ABSTRACT
In South-East Asia, weakly recognised customary land rights, in combination with state ownership of large portions of the national territory, allow governments to categorise the people living on these lands as ‘illegal occupants’, making them easy targets for dispossession. Drawing on recent legislative developments in several South-East Asian countries, this chapter evaluates the potential and limitations of national and international legal frameworks to contain land grabbing and displacement. Particular emphasis is placed on the Voluntary Guidelines, the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the concept of transnational state responsibility for human rights violations. In all five countries examined, the design and implementation of national legal frameworks provide convenient pathways for various actors – political and economic elites, multinational corporations, national and local governments – to grab land from customary landowners whose rights are inadequately secured by existing legislation and national social and environmental safeguards. The disregard of international human rights frameworks and the non-binding nature of international codes of conduct and voluntary principles are major impediments to holding powerful actors accountable involved for land grabbing and displacement. Instead, a binding international legal instrument that builds on the existing soft law frameworks is called for.
