Description
The problem of escalating population displacement demands global attention and country co-ordination. This book investigates the particular issue of development-induced displacement, whereby land is seized or restricted by the state for the purposes of development projects. Those displaced by these schemes often risk losses to their homes, livelihoods, food security, and socio-cultural support; for which they are rarely fully compensated. Bringing together 22 specialist researchers and practitioners from across the globe, this book provides a much-needed independent analysis of country frameworks for development-induced displacement spanning Asia, Africa, Central and South America.
As global competition for land increases, public and private sector lenders are lightening their social safeguards, shifting the oversight for protecting the displaced to national law and regulations. This raises a central question: Do countries have effective ways of addressing the risks and lost opportunities for their people who are displaced? While many countries remain impervious to the problem, the book also shines a light on the few who are pioneering new legislation and strategies, intended to address questions such as: should the social costs to those displaced help determine whether a project meets the public interest and merits financing? Does the modern state need powers of eminent domain? How can country laws, systems, institutions and negotiations be reformed to protect citizens better against disempowering public and private sector development displacement?
This book will interest those working on forced and voluntary migration, property and expropriation law, human rights, environmental and social impact assessment, internal and refugee displacement from conflicts, environment change, disasters and development.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I Conceptual Frameworks
1. Why national law is essential for protecting public interest and providing safeguards in land acquisition and forced displacement Ruwani Jayewardene
2. Global monitoring of the human impacts of development-forced displacement and resettlement Nadine Walicki
3. Can national and international legal frameworks mitigate land grabbing and dispossession in South-East Asia? Andreas Neef
4. Minding the Gender Gaps: How legal gaps withhold gender-equitable outcomes in land acquisition, compensation, and resettlement Celine Salcedo La Vina
5. Higher Risk, Higher Reward? Negotiated Settlements, Wellbeing and Livelihoods in Development Displacement Susanna Price and Nicholas Tagliarino
Part II Challenges at the Country Level
6. What does it take to mandate good national policy into law? The case of Sri Lanka’s National Involuntary Resettlement Policy Sam Pillai
7. Assessing country safeguards as a protection/benefit for those who are displaced by development projects: the case of democratic South Africa Chris De Wet
8. Safeguarding community livelihoods in Uganda: Analysis of a country framework for land acquisition, resettlement and rehabilitation Russell Rhoads and Onesmus Mugyenyi
9. Indigenous People, Involuntary Resettlement, International Institutions Nahmad Salamon Sitton
10. Paying resettled communities for environmental services: Legally mandated benefit-sharing for Vietnam’s dam displaced Jane Singer
Part III Interweaving international, national and local: Country Case Studies
11. Global or local safeguards? Social impact assessment insights from an urban Indian land acquisition Asmita Kabra and Budhaditya Das
12. Urbanisation resettlement in China: characteristics, risks and the revised Land Administration Law Duan Yuefang, Brooke Wilmsen and Zhao Xu
13. Land rights on paper and in practice in Cambodia: How land rights are recognised, protected and expropriated for project development Sophorn Sek
14. Cultural and political obstacles to effective resettlement: a case study of involuntary displacement of Pehuenche families by the Pangue and Ralco hydroelectric dams in southern Chile Jeanne W. Simon and Claudio Gonzales Parra
15. With or without international institutions? Acquisition of land rights for infrastructure projects in the weak legal framework of Timor-Leste Bernardo Almeida
Conclusion Susanna Price and Jane Singer
