A/HRC/22/46 grabbing. Their particular impact on security of tenure should be assessed against the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (A/HRC/17/31, annex). B. Land management and administration 75. Land management and administration can have enormous positive impacts on solving land disputes and strengthening tenure security. However, prevalent land management and administration projects, by focusing on the granting of individual freehold titles to users or owners of non-contested plots, have often proven ill-suited to recognize all forms of tenure and in particular to protect the most vulnerable. This is particularly the case in urban contexts, where such programmes have on occasion unwittingly discriminated against or excluded urban poor.57 Land management programmes might also unwittingly exclude IDPs.58 76. Titling is not just a matter of formalizing informal arrangements that already exist. Very often, contradictory claims of ownership arise following the announcements of titling programmes.59 A related difficulty has been that titling of contested plots involves politically contentious decisions about the allocation of rights and thus is difficult to advance—this is often the case in informal settlements. 60 77. At a more basic level, land titling is unlikely to address the global needs for increased tenure security within an adequate time frame. In many countries adjudication and registration of freehold land parcels at current rates could take well over a century. C. The role of public land 78. Public land remains one of the most important potential sources of land for housing the poor, yet there remain obstacles to using public land for such purposes. For instance, poor land governance, corruption in land administration and the tight relationship that exists between tenure status and land values encourages nepotism, corruption, clientelism and market-driven interests in public land allocation. 79. Legal dualism and ambiguity between the concepts of ―public domain‖ and ―State domain‖, common in francophone Africa for instance, is blurring the boundary between alienable and unalienable land, to the benefit of government actors involved in land allocation. The lack of public land demarcation also allows for misuse. 61 80. Legal regimes regulating the use of public land differ greatly in their flexibility or ability to make land secure or not. In many countries, the State can grant temporary and conditional permits to settle on public land, such as ―temporary licenses‖ in Nigeria or ―permits to occupy‖ in francophone Africa.62 There is great diversity in the rights and level of security such permits offer. Such temporary allocations of public land offer needed housing with some security to those who occupy that land, in a context of scarcity of 57 58 59 60 61 62 See, for example, Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia et al., Untitled: Tenure Insecurity and Inequality in the Cambodian Land Sector (2009). In Côte d‘Ivoire, land titling legislation makes it difficult for displaced persons to apply for recognition of their rights. See Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Whose Land is This? Land Disputes and Forced Displacement in the Western Forest Area of Côte d'Ivoire (2009). See Buckley and Kalarickal, Thirty Years (note 23 above), p. 29. See Adler and So, ―Land governance‖. See, for example, Inspection Panel Cambodia, ―Investigation report‖, p. xx. See A/HRC/22/67, case NGA 2/2012, Government response No. 397/2012. 17

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