The (in)effectiveness of Global Land Policies on Large-Scale Land Acquisition

Due to current crises, large-scale land acquisition (LSLA) is becoming a topic of growing concern. Public data from the ‘Land Matrix Global Observatory’ project (Land Matrix 2014a) demonstrates that since 2000, 1,664 large-scale land transactions in low- and middle-income countries were reported, covering an area of 69 million hectares. The majority of these land deals, also referred to as ‘land grabs’, took place between 2008 and 2010, peaking in 2009. New evidence reveals that local and national governments and elites are largely initiating and facilitating these land deals, mainly driven by Western investors in order to meet (renewable) energy and commodity demands in the nearby future. International institutions as well as national governments and elites play a dominant role in facilitating these land grabs.
Large-scale land acquisition often goes hand in hand with issues of displacement, weak governance structures, corruption, conflicts, and environmental damages. Several international institutions (World Bank Group, Food and Agriculture Organization – Committee on World Food Security, European Union and African Union) have taken the initiative in developing Global Land Policies in an attempt to govern the global land grab. The effectiveness of these so-called ‘soft law' instruments is however increasingly being questioned. This paper therefore offers a comparative institutional analysis on the effectiveness of global land policies on large-scale land acquisition.