not only to resolve the conflict but also to foster long-term relationships and cooperation. This study explores how application of mediation contributed to conflict transformation.

De modo a apoiar e promover a igualdade de género e o empoderamento da mulher rural
moçambicana, através da divulgação de legislação e informações relevantes sobre as
questões de género no país, o Centro de Formação Jurídica e Judiciária (CFJJ) do Ministério
da Justiça em Moçambique, a Organização das Nações Unidas para Alimentação e Agricultura
(FAO), o Centro Terra Viva (CTV) e a Embaixada do Reino da Noruega em Moçambique unemse na publicação deste material informativo.
 

Neste artigo se discute a relação entre conhecimento e sociedade sob a perspectiva da produção da verdade. Através de uma abordagem etnográfica, se examina relações cambiantes entre segurança ontológica e segurança jurídica no espaço da profissionalização da assistência jurídica em Timor-Leste1. Sugere-se, em consequência, que posse e alienabilidade da terra são produzidos em múltiplos cenários através de composições, sempre contingentes e emergentes, entre agendas de interesse heterogêneas e técnicas com pretensão de verdade.