Land Rights in International Human Rights Instruments: Appraising Nigeria’s Compliance

Anugbum Onuoha

doi:10.7176/jlpg/99-07

Abstract

This article explores the scope and content of the right to property and critically evaluates the extent to which Nigeria’s legal protection of private property rights is in conformity with international human rights instruments. It highlights the dimensional allegory that depicts the manifold complexes of regional and international human rights laws and provides clear understanding of the divergence in Nigeria’s human rights adherence with specific focus on land and human rights preservation. It argues that the ostentatious narrative of human rights contains a connotation which portrays an epochal challenge set against the controversies of land policies flowing from tyranny of historical origin and the duplicities of the human rights scheme clouded and obscurity. The article advocates for the construction of a truly universal human rights corpus with regards to the protection of private lands in such manner that is multicultural, comprehensive, and intensely apolitical. Keywords : Land, Human Rights, Laws, International Instruments. DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/99-07 Publication date: July 31 st 2020

Highlights

Land is one of the vital instruments of social security and the genesis of human rights
Land is not just the basement of most natural resources human rights revolves round human beings whose very existence depend on land
Human access to land is courtesy to the exercise of the right to housing, right to water, right to health, and right to food

Summary

Introduction

Land is one of the vital instruments of social security and the genesis of human rights. 2. Literature Review Gilbert[6] explored the interrelationships between land and human rights and observed that “the right to property is a common denominator throughout most of the legal systems of the world, which usually frame it as one of the fundamental liberties of the individual.”. Literature Review Gilbert[6] explored the interrelationships between land and human rights and observed that “the right to property is a common denominator throughout most of the legal systems of the world, which usually frame it as one of the fundamental liberties of the individual.” He highlighted that the warranty of “property rights in land was one of the central issues that triggered the development of an emergent human rights system.”. Relativists hold that the universal human rights discourse originates from Western philosophical positions which conceptualise the individual as the fundamental political actor, rather than the collective or communal units privileged in many non-Western traditions. 9 Human rights discourses can only make universalist claims, argue cultural relativists, because of the global political ascendency of the West. 10 In response, universalists accuse relativists of allowing politically and socially repressive practices, which subordinate individual wellbeing to collective utility, to be justified and legitimised on the basis of cultural difference

The Rights to Property in International Law and Regional Laws

Conclusion