In Pursuit of Land Tenure Security

Dr. Henri Dekker is an independent consultant in land tenure and real property data management. His education in geodesy, economics and law was followed by a career as civil servant in the Netherlands. In 1982 he started his own consultancy firm and undertook numerous consultancy assignments in different parts of the world where he encountered many aspects of the human pursuit of land tenure security. He is also the author of Property Regimes in Transition (2003, originally published in 2001 as: A new Property Regime in Kyrgyzstan) and The Invisible Line (2003) published by Ashgate; London UK.

• Table of Contents - 6 List of figures - 10 Preface - 12 Acknowledgement - 20 1 PERCEPTION OF LAND TENURE SECURITY - 22 1.1 A book on land tenure security - 22 1.2 Hunger for land - 24 1.3 Land reform is not new - 26 1.4 Structure of the book - 27 2 FIELDS, LAND, ACCESS TO LAND AND STEWARDSHIP OF LAND - 32 2.1 Economics and rights to land - 32 2.2 Land and sea - 39 2.3 Stewardship - 42 2.4 Is land transferable? - 47 2.5 Are we tenants or owners? - 49 2.6 Buying and selling of (rights to) land - 53 2.7 Some land near Bethlehem? - 57 2.8 Returning to Bethlehem - 60 2.9 Part of a field near Bethlehem belonging to Boaz - 63 2.10 Purchasing a parcel of land near Bethlehem - 66 2.11 Just a field near Bethlehem in Judea? - 68 3 PEOPLE IN TRANSITION - 74 3.1 The chairman of the collective farm - 74 3.2 Private individual ownership of rights to land - 79 3.3 Urban property - 84 3.4 Rural life - 88 3.5 From customary to statutory land tenure - 93 3.5.1 Questioning change - 93 3.5.2 Introduction to statutory land tenure - 95 3.5.3 Statutory land tenure together with customary rules? - 98 3.6 Legal pluralism and self-rule - 102 3.7 The practice of indigenous self-rule - 106 3.7.1 Tuva - 106 3.7.2 Northern Canada - 109 3.7.3 What does self-rule mean in daily practice? - 111 4 PRIVATIZATION OF FARMLAND IN FORMER COMMUNIST COUNTRIES - 124 4.1 Reversing the collectivization of farmland - 124 4.2 Sovchozy and kolchozy - 125 4.3 Janis and Vaiva - 128 4.4 Problems of large-scale farming - 131 4.5 Legislation regulating land reform - 133 4.6 Different land reform projects - 135 4.7 Where are my (former) fields? - 136 4.8 Limitations on the size of the land - 138 4.9 Constraints for creating successful private farms - 140 4.10 The actual process of de-collectivization - 142 4.11 Institutional framework for restitution - 144 4.12 Data on restituted land - 149 4.13 Land registration/cadastre and a market economy - 151 4.14 Opportunities to establish a land registration - 154 4.15 Land reform; almost done? - 155 4.16 Privatization in hindsight - 157 5 RAPID RESULTS AND POSTPONED PROBLEMS OR THOROUGH RESEARCH AND SUSTAINED SOLUTIONS? - 164 5.1 Land tenure and land reform - 164 5.2 The economic growth paradigm and the food security paradigm - 167 5.3 Land tenure change in post communist countries - 168 5.4 A new approach to rights to common land - 172 5.5 Development of land tenure systems - 175 5.6 Danger of limited dimensional approaches - 177 5.7 Individual ownership - 179 5.8 Communal ownership - 181 5.9 Individual and communal tenure systems - 185 5.10 Evolutionary theory of land rights - 186 5.11 Additional measures for sustainable solutions - 190 5.12 The challenge: designing an idiosyncratic system - 192 6 LAND TENURE SECURITY IN A UNITED EUROPE - 198 6.1 Increased insecurity? - 198 6.2 Second home or pie in the sky? - 199 6.3 Registration of rights to land - 203 6.4 Four types of land registration - 207 6.5 Criteria for land registration to protect rights to land - 209 6.6 Comprehensive comparison between positive and negative systems - 213 6.7 Moment of transfer of rights to land - 216 6.8 Security of rights to land offered by the government - 218 6.9 Title insurance - 220 6.10 Title insurance and existing land registrations - 225 7 MEASURES AND LAND TENURE SECURITY - 228 7.1 Measures - 228 7.2 The metric system - 232 7.3 Land registration in the USA - 235 7.4 Economic interest - 242 7.5 Landed property - 245 7.6 The final decision maker - 248 7.7 Pursuing land tenure security - 250 Glossary - 258 Index - 266