Publication: Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal
Publication Date: 01-JAN-04
Format: Online - approximately 1480 words
Delivery: Immediate Online Access
Author: Blocher, Joseph
Article Excerpt
The Invisible Line: Land Reform, Land Tenure Security and Land Registration, by Henri A.L. Dekker Publisher: Ashgate Publishing (2003) Price: $89.95
Land makes up three quarters of the wealth of most developing nations and plays crucial social, customary, and religious roles. Land reform is thus a major focus of economic development and human rights programs. Recent popular works by writers such as Hernando de Soto extol the virtues and apparent benefits of increased land tenure security and suggest that the Third World can expect explosive economic growth if property rights can be established, formalized, and protected.
The focus on formal property rights as an antecedent to economic growth is not a recent development. In the past fifty years, citizens of developing countries have been subjected to a flurry of land tenure reform projects, most of them involving Western-style title registration. Though some of these programs have apparently helped spark economic growth--Gershon Feder's oft-cited study of Thailand is perhaps the best-known example--many more have been disappointing at best, and counterproductive at worst. To help explain these successes and failures, economic and legal theorists have put forth a number of competing theories for why land rights--"invisible," socially-constructed lines--evolve in the first place, and why their existence can and should contribute to economic growth and social stability.
Henri A.L. Dekker's The Invisible Line, a broad study of land...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.
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