Land Reform Policy: The Challenge of Human Rights Law

Originally published in 2004. The book examines the possibility of resolving past and continuing social injustices that are rooted in colonial or some such other similar experience of states from a variety of perspectives. First the issue is examined from an international law perspective, which evaluates the validity of counter claims to title to land in affected SADC states. Secondly the issue is examined from a human rights perspective, which privileges promotion for the respect of the inherent dignity of all persons. Thirdly, the issue is examined from victimology and psychology schools of thought in order to understand both the effect and impact on stakeholders of the operative dynamics in conflicts that arise from long standing social injustices that are connected to colonial or some such other similar historical experience of States. The book proposes humwefficiency as a model for resolution of this type of conflict. This model targets preservation of the inherent dignity of all stakeholders by combining international human rights morality with local intuition about land ownership and use. In this sense, the book takes human rights theory beyond politics and utopia, and applies it to foster new social engineering technologies for the resolution of social injustices and promotion of social justice. This is justified by the fact that the human rights culture has evolved in a considerably short period of time to become the dominant culture of the world.