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Understanding the Local Complexities in Land Law Reforms: The Case of Land Inalienability in Ethiopia, 1991–2018
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 September 2024
Abstract
Postcolonial governments often restrict the market alienability of land rights for various policy reasons. One policy aims to treat all citizens equivalently and safeguard vulnerable social communities equally, as an unrestrained land market could allow one affluent social group to buy out one that is less affluent. Another policy is to set a standard that is easy to apply in the same way in every case, as a bright-line rule banning land alienation is simpler to administer than a standard that requires case-by-case considerations. Today, in Ethiopia, such laws face opposition from proponents of a free market economy and private property rights. Thus, international development institutions and influential Ethiopians are spearheading an ambitious reform to Ethiopia’s post-socialist law that bans land alienability, arguing that the law has impeded social and economic progress. This article shows, however, that the legal ban has never prevented land transfers. Many people have utilized legal constructs such as gifts, bequests, loans, and leases to sell their land. Such transfers have circumvented the ban amidst aggressive land expropriation by the state and other agents. These intricate local and national dynamics undercut the misleading sense of regularity created by the inalienability law, raising serious questions about the persistent demand by international development institutions to privatize land rights and create land markets through law reform without paying close attention to the lived experiences at the local level.
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- © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of American Bar Foundation
Footnotes
I wish to thank Guyora Binder, James A. Gardner, Steven Lawry, Pauline E. Peters, John H. Schlegel, Joe W. Singer, Henry E. Smith, and my anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions on various drafts of this article. I am especially grateful to my interlocutors in Ethiopia, who must remain unnamed, for their invaluable education on land sales and how government policies and practices impact them. I also extend my thanks to James Wooten and the University at Buffalo School of Law Faculty Workshop participants for their valuable feedback and to the Norwegian Research Council’s Pluriland Project for its enriching workshops where I presented a version of this article. I am grateful to Madison Burns and Matthew Gabaliski for their research assistance. Any errors are my own.
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