This article analyses the contributory role of the bio-economy and the UN General Assembly Sustainable Development Goals in facilitating and fostering land-grabbing in sub-Saharan Africa. It argues that with the rapidly increasing demand for land and the use of agricultural produce for food and energy purposes, the bio-economy, together with the Sustainable Development Goals, has inexorably exacerbated the practice of land-grabbing in sub-Saharan Africa, where land is considered to be abundant, empty and unused. Sub-Saharan Africa has again been perceived primarily as a steady supplier of land for the production of food and non-food crops.
Despite the constitutional and legislative guarantee to land in Uganda, customary land tenure seems to suffer from inadequate legal protection, a situation that is analogous to that in the colonial and the immediate post-independence era. This article critically examines the normative content of the constitutional and legislative right to land in Uganda and argues that the customary land right is not adequately protected as the other categories of land tenure, in which land is owned and legally recognised in Uganda. It also serves to illustrate that the inadequate protection of customary land rights is analogous to the situation in the colonial and immediate post-independence era, and that weak customary land rights could be susceptible to the occupants’ deprivation during land grabbing. There is a need to address this situation in order to holistically ensure and promote an effective land governance regime that respects and protect customary land tenure.
The use of human rights approaches in the context of development-related activities appears to be the most appropriate means to observe respect for and the protection of people's rights as states are required to adhere to human rights norms and standards. This article argues for the adoption of a rights-based approach within the framework of foreign agricultural investment activities in Uganda in order to ensure respect for, the protection of and the fulfilment of the fundamental human rights of local communities. It provides an exposition of the procedural and substantive rights which are contained in the relevant international and regional legal instruments and which need to be taken into account in such a rights-based approach. It also distils the relevant benchmarks to be used by the government of Uganda as the standards to be achieved in order to ensure the observance and protection of people's rights, especially with regard to the negotiation and implementation of foreign agricultural investment land deals in Uganda. It then compares the Ugandan legal framework against the distilled benchmarks to ascertain if and to what extent the legal framework conforms to these requirements with regard to regulating foreign agricultural investment activities. Based on the distilled minimum human rights requirements and the obligation they bestow on states, the article concludes that in order for the government of Uganda to properly and effectively respect, protect and fulfil local communities' human rights, it is crucially important that it should consider these requirements and fulfil them during the regulation and implementation of foreign agricultural investment land deals in the country.
Even though the principle of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) is soft law, the need to respect, protect and fulfil the rights to be informed and to be involved in development projects is strongly backed in international legal instruments including inter alia the ILO Convention 169 Concerning Indigenous and Tribal People in Independent Countries (1998) and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous and Tribal People (2007). These instruments do not only appear to be the most comprehensive and advanced international legal instruments that deal with indigenous peoples' rights in terms of the FPIC, but also signal an addition to the growing body of international human rights law that serves to ensure the realisation and protection of the substantive environmental and other human rights of indigenous people, particularly in the context of land grabbing activities that have the potential to negatively impact on their rights. Such rights include, for example, the rights to be informed and to participate in decision-making processes with respect to development projects, including land grabbing activities. This implies an obligation on states party to such international agreements to ensure that indigenous people are informed about and are actively involved in both the negotiation and the implementation of land grabbing deals. However, because the latter often takes place against the background of non-transparent transactions which are inimical to the rights and interests of indigenous people, one may wonder why the principle of FPIC is not applicable during land grabbing transactions.Focusing on Cameroon, this article examines instances of land grabbing in the country in order to support this hypothesis. This is done by focusing specifically on the application of the principle of FPIC. The arguments in the article are inspired by international law in which the application of the principle in the context of land grabbing serves not only to protect the rights and interests of indigenous people but is also conducive to fostering and reinforcing the land governance regime of host countries involved in such deals. To this end, the article concludes that because the principle embodies aspects of procedural rights such as the rights to information and participation, which are often conspicuously lacking during land grabbing contracts, its application in and during land grabbing might be useful to set the basis for the recognition, promotion, and enforcement of local communities' rights in Cameroon. KeywordsCross-border insolvency; companies; list of persons who may seek a stay of a winding-up order; grounds for challenging a winding-up order.……………………………………………………….
This article investigates and illustrates the role and importance of a rights-based approach to foreign agro-investment for the government of Cameroon when it is required to govern foreign agro-investment activities. In doing so, the article offers an analytical framework based on human rights norms, principles and standards emerging from relevant international and regional human rights instruments. It aims to provide clarity on how local communities’ rights could be respected, protected and fulfilled when and where foreign agro-investment occurs. Consequently, because a rights-based approach requires states to respect their minimum human rights obligations, its use in the foreign agro-investment context is crucially important to help compel the government of Cameroon to ensure the respect, protection and fulfilment of local communities’ rights.
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