Land Regime Research Articles

Singapore's Imminent Expiration of Land Leases: From Growth and Equality to Discontent and Inequality?

AbstractHaila described Singapore as a laboratory for a social scientist given the multiple ways land is used, managed or treated as a source of public revenue. Phang explains how housing has given the bottom 50 per cent of households, wealth equating to the level advocated in Piketty's ‘ideal society’. As fixed‐term leases expire, people who own apartments on public land will see their values fall to zero. Inequality will return, challenging the otherwise stable polity. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, this paper explores how and why this unique land regime was created, and expose how theoretically inconsistent policies and their ad hoc, pragmatic application has created several rent leakages to a minority of the population who continue to hold freehold land. It offers some alternative strategies better informed by land rent theory, that might be adopted to preserve the benefits enjoyed for now.

Legal Provision of Rational Nature Management in the Conditions of Martial Law

The article is devoted to the currently relevant problem of legal provision of rational nature management in the conditions of martial law. From the theoretical foundations, the right of using nature resources, is considering in three guises: as a legal institution, as a subjective right, as a legal relationship. In scientific surrounding there are discussions about the topic of applying the categories of «legal regulation», «legal provision» and «governance”. The first one includes, the general legal provisions of ensuring the right of using nature resources by everyone. The second group consists of special norms of domestic legislation on ensuring the right of special using the nature resources. The third group is also conventionally divided into two parts: application of international principles of rational nature management and sustainable development; adaptive nature management, in compliance with the principle of "do no harm", under the legal regime of martial law.
 Observe, that management is carried out by the military command and state authorities in wartime, has a significant impact on ensuring national security, regulation in the management system of the national economy and is characterized by the permissibility of limiting the constitutional human rights and freedoms and legitimate interests of legal entities, at least the law provides the validity period of these restrictions. The article noted, the changes in the organization of administration affects the procedures for its implementation under the legal regime of martial law.
 The author gives a generalized description of the provision of sustainable development under the conditions of rational nature management as the primary basis for the economic security of Ukraine in the conditions of martial law.
 The article describes the processes of amendments and additions to the legislation that allow changing the legal regime of lands for relocated enterprises. On the one hand, this issue is solved by legal regulation, and on the other - it is necessary to talk about supporting businesses whose activities are innovative and environmentally oriented. The author is conveying the opinion, that the war should in no case be the reason for the violation of the principles of rational nature management and sustainable development of regions for new enterprises.
 In the conditions of aggressive hostilities against the background of shelling, bombing, mining, and arson of natural objects, including other types of pollution during the war, the preservation of the qualitative and quantitative state of Ukraine's natural resources seems extremely unoptimistic. In fact, by conducting monitoring and cadastral observation, we can compare the state of natural resources and natural objects in general by qualitative and quantitative indicators before, during and after the war, which will be useful for documenting war crimes.

Changing the Approach to the Land Categories in the Context of the Urban Agglomeration Development

The issues of territory development are relevant, since the current legislation considers land as the basis of human life and activity and the territorial basis for development. The ability of a person to satisfy his social and economic needs depends on the legal regime of lands. A new trend in the development of territories is the formation of urban agglomerations, including lands with different legal regimes.Land and urban planning legislation should take into account current trends in the development of territories, the need to reform the institutions of land and urban planning law for sustainable socioeconomic growth of the Russian Federation. At the same time, it is necessary to identify ways to reform the current legislation in order to ensure the stable development of territories and effective management in the field of land use. Achieving this goal is impossible without analyzing both theoretical approaches and practical proposals for reforming the current legislation.The issues of the abolition of categorization of lands have a long and debatable nature. The paper gives a legal assessment of the division of land into categories in the context of the development of urban agglomerations as new forms of territorial formations. The validity of the abolition of land categories and the transition to zoning of territories in modern trends is assessed.

State-Centered Land Regimes and the Struggle for Customary Land in East Asia

State-Centered Land Regimes and the Struggle for Customary Land in East Asia

Beyond colonial urbanism: state power, global connections and fragmented land regimes in twentieth-century Hyderabad city

AbstractUrban histories of modern South Asia have centred on British Indian cities and the reign of colonial urbanism, with dependence on metropolitan imperatives and models regarded as givens. Focusing on Hyderabad, one of the subcontinent's five largest cities and capital of an autonomous princely state throughout the colonial era, this article establishes the analytical utility of princely urbanism as a framework for writing the history of South Asian cities. Characterized by state-directed planning, transnational urbanist networks and multiple overlapping property regimes, this mode of city development and its resonance points to hidden genealogies of modern urbanism.

Emptying the landscape: outsider place-making, tourism and migration in Sikkim, India

Lachung valley in north Sikkim, India is valorised and marketed as a pristine, traditional, culturally and ecologically rich landscape. Tourism in Sikkim relies on a trail of non-local tour operators, hotel chains and migrant labour, which in turn, has emptied the landscape of local communities who out-migrate for education and employment. This emptying however, comes not from displacement or dispossession, but from the effectiveness of local land regimes that allow many locals to live and work in other parts of the state while generating profits from the land. The paper focuses on tourist-based placemaking in Sikkim, India to illustrate, first, the reconfiguration of socio-spatial relationships as a result of tourism as a development strategy; second, the transformation of the landscape and the attendant mobilities that it enables, and finally, the material, social and political assemblages crucial to the production of the constantly shifting understandings of space and place.

Land tenure system and harvesting time’s influence on the marketing behaviour of cashew farmers in the Bono Region of Ghana

This study investigated the land tenure system, harvesting time and marketing behaviour of cashew farmers in Ghana. Primary data was compiled from 120 cashew farmers, and the multinomial probit was used to assess the determinants of cashew marketing outlets. Types of land ownership (tenure system) for cashew production in Ghana were leasehold, stool, family, state and customary lands. The sales of cashew nuts to buying companies and/or exporters is positively influenced by the land tenure system, good road network, weekly harvest, contract agreements and grading of cashew nuts. Conversely, the experience of farmers coupled with less than one week of harvesting influences the choice of brokers' outlet. The result implies that, cashew cultivation on stool land, likewise harvesting time increases the probability of selling to buying companies and exporters who offered higher margins compared with brokers. Consequently, generic land reform for the whole country to enhance agribusinesses may be important but unnecessary. It is also suggested that the customary land arrangement provided the opportunity to sell to a profitable marketing outlet, it is suggested that Government and NGOs should rather be interested in strengthening the current customary land regime and consultatively recommend for review where necessary in the study areas.

Rescaling of the land regime in the making of city-regions: A case study of China’s Pearl River Delta

Ubiquitous in fast-urbanising China, land-driven urban growth is increasingly inter-urban in nature – a trend that is underexplored in the literature. Grounded in a conceptual framework concerning the rescaling of the land regime, this study probes the unfolding land development processes of city-regionalism. Key findings of an examination of the Shenzhen–Shanwei Special Cooperation Zone in the Pearl River Delta are as follows: land regime rescaling is an emergent driving force for city-region making in China; the rescaled land regime centres on uneven capacities among the states of cooperating cities and benefit sharing (immediate land-related profit and potential long-term profit); provincial government engagement is fundamental to legitimatising this contested process; the rescaled land regime has been orchestrated by state interests in land development, rather than business interests released by marketisation, spawning a ‘stretching’ state territoriality of the central city. This article furthers the field’s understanding of a ‘world of city-regionalisms’ through a situated account of emerging city-regionalism characterised by land development in the Chinese context.

Land governance for agroecology

Agroecological transitions aim to redesign the structure of contemporary global food systems to improve food security, ecosystem health, community development, worker livelihoods, and social and ecological justice. A fundamental principle of agroecology is the responsible governance of land. Yet land—as a concept, resource, and territory—is heavily contested through processes of colonization, enclosure, commodification, and financialization. The governance of land and natural resources is also intimately tied to questions of power and privilege—Who governs land? Who benefits, and who is excluded? These questions presuppose an ontological understanding of land that can also be contested: What is land, what purpose(s) does it serve, and for whom? In this article, we review key concepts at the intersection of land governance and agroecology. We take a case study approach to highlight how tensions around ontologies of land mediate agroecological futures in 2 settler-colonial contexts: Brazil and Canada. We then explore how land governance for agroecology might be experienced and understood across different land governance institutions—including relational and community commons, private property regimes, and new forms of hybrid land relations that challenge land privatization. We discuss how these land regimes influence people, landscapes, and agroecological outcomes and conclude with a consideration of the access, equity, and justice implications of different land governance approaches for sustainable food systems.

The Role of Energy Directives in Ensuring EU Energy Security and the Problems of Implementation in Ukrainian Legislation

This article attempts to analyze the role of energy directives in ensuring energy security of the European Union, as well as the analysis of the current state of their implementation in the legislation of Ukraine in accordance with the Treaty establishing the Energy Community and the Association Agreement with the EU. The development of legal security of energy sphere in the EU from the Treaty of Paris on the European Coal and Steel Community to the fourth energy package, which allowed to provide the development of competition among producers and suppliers of energy resources, to provide equal access to the energy distribution and gas-distribution networks, to liberalize the energy sector and energy resources, to increase the use of green energy, to reduce emissions into the atmosphere, and to raise the level of energy security in Ukraine. In this article, authors have used the systematic approach and legal method analysis of the implementation process of EU Energy Directives in the Ukrainian legislation, in particular the Law "On Natural Gas Market", the Law "On Electricity Market", the Law "On Energy Efficiency", the Law "On Energy Land and Legal Regime of Special Zones of Energy Facilities", and the Energy Strategy of Ukraine till 2035 "Security, Energy Efficiency, Competitiveness".

Territorial Zoning and Permitted Use of Lands as a Way to Determine the Legal Regime of Lands and Land Plots

The paper is devoted to the study of problems related to the definition of the legal regime of land and land plots in Russia by establishing the types of permitted use in accordance with the territorial zoning. The issues raised in the paper are especially relevant in connection with the alleged exclusion from the Land Code of the Russian Federation of the principle of dividing land and land plots into categories according to their intended purpose. As a result, the main problems of establishing the legal regime are identified, such as the lack of legislatively fixed terminology in the field of establishing the legal regime and permitted use, the impossibility of establishing the types of permitted use for certain categories of land, and the underdevelopment of the institution of zoning territories. In this regard, there are problems in establishing the legal regime of land, since several types of zoning can be distributed to one territory, between which there is no relationship and subordination. The author concludes that the institutions of territorial zoning and permitted use require detailed revision. The paper suggests some ways to solve the identified problems. The necessity of legislative consolidation of the terminology associated with the establishment of the legal regime of land and the development of territorial zoning is emphasized.

Ecological safety of organic land use as a condition for sustainable development

The study of the content of the legal mechanism of organic land use through the key goals of sustainable development of Ukraine and the global goals of sustainable development until 2030 is conducted in the article. The share of agricultural land under organic production in the total area of agricultural land in Ukraine is one of the indicators of the task of achieving the goals of sustainable development. Theoretical and normative-legal aspects of ensuring ecological safety of organic land use are studied. The climate change situation is the basis for special attention to the legal regulation of organic land use. Ensuring organic land use is identified as an important task in the context of the European Green Agenda.
 The concept of "organic land use" as a legal institution is studied. It is an integral part of organic agricultural production. The normative and legal bases of organic land use are outlined. It is determined that the peculiarities of organic land use activities determine the peculiarities of the legal regime of lands used for this purpose. In order to prevent and prevent the deterioration of the quality of the environment, products and agricultural land to be used in organic land use, an effective system of legal measures should be developed at the state level. conclusion. The implementation of these measures should ensure the environmental safety of agricultural production in general, as well as the production of organic agricultural products. Consolidation at the regulatory level of the definition of "land for organic land use" with a special legal regime, development and approval of criteria for assessing the suitability of land (soil) for the production of organic agricultural products, primarily of plant origin, is proposed. The study was carried out taking into account the need for real implementation of the basic norms and values that underlie the European Green Course.

Understanding the Intensity of Land-Use and Land-Cover Changes in the Context of Postcolonial and Socialist Transformation in Kaesong, North Korea

This study examines the land-use and land-cover changes (LUCCs) in Kaesong, a North Korean city, and the area adjacent to the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). An intensity analysis—a framework decomposing LUCCs into interval, category, and transition levels—is applied to the land-cover maps of 1916, 1951, and 2015 to understand the importance of the historical period and associated land regimes (imperialism and socialism) in shaping LUCCs. The five land-cover classes—Built, Agriculture, Forest, Water, and Others—were analyzed among the two historical periods from Imperial Japan’s colonization (1910–1945) and the South–North division since the Korean War (1953–present). The results show that, at the interval level, the colonial period LUCCs were more intensive than the division period. However, >50% of the study area underwent changes during each period. At the category level, river channel modifications were the most intensive, followed by deforestation. In terms of transition, consistent intensity trends from Others to Built and Agriculture were observed across both land regimes. In conclusion, the LUCCs were more intensive under Japanese imperialism than the North Korean socialist regime, but the economic and geographic factors were not substantially affected by such land regimes. These underlying forces may be more significant fundamental drivers of LUCCs than land regimes themselves.

Special Legal Regime of Agricultural Land, Forest Land and Grassland

Certain categories of land have a special character and, consequently, a strict legal regime, regulated by various legal provisions whose application leads, indirectly, to a restriction of the right of private property for the owners. These limitations are imposed to protect the public interest, but it is important to find a fair balance between the interests of private owners and those of the community. Through this study we will investigate which are these limitations, at European level, respectively at national level.

Генезис понятия «невостребованная земельная доля» в российском законодательстве

The concept of “unclaimed land share” appeared and developed in Russian legislation due to the debatable nature of the legal nature and the ambiguity of the legal regime of the land share as a category of land law. The article provides a description of the theoretical and practical issues related to the genesis of the doctrinal and legal concepts of land share and unclaimed land share, the topical issues of recognizing a land share as unclaimed. The author gives the timeline of the concept of unclaimed land share in the legislation, and indicates the change in the criteria for classifying land shares as unclaimed, as well as the complexity of the legal mechanism for recognizing the right of public ownership of them. The article also outlines the possible areas for further development of the legal regime of unclaimed land shares and improvement of its efficiency: procedural improvement to recognize land shares as unclaimed and the criteria for classifying them as such; regulation of the extrajudicial transfer of unclaimed land shares into municipal ownership; establishment of a term for the right to recognize unclaimed land shares as municipal property; use of the legal mechanism for recognizing ownership of unclaimed land shares as ownerless; limitation of the period of use of the legal category of “unclaimed land share”.

The role of the institute of zoning of territories in establishing the legal regime of lands of various categories

The role of the institute of zoning of territories in establishing the legal regime of lands of various categories

The unintended consequences of Egypt's institutional land regime on unplanned settlement growth in the Nile Valley

Egypt has been facing substantial unplanned human settlement growth on agricultural land since the 1950s. Although plans to better manage future settlement growth are ongoing, a full understanding of unplanned settlement growth on agricultural land remains lacking. This study investigated why and how unplanned human settlement growth occurs in Assiut Governorate, the Nile Valley. A mixed-method approach combining the institutional resource regime framework, template analysis, and process tracing was used to gain insights into those mechanisms that generate unplanned growth. Analyzing the institutional land regime between 1805 and 2020 revealed that various public policies have existed alongside of land use and property rights, but the overall regime remains incoherent. In-depth interviews with stakeholders in Assiut Governorate highlighted that the informality in Assiut was driven by institutional and political, cultural, and economic forces (a total of 26 forces). Process tracing showed that the key mechanism behind unplanned settlement growth has existed since the 1950s and is triggered by a combination of incoherent public policy, land use and property rights. These results suggest that the current national development plan (2052 Vision) will most probably lead to similar setbacks if the land regime's complexity and incoherence are not addressed. They also revealed that several informal institutions and local values and customs could also be significant obstacles to effective regulation of the development of agricultural land in the Nile Valley and Delta Region.

‘We are the ones who know the intimacies of the soil’: Grazier claims to belonging and changing land relations in Cape York Peninsula, Queensland

AbstractAcross Cape York Peninsula, the cattle grazing industry has declined in recent decades due to falling cattle prices, shorter wet seasons and land tenure changes. Remaining graziers perceive their status in the region as increasingly marginal and explain this precarity with the ‘locking up’ of Cape York land regimes and environments by National Parks and Aboriginal interests. Based on 14 months of ethnographic research in south‐east Cape York conducted in 2018–2019, in this article I describe and analyse how graziers construct their claims to belonging in the region in response to land tenure changes. Drawing on recent scholarship on non‐Indigenous forms of belonging in settler states and using the case study of one particular grazing family, I discuss how graziers position themselves as those who ‘know the intimacies of the soil’, as one grazier stated, due to multigenerational work on the land. Their claim to belonging tends to ignore prior Aboriginal occupation and instead emphasises their long‐term relationships with local Aboriginal families, while the third main stakeholder in the region, Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, is perceived as a kind of dispossessor representing non‐local ‘Green’ ideologies and interests.

Planning documentation as a management tool of land of public use

The article defines the concept of public lands located both within and outside settlements. It is established that the legal regime of public lands is formed by legislative and regulatory documents that determine the rules of placement of relevant facilities, namely public buildings, and their use. It has been determined that public lands have a public use regime, but restrictions may be imposed on their use. It has been established that public lands belong to all nine categories of land and the affiliation of individual public lands to each of the land categories has been determined. Accordingly, the legal regime in different public lands differs significantly. The irrationality and inexpediency of separating public lands into a separate category of lands are substantiated. It has been established that planning documentation is an effective tool for the management of public lands, and the affiliation of such lands to one of the categories allows to determine which of the planning documents is relevant for the management of these lands. The land management, urban planning and interdisciplinary planning documentation is analysed and planning documents, the development of which is relevant and expedient for the management of public lands of certain categories of land are established. It was concluded that the formation of an integrated community space and effective management of its lands, including public use, it is important to systematically use land management and urban planning documentation on the basis of a community approved strategy.

Systems of Planning and Development of Territories: Foreign Countries Cases

The paper is devoted to the study of foreign experience of legal regulation of systems of planning and development of territories. The experience of the USA and Germany was chosen for the study. The paper examines the structure of land use by various authorities and the main legislative acts in the field of land use planning. Attention is given to the main problems of land use regulation in foreign countries, as well as promising directions for the development of legislation in the field of planning and land use. The greatest attention is given to land use planning in foreign countries at the regional and local levels. As a result of the study, differences were identified that are fundamental in the legal regulation of land use and the determination of the legal regime of lands and land plots. The directions in which domestic legislation should be developed for more effective regulation of land use were noted, including zoning of territories and improving public participation in the adoption of territorial planning documents and changes in the types of zones of land plots.