Skip to content Skip to navigation
University of Warwick
  • Study
  • |
  • Research
  • |
  • Business
  • |
  • Alumni
  • |
  • News
  • |
  • About

University of Warwick
Publications service & WRAP

Highlight your research

  • WRAP
    • Home
    • Search WRAP
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse WRAP by Year
    • Browse WRAP by Subject
    • Browse WRAP by Department
    • Browse WRAP by Funder
    • Browse Theses by Department
  • Publications Service
    • Home
    • Search Publications Service
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse Publications service by Year
    • Browse Publications service by Subject
    • Browse Publications service by Department
    • Browse Publications service by Funder
  • Help & Advice
University of Warwick

The Library

  • Login
  • Admin

State policy and law in relation to land alienation in Ethiopia

Tools
- Tools
+ Tools

Srur, Muradu A. (2014) State policy and law in relation to land alienation in Ethiopia. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

[img]
Preview
PDF
WRAP_THESIS_Spur_2014.pdf - Submitted Version - Requires a PDF viewer.

Download (3419Kb) | Preview
Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b2846091~S1

Request Changes to record.

Abstract

The thesis examines the nature and mechanisms of land alienation in the context of Ethiopia's history of land relations and the role of national and global actors. In consideration of these themes, the study has adopted a contextual analysis of law and policy. Data from fieldwork has informed the core themes. It has also involved a combination of doctrinal legal research and documentary policy research augmented by quantitative data.

The research considers issues of land alienation in the situation where the main relevant perspectives argue for the abolition of the people's ownership of land approach embodied in the country's 1995 Constitution and its replacement by private ownership of land (privatization perspective) or for its modification to allow alienation of land use rights (revisionist perspective) or for its change into village ownership of land with a possibility of market transfer of land use rights (associative ownership perspective). In addition to their promotion of one or another form of land alienation, the above three perspectives focus on consideration of ways to break the bureaucratic power of the State over land. This study contends that a focus on these issues has prevented the perspectives from fully identifying and thus explaining features of the ongoing land alienation in Ethiopia including the position of international institutions.

This thesis therefore claims that there is an underlying shift towards marketable property in land in favor of actors who are assumed to be 'better land improvers. This is happening in a dual context of significant land poverty and economic growth.' Land alienation is being manifested in rural land expropriation laws, administrative and judicial endorsement of kontract, absence of recognition of communal lands and transfer by the State of the communal rural lands to large-scale farmers through the deployment of discourses such as 'empty land' and the 'tragedy of the commons.' This gravitation clashes with the people's ownership of land approach that provides for agricultural land for peasants and pastoralists, security of their landholdings and a ban on land alienation. The tilt has resulted in another tension between federal and regional governments where the Centre claims that efficiency demands that it handle land transfers to developers whereas the regions assert their constitutional power over land. Similarly, global institutions are involved in a contradiction because they prescribe land rights to the poor as a strategy to reduce poverty in Ethiopia and at the same time they encourage large-scale land grants in accordance with `principles of responsible agricultural investment.' The thesis proposes an affirmation of the constitutional principles concerning land with a proper form of constitutionality.

Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
Subjects: K Law [LC] > KN Asia and Eurasia, Africa, Pacific Area, and Antarctica
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): Land reform -- Law and legislation -- Ethiopia
Official Date: December 2014
Dates:
DateEvent
December 2014Submitted
Institution: University of Warwick
Theses Department: School of Law
Thesis Type: PhD
Publication Status: Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor: Paliwala, Abdul
Sponsors: Ethiopia ; University of Warwick
Extent: xiv, 333 leaves
Language: eng

Request changes or add full text files to a record

Repository staff actions (login required)

View Item View Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics

twitter

Email us: wrap@warwick.ac.uk
Contact Details
About Us