Customary Land Tenure in Liberia - Land Tenure and Property ...

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make productive use of land and thereby reduce the potential for evictions. Finally, interventions could
bolster traditional social obligations around protecting widows and ensuring that women have the right to
return to their natal communities.
Figure 10.1: Summary of policy recommendations
Legal Reforms
Documentation
of Customary
Rights
Continue the moratorium on public land sales.
Institute more stringent enforcement of the moratorium and close loopholes that have allowed some
individuals to by-pass it.
Instate a moratorium on the granting of concessions on case-by-case basis until measures are in place
to protect communities‟ land rights. The moratorium need not be placed over the whole country
before any investment/concessions can take place, but rather could be prioritized on a case-by-case
basis in each specific area where investments/concessions are planned. The measures that could be
put in place include:
o A law that grants legal recognition to land claimed under customary tenure;
o Regulations that map out a process for systematically documenting the land rights of rural
communities based on custom; and
o The enactment and completion of that process at national level.
Consider a new Public Land Law that “defines public land and clearly distinguishes between public
land and land held by local communities under customary land tenure” (Bruce and Kanneh, 2010).
Consider a Community Rights Law that provides explicit recognition of customary land rights as
perpetual, heritable rights subject to the same legal protections as rights granted in fee simple.
Under Community Rights Law, define „Community Land‟ as “land available for communities to exert
perpetual, heritable rights to land via customary law, which is inalienable unless removed by a
member of the claimant community via a prescribed process to convert it to fee simple tenure.”
Consider applying Community Land to all land falling outside designated urban zones that are currently
unencumbered by legitimately acquired fee simple deeds, government claims, or existing leaseholds or
concessions.
The principal basis for documentation of customary tenure should be the unit within which primary
rights to access land and natural resources are acquired and where the main locus of land and resource
governance is housed – the ”core tenure unit.” The documents should be those of localities, not
individuals.
Consider simpler approaches for recording the land rights of core tenure units based on low-cost
demarcation methods along with a certificate that describes the rights granted to the community and a
basic description of the physical boundaries and sketch map of the claimed area.
If feasible, demarcation should involve a process whereby rights can be recorded on a cadaster so that
a graphic composite of community claims is available and can be used to inform the actions of
government and potential claimants, as well as evidence in case of disputes.
Certificate could also include “encumbrances,” such as secondary rights granted to neighboring
communities to harvest certain natural resources.
Consider systematically recording Community Land rights throughout the country at minimal or no cost
to those communities apart from their time to participate in the process.
In recording Community Land rights, privilege oral testimony and other customary forms of evidence
as proof of customary claims.
Combine or follow up with the development of local “conventions” or by-laws for land and natural
CUSTOMARY LAND TENURE IN LIBERIA