Law Governance and Development Archives - Leiden University Press

Access to Justice and Legal Empowerment

Leiden University Press — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 15:09:54 +0000

How law can aid development has been the focus of much recent discussion among development workers, scholars and policy makers. Indeed, reforms to improve poor people’s access to justice and to promote their legal empowerment comprise the latest trend in legal development cooperation. This volume answers a number of basic questions about this new trend, such as access to justice and legal empowerment entail and its importance; the obstacles the poor and marginalised face in seeking justice and empowerment through the legal system; and the reforms proposed by these approaches to legal development co-operation. Furthermore, it outlines important considerations for policy-makers concerning access to justice and legal empowerment reforms.

Ineke van de Meene is member of the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Development of Leiden University. Benjamin van Rooij is senior lecturer in law, governance and development at the Van Vollenhoven Institute, Faculty of Law, and Department of Chinese Languages and Cultures, Faculty of Arts, Leiden University.

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In The Land of the Chiefs

Leiden University Press — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 15:09:51 +0000

International policy is currently witnessing a renewed interest in customary tenure systems as well as traditional leadership, through which it aims to enhance the efficiency of local governance and create general access to and secure rights in land. Contrary to these ideas, practice reveals a lack of security of customary tenure in areas with a high competition for land. Mounting evidence displays that customary systems often evolve inequitably and that traditional elites benefit disproportionally from commodification of land. In an effort to understand customary land management by traditional authorities and the role policy-makers, lawmakers, judges and civil servants play in this process, this book studies practices of land management in peri-urban Ghana where traditional leadership forms a vibrant part of social life.

This book combines local case studies with theories about efficient land management, the resilience of traditional leadership, the negotiability of customary law and the gap between judges' customary law and local practices. Doing so, it offers a unique body of empirical and theoretical knowledge for those interested in customary land management, as well as those interested in how customary law functions both at the local level and at the level of the state.

Janine Ubink works as an assistant professor at the Van Vollenhoven Institute Faculty of Law of Leiden University.

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Sharia and National Law in Muslim Countries

Leiden University Press — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 15:09:47 +0000

The relationship between ‘Islam and the West’ has become a central issue in international relations. Recently, an overwhelmingly negative view of sharia has developed in the West, in response to reported events, notably in Iran and Saudi Arabia, to terrorist attacks by Islamists, and also encouraged by certain Western opinion leaders. A range of misconceptions about what sharia actually means and how it relates to national law in Muslim countries, both in theory and practice, has contributed to foreign policies that are confrontational rather than pragmatic. This Research and Policy Note identifies key features, problems and approaches of sharia-based law and links them to foreign policy. This is a vital contribution towards the development of a well-informed, coherent, explicit long-term foreign policy towards the Muslim world. Since strengthening the Rule of Law, including human rights, should be an element of such policy, this worl addresses the relationship between sharia and the Rule of Law.

Jan Michiel Otto is professor of law and governance in developing countries at Leiden University, and director of the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Development.

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Contesting Land and Custom in Ghana

Leiden University Press — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 15:09:47 +0000

African policy has been showing a growing interest in promoting customary land tenure, based on the idea that the customary represents egalitarian communal arrangements. This approach ignores the fact that customary land relations have been contested throughout history, by various groups that each try to redefine what constitutes custom in a situation of change. In Ghana, land has become increasingly commoditised as a result of the growing value of real estate and the development of new commercial agricultural sectors. This has led to an intensification of attempts by chiefs, earth priests, land users, and governmental actors to redefine land ownership and tenure.The contributions to this essential volume critically examine ideas on customary land tenure in Ghana. They analyse the relations between the customary and statutory tenure and the institutional interactions between the state and traditional authorities in land administration, addressing issues of power, economic interests, transparency, accountability, conflicts and notions of social justice, equity and negotiation. They examine both past and contemporary policy issues, and present a number of case studies with implications for national and international policy-makers.

Janine Ubink is senior lecturer in law and governance in Africa at the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Development at Leiden University. Kojo Amanor is associate professor at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana.

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Sharia Incorporated

Leiden University Press — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 15:09:45 +0000

The aim of Sharia Incorporated is to provide unbiased and contextual information about a topic that has of late been hijacked by politics in the Muslim world as well as in the West. Sharia Incorporated, written by laudable international scholars, is an ambitious study of the incorporation of Islamic law traditions into national legal systems. The book also explores the sensitive topic of ‘Western’ human rights and other rule of law standards in a Muslim world. It provides an in-depth analysis of the role of sharia in the historical and legal formation of twelve representative Muslim states, with a unique comparison of key issues raised by the ‘Islamic awakening’ of recent decades. In the preface Jan Michiel Otto goes to the heart of the prevailing environment in which Western discourses tend to oversimplify the substance and effect of Islam and sharia.

Jan Michiel Otto is professor of law and governance in developing countries at Leiden University, and director of the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Development.

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Legalising Land Rights

Leiden University Press — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 15:09:45 +0000

Millions of people live and work on land that they do not legally own in accordance with enforceable state law. The absence of state recognition for local property rights affects people’s tenure security and impedes development. Efforts to legalise extra-legal land tenure have traditionally emphasised individual titling and registration. Disappointment with such approaches have led to a search for ‘a third way’ in land tenure regulation that will reconcile state perspectives with local land rights.

This book contributes to the quest for a new pluralistic approach. It combines the description of land tenure regimes in Africa, Latin America and Asia with an analysis of designs, objectives, and actual implementation of specific legalisation programmes. This allows for conclusions on the relationship between various kinds of legalisations and tenure security and the challenges to improve the design and implementation of legalisation programmes.

Janine Ubink is senior researcher in law and governance in Africa at the Van Vollenhoven Institute of the Leiden University. André Hoekema is professor in legal pluralism at the University of Amsterdam, Law Faculty. Willem Assies coordinated the research on which this book is based and currently is an independent researcher.

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One Billion Rising

Leiden University Press — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 15:09:42 +0000

Most of the world’s estimated 1.4 billion poorest people are still rural. Yet the majority lack ownership (or any secure rights) to the land that is their principal source of livelihood. Although land law and related reforms have transformed the lives of millions of families by providing secure land rights, not all such efforts have succeeded. Over the years, the conventional wisdom concerning law and land tenure reform—what is needed, what is possible, and how such reform contributes to pro-poor development—has changed, sometimes in striking ways. Lawyers at the Rural Development Institute and the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle have spent more than four decades advising on, helping formulate and assessing the results of land tenure reform efforts around the world. The present volume distils key lessons from that work and parallel work by others.

Roy L. Prosterman is Founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Rural Development Institute (RDI) in Seattle, Washington, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington School of Law. Tim Hanstad is Chief Executive Officer and President of RDI, and Affiliate Associate Professor of Law at the University of Washington School of Law. Robert Mitchell is Program Chair and Senior Land Tenure Expert at RDI, where he currently directs RDI's India Program, and Affiliate Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Washington School of Law.

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Technology for Justice

Leiden University Press — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 15:09:39 +0000

Technology for Justice examines the impact of IT on the administration of justice. Drawing on a broad variety of sources such as comparative studies, statistics, case law and legal studies on the use of IT in court, Reiling examines how IT can help remedy judicial delays, lack of access to justice and court corruption. She also explores the potential of the Internet technology for increasing access to legal information as a means of self help with settlement and support for court access.

Dory Reiling, judge at the Amsterdam first instance court, was formerly the IT policy officer for the Dutch judiciary and a senior World Bank judicial reform expert.

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Fair Land Governance

Leiden University Press — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 15:08:46 +0000

“These farmers have been working this land for generations. But they have no papers. So the government may clear this land for a project. People fear they will be chased away.” Such stories can be heard every day in Africa, Asia and Latin America. They demonstrate the insecurity of rural smallholders who are threatened with eviction without proper compensation. The ‘project’ may be large-scale agriculture, industry, bio fuels, forest conservation, urban sprawl, or transnational land-grabbing by countries insecure in food and energy resources. Can such peasants be empowered with ‘papers’? Five legal experts who believe in adaptation to local conditions share their experiences and work with local people, take their needs seriously, respect their ways of managing land, make good use of the legal system and opt for simple but robust registration systems.

André J. Hoekema is professor of legal pluralism at the University of Amsterdam. Jan Michiel Otto is professor of Law and Governance in Developing Countries at Leiden University.

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Real Legal Certainty and its Relevance

Leiden University Press — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 11:32:30 +0000

The concept of ‘real legal certainty’ provides a much needed corrective to the general attention for legal certainty in this day and age. It emphasises relations between citizens, adds socio-legal insight, provides a ‘view from below,’ and thus leads to more realistic insights on how to build state institutions. The concept was introduced by Leiden […]

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