Agricultural Investments in Southeast Asia: Legal tools for public accountability

TitleAgricultural Investments in Southeast Asia: Legal tools for public accountability
Annotated RecordAnnotated
Year of Publication2014
AuthorsPolack E, Cotula L, Blackmore E, Guttal S
Paginationi-iv, 1-25
Key themesCivilSociety-Donors, Dispossession-grabbing, Policy-law
Abstract

As trade and investment flows rapidly increase across Southeast Asia, several countries have experienced a surge in large land deals for plantation agriculture. Against this backdrop, civil society organisations have been using a wider range of legal tools to promote public accountability in investment processes. These include scrutinising the negotiation of international treaties, challenging national legal frameworks, raising local awareness about rights, and testing approaches for local consultation and redress. This report distils key lessons gathered from a regional workshop where legal practitioners, civil society groups and academics shared experiences of using different legal tools for accountability in agricultural investments. Together, these experiences illustrate how working across scales and arenas of law, bridging legal and political strategies, and forming strategic alliances can legally empower citizens, build accountability and shape investments for sustainable development. This report has been produced under IIED’s Legal tools for citizen empowerment project.
URLhttp://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/12573IIED.pdf
Availability

Available for download
Countries

Cambodia
Document Type

Report

Annotations

Overall relevance: 

The report reflects the ideas and inputs of all workshop participants through presentations, group discussions and debate relating to the rights of land holders. It distils key lessons gathered from the regional workshop where legal practitioners, civil society groups and academics shared experiences of using different legal tools for accountability in agricultural investments. This report has been produced under IIED’s Legal tools for citizen empowerment project

Key Themes: 
  • Civil society and donor engagement in land issues - The legal protection of local rights remains weak. In many countries, poor communities are losing out and there is a real risk that benefits of agricultural investments will be concentrated within a narrow segment of society. In order to protect the affected communities, there is a need to focus on ‘engaging with legal frameworks’. Tools and tactics should include civil society scrutiny of international investment treaties, engaging, challenging and influencing national legal frameworks. Also important is building up the legal tools for public accountability investment treaties, seeking judicial review of investment legislation, and running awareness-raising campaigns for farmers on negotiating better contracts
  • Land policy and land law - Opportunities can be harnessed through international human rights instruments, scrutinising investor-state and investor-farmer contracts, and leveraging opportunities provided by international standards and principles for improving practices on the ground. Innovative examples include using public participation clauses in national law to secure public scrutiny. Of critical importance is the bridging of law and politics in legal empowerment strategies. There are clear differences in the political space for citizen action within Southeast Asia. Therefore, there is the need of finding suitable tools to push the boundaries of the legal system
Research basis: 

The report reflects the ideas and inputs of all workshop participants through presentations, group discussions and debate relating to the rights of land holders. It distils key lessons gathered from the regional workshop where legal practitioners, civil society groups and academics shared experiences of using different legal tools for accountability in agricultural investments. This report has been produced under IIED’s Legal tools for citizen empowerment project. (Provided by Phan Trung Hien)