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Екологічному праву останніх років притаманне розширення кола суспільних відносин, що підпадають під дію його правових норм. Поряд із появою традиційних екологічних відносин – ландшафтних, флористичних, екомережевих, з’являються ядерні та енергетичні, розширюється ресурсна складова, яка не належить до усталених природних ресурсів, наприклад, побутові та радіаційні відходи, природно-кліматичний потенціал тощо. Разом з тим спостерігається тенденція до штучного виділення з екологічного права з фактичним паралельним функціонуванням окремих його складових. Особливо яскраво це проявляється на прикладі науки земельного права, представники якої вважають, що земельне право трансформувалось та вийшло на галузевий рівень системи права. Який шлях пройшло екологічне право та яке його майбутнє? Саме цьому питанню присвячена ця публікація.

While Serbia is working on a new EU-conform land law, the EU law concerning the cross-border acquisition of agricultural lands cannot be considered as a static phenomenon. Namely, the issue is quite controversial among the EU's institutions and Member States. Evidence of this is the high number of infringement procedures launched by the EU Commission against the Member States joined the EU in 2004 or afterwards (hereinafter referred to as New Member States). However, it is worth stressing that the debate is not merely a New-Member-State-issue but a general one, and there are numerous uncertainties which may affect even the old Member States' land law regimes. That is the reason (or one of the most important reasons) why the European Parliament adopted a report on the state of play of farmland concentration in the EU in 2017. It seems that nowadays land issues have also become one of the topical questions of the EU, which questions could be raised because the EU is in a kind of the crisis. The EU should redefine itself and its goals, furthermore, it also should determine a new structure in numerous parts of life. The European Council for Rural Law (more usually known as the CEDR from its French name 'Comité Européen de Droit Rural'), a think-tank which regularly provides assistance and advice to the institutions of the European Union, also dealt with the cross-border land law issues of the EU; namely, in a commission (COM II) concerning rural areas of the CEDR Congress (Potsdam, 2015) and at the conference on the 60th anniversary of the CEDR (Brussels, 2017). In a Hungarian conference (Budapest, 2017), the legal experts were gathered by the Hungarian Association for Agricultural Law and the Public Law Sub-Commission of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in order that they could present the possible ways of the improvement for the EU and its Member States. With regard to this development, the present article focuses on the EU's main rules concerning the acquisition of agricultural lands, the infringement procedures against Hungary (hereinafter referred to as Hungarian cases), the report of the European Parliament and the general conclusions of the Budapest conference. The Hungarian cases are relevant not merely for Hungary as the European Commission has expressed its concerns about the most of regulations of the Hungarian land law in comparison with other concerned New Member States. Taking the low numbers of the CJEU cases (concerning land law) into consideration, the Hungarian cases might be significant for the whole of the EU and its future.

In the exploration phase of Uganda's oil project, controversy arose regarding the drilling of wells on the grounds of important shrines of spirits of the adjacent Lake Albert. While the oil companies and the state looked at the market value of the land, the claimants emphasised its cultural heritage value, building a link to an international heritage discussion. This article argues that, while they have been barred from political influence on the oil project, cultural institutions such as the Bunyoro Kingdom and the claimants in the village near the controversial well used cultural heritage as a vantage point to get their voices heard and to gain negotiating power in the project. The article shows how widening of the definition of cultural heritage – which means dropping a bias for built infrastructure – has put culture alongside politics, economics, and the environment as an important factor to consider in extractive projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present the contestation of the Indonesian state's dispossessory policies regarding land and other natural resources is dominated by a discourse based on adat. This situation is reminiscent of the colonial period, when invoking adat was a relatively effective means of protecting Indonesians from losing their land to plantation companies supported by the Netherlands–Indies government. However, adat lost its traction when Indonesia became independent and the new state started to vigorously pursue nation building and economic expansion. Only after the end of the New Order in 1998 did civil society groups revive the adat defence against dispossession. This article analyses current debates and developments concerning the place of adat in national land law and its potential for protecting communities against dispossession of their land by the Indonesian state. We argue that the promotion of adat has produced few concrete results and that it is unlikely to be more successful for this purpose in the future. Given Indonesia's current social and political realities, any land rights strategy for protecting people against dispossession that is based on indigeneity is problematic, and alternative approaches are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the restitution process that took place after 1945 in Czechoslovakia in relation to the property occupied in 1939-1945 in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia for the creation of German military exercise areas. They were supposed to be used for the Germanization of the Czech lands. To create these spaces, the Nazis abused the legal order of the Czechoslovak Republic from 1918 to 1938. The restitution process subject to this territory after 1945 was governed by the separate Directive of the Settlement Office and the National Renewal Fund of 2 December 1947. It was generally based on the principles contained in the Act No. 128/1946 Coll., on the invalidity of certain propertyright acts from the time of oppression and of some other intervention into property-rights, as amended by the Act No. 79/1948 Coll. This directive was, generally speaking, more favorable to restituents than analogous legal regulations. Attention is paid not only to the content of the Directive of 2 December 1947 and related legislation, but also to its application from the end of World War II to the present. The article also refers to the professional literature, which was devoted to the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to analyze the existing state-owned land use right recovery plan and put forward relevant proposals by investigating legal texts and legal cases. The method for upgrading inefficient industrial land is to prepare a low-efficiency business exit form for changing land use, incentivize the original land use rights holder to cooperate with the new enterprise and adjust the volume rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Regulation on the missions of catechesis and civilization of the Indians (1845) and the Land Law (1850) dealt with structural issues of the Brazilian state: land, labor and colonization. The legal disputes around the land necessarily passed through the indigenous question. This article presents some reflections on the first moments of application of such laws in the province of São Paulo. Thus, we seek to relate the policy of territorial concentration of indigenous populations in restricted territories, the aldeamentos, with the progressive process of territorial appropriation by the State and private property. Thereby territorial disputes demonstrate how illegal possessions over indigenous areas were treated with connivance by the imperial authorities. For their part, indigenous peoples sought legal resources to assert their rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is dedicated to the study of the Gaius Julius Caesar’s contribution to the development of roman agricultural law. The statute of the founded iussu Cesarius colony Genetiva Iulia was used as a main source. The author considers the Caesar's legislative innovations, touching surveying net and usage of the common lands. The regulations protecting public roads (we find limites among them) are typical for the roman agricultural legislation. Nevertheless, lex coloniae Genetivae Iuliae contains a fundamental innovation, because it touches categories of colony's lands. We find in the statute not only different kinds of lands - agri and silvae , but also an attempt of regulation of their usage. However, the categories of the common lands of colonies were finally designed only in the Augustus’ legislation.

Land Law of Kazakhstan – one of the fastest growing areas of law. Trends, the dynamics of land legislation reflect the legal and political will, conceptual approaches of power on the land issue and, ultimately, are the legal expression of objective processes in the land sector. Conceptual foundations of modern land – legal policy defined by the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan dated August 30, 1995, based on scientific analysis of legislation the author reveals the specific features of the legislative provision of land law in modern Kazakhstan. From the standpoint of the stability of society, sustained and sustainable development of the land issue is not only socio­economic but also a special political significance. On this basis, providing quality and effective legal regulation remains quite urgent task of jurisprudence and legal policy. Land law has always occupied a special place in the legal system, but in the context of increasing the scale of economic turnover of land, involving land and land rights in the sphere of the market, its socio – regulatory value increases.

The present article concentrates on the acquisition of ownership (and in some respects: use) of agricultural and forestry lands, especially as to the cross-border aspects. One of the hypotheses of the article is that the above mentioned issue is a topical question almost all around the world. Nevertheless, the article focuses on a European aspect of the cross-border acquisition, namely the new land law rules of the EU's Member States having joined the European Union in 2004 and 2007. In 2014 and 2015, the European Commission had assessed the land law of these Member States (i.e. Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia) and initiated infringement procedures against these countries at the Court of Justice of the European Union. Besides the regulation of these new Member States of the EU, the present article deals with the legislation of other Member States as well as the provisions of non-EU states. The article gives substantial consideration to phenomena such as sovereignty, land-hunger or soil degradation which may exercise significant influence on the land law of a state.

The paper aims to explore the process of land conversion for tourism development in Vietnam, under the present ambiguous and insecure property rights system. Four case studies in different geographical areas were selected to analyse land conversion and land compensation for tourism projects before and after the implementation of the new land law in 2013. The findings of this study show that, in the present legal system of land and property rights, the rights of local people are not sufficiently guaranteed due to the decisive role of the State not only in defining compensation prices for land in the case of compulsory land acquisition but also in determining whether tourism projects are in the public’s interest or not (thus deciding the appropriate land conversion approach as well as affecting price negotiations). The research also found that, although a voluntary land conversion approach (when the project is not in the public’s interest), based on the 2013 Land Law, offers land users a better negotiation position and a higher compensation payment, possibly reducing land-related conflicts between the State and land users, ambiguity over property rights in fact increased due to the government’s substantial discretion to choose between ‘public purpose’ and ‘economic purpose.’ The paper concludes with questioning whether the present legal basis for compulsory land acquisition is future proof since urbanisation pressure is likely to increase, which may lead to even more land conflicts in the near future.

Ignored for long, private property was eventually consecrated by the financial constraints induced by the 1996 oil crisis. The state disengagement from the economic sphere led to a more and more accepted privatization, which became constitutionalized in Article 37 of the 1996 fundamental law regarding the freedom of trade and industry. But this process did not reflect an internal, socio-economic maturity but external injunctions which became more pressing after the agreement passed with IMF in May 1994. However, the privatization device undertaken under the periodic performance control by IMF experts remains heavily affected by administrative and bureaucratic obstacles since the role of the state, as the rent distributor and the private accumulation supervisor (in the land, commercial and industrial domains), keeps on being essential. If this scheme comes to its logical end, it might be said that no bourgeoisie was ever so organically linked to a state paradoxically voluntarist and anti-capitalist.

Our purpose in this article is to argue that, as far as the constitutional promotion and protection of social welfare is concerned, there are significant theoretical and systemic differences between property, land rights and housing rights. Our argument is shaped by the fact that these three sets of rights are recognised and protected separately in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, but we argue that the theoretical differences go beyond variations between constitutions and bills of rights from different traditions and time periods. In our view, there are sound theoretical, and therefore also systemic, reasons why it is necessary to at least keep the differences between property, land rights and housing rights in mind when analysing, interpreting and applying any of these rights in a specific constitutional text. Above all, we argue that the reduction of housing rights to just another category of property rights might well reduce or even erode the special social, historical and constitutional value and meaning of housing rights. We first consider theoretical arguments concerning the relationship between property, land rights and social welfare. In view of the theoretical analysis we proceed to consider the constitutional nature and status of property, land rights and housing rights in the South African context. We argue that both land rights (in the form of land redistribution and improved tenure security) and housing rights (in the form of the right of access to adequate housing) should be seen as discrete constitutional rights that stand on their own constitutional foundations and that they do not need to be protected as property rights. On the other hand, they are not fundamentally circumscribed or opposed by property rights either. Instead, the Constitution requires a new, typically constitutional methodology that gives full recognition and effect to all three sets of rights, each in its proper place. Seen in this perspective, property is neither the guardian nor the enemy of social welfare. Nevertheless, the purpose of the property clause in general cannot be isolated from social welfare concerns that relate to improved access to land and housing rights, nor from the constitutional imperative to provide stronger land and housing rights. Important connections exist between these divergent constitutional imperatives that should be acknowledged to ensure the efficient realisation of social welfare concerns.

Abstract The study identifies and analyzes factors causing women to procure fewer land titles than men in Cameroon. It employs a qualitative approach, and an analytical framework grounded in feminist thought. The identified factors are analyzed under five broad categories as follows: institutional impediments, indigenous culture, received culture, productive and reproductive roles of women, and economic constraints. The analysis ends with a number of policy recommendations prominent among which are the following: drastically reducing the cost, number of agencies and steps involved in the land title application process; employing informal channels of communication to disseminate information on land; and maintaining office hours that take into account the tight schedules of women. The study holds lessons for land reform initiatives not only in Cameroon but other developing countries in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the major problems of land use in Kazakhstan existing in the climate of stepwise elaboration of the land law ensuring the rational use of land. The focus was laid on the events of strengthening the government control over the formation of land relations and laying down more effective administrative regulations on land use in agriculture, based on local differences and living conditions in the region. Legal entities and individuals owning land plots do not show sufficient interest in the effective use of land and in its preservation. The major reason why the land cover of land plots is disturbed is that the approach to assessing the state of agricultural land is one-size-fits-all and does not take into account the landscape characteristics of the land. The cure here is to follow the major provisions of the current land taxation system, which establish the cadastral (assessed) cost of those plots, as well as to bridge the legal gaps by introducing tax rates tied to local differences in agricultural activities. This will create equal grounds for all forms of economic entities in agriculture to develop, ensuring their interest in the rational use of lands they own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]