ABSTRACT
Since the Asian economic crisis broke out in 1997, Asian countries have been increasingly bound by the policy dialogues led by the international development agencies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in the formulation of long-term socioeconomic development plans and in all aspects of their implementation. After identifying certain common characteristics of the postindependence Asian land rights, next, this section intends to detect the origins of roaring land disputes in today’s Asia. Due to the constraint of space, a focus will be on Cambodia in the aftermath of the introduction of the 2001 Land Law supported by the ADB’s agricultural policy reform loan (TA2591-CAM) extended together with the World Bank and Germany, known as resulting in a wide-scale deprivation of lands. Today, the land law reforms in Asia promoted by the international donors have an aim of first and foremost implementing the land titling through the establishment of the Torrens-style title registration system.
