Land and legality in the Darfur conflict

African Security

Volumn 5, Issue 2, 2012, Pages 105-128

  Unruh, Jon D ^a  

^a MCGILL UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

Author keywords

Customary; Islamic; Land tenure; Law; Statutory; Sudan; War

Indexed keywords

EID: 84868349284     PISSN: 19392206     EISSN: 19392214     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/19392206.2012.682474     Document Type: Article

References (80)

1. In this case the onset and continuation of conflict is meant to be the presence of armed conflict, as opposed to the amount of violence or other measures of conflict.
2. Julie Flint and Alex De Waal, Darfur: A New History of a Long War (London: Zed Books, 2008).
3. Draft Darfur Peace Document (DDPD), Draft Darfur Peace Document (Doha, Qatar, 2011).
4. Tajeldin Abdhalla, Land Rights Confusion Hinders Darfur IDP Returns, ACR Issue 237 (London: Institute for War and Peace Reporting, 2010).
5. Sara Pantuliano, The Land Question: Sudan's Peace Nemesis, Humanitarian Policy Group (London: Overseas Development Institute, 2007).
6. Osman Suiliman, The Darfur Conflict: Geography or Institutions? (New York: Routledge Press, 2011).
7. Jerome Tubiana, "Darfur: A War of Land?" in War in Darfur and the Search for Peace, ed. Alex De Wall (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007).
8. Musa Adam Abdul-Jalil, "Intertribal Conflicts in Darfur: Scarcity of Resources or Crises of Governance?" in Environment and Conflict in Africa: Reflections from Darfur, ed. Marcel Laroy (Addis Ababa: University for Peace, Africa Programme, 2009).
9. Omer Egemi, Land Tenure Issues in Darfur (Nairobi: UN Habitat, 2009).
10. Flint and De Waal, Darfur.
11. Musa Adam Abdul-Jalil, Land Tenure, Land Use and Inter-Ethnic Conflict in Darfur.
12. Suiliman, The Darfur Conflict: Geography or Institutions?.
13. Concordis, Land Use and Tenure: A Key to Sustainable Peace in Darfur (Cambridge: Concordis Papers, 2007).
14. Draft Darfur Peace Document.
15. Julie Flint, Beyond "Janjaweed": Understanding the Militias of Darfur, Small Arms Survey (Geneva: Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, 2009).
16. For example, Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957).
17. Jon Unruh, "Land Rights and Peacebuilding: Challenges and Responses, " International Journal of Peace Studies 15 (2011): 89-125.
18. Carl Bruch, David Jensen, Mikiyasu Nakayama, Jon Unruh, Rebecca Gruby, and Ross Wolfarth, "Post-Conflict Peacebuilding and Natural Resources, " Yearbook of International Environmental Law 19 (2009): 58-96.
19. Alexander Murphy, "Historical Justifications for Territorial Claims, " Annals of the Association of American Geographers 80 (1990): 531-548.
20. Jennifer Greene, Valerie Caracelli, and Wendy Graham, "Toward a Conceptual Framework for Mixed-Method Evaluation Designs, " Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 11, no. 3 (1989): 255-274.
21. In Darfur a claimant can ask an Islamic judge to have the person suspected of committing the act in question (e.g., damage to land, land and property disputes, etc.) swear on a Qur'an that he is innocent. If the Qur'an is a mass produced printed copy then the exercise is much less powerful than if the Qur'an is old, handwritten, has a long religious history attached to it, was written from memory by a famous religious person known in history or who made the Haj, and is kept in a mosque. With the latter, the exercise is much more powerful because to lie while swearing an oath on such a Qur'an is thought to bring calamity.
22. Paul De Wit, Massimiliano Bellini, Jeffery Hatcher, and Mohammed Hassan Mukhtar, Land Policy Report for DJAM (Rome: UN Food and Agriculture Organization, 2008).
23. Government of Sudan, The Unregistered Land Act (Khartoum: Ministry of Justice, 1970).
24. Government of Sudan, The Land Acquisition Act of 1930 (Khartoum: Ministry of Justice, 1930).
25. Government of Sudan, The Unregistered Land Act.
26. Government of Sudan, The Civil Transactions Act (Khartoum: Ministry of Justice, 1984).
27. Government of Sudan, The Construction, Planning and Land Disposition Act (Khartoum: Ministry of Justice, 1994).
28. Government of Sudan, The Emirate Act of 1995 (Khartoum: Ministry of Justice, 1995).
29. Musa Adam Abdul-Jalil and Zahir Abdal-Kareem, Contested Land Rights and Ethnic Conflict in Mornei, West Darfur: Scarcity of Resources or Crises of Governance? Unpublished manuscript (Khartoum: University of Khartoum, 2011).
30. Musa Adam Abdul-Jalil and Zahir Abdal-Kareem, Contested Land Rights and Ethnic Conflict in Mornei, West Darfur: Scarcity of Resources or Crises of Governance? Unpublished manuscript (Khartoum: University of Khartoum, 2011).
31. Government of Sudan, The Investment Act (Khartoum, Ministry of Justice, 1998).
32. Government of Sudan, The Local Government Act of 2003 (Khartoum: Ministry of Justice, 2003).
33. A nazzir is a high level position with control over land. In some interpretations a nazzir is equivalent to a paramount chief.
34. Rex O'Fahey and M. Abu Salim, Land in Dar Fur: Charters and Related Documents from the Dar Fur Sultanate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
35. Rex O'Fahey, The Darfur Sultanate: A History (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008).
36. Flint and De Waal, Darfur.
37. Flint and De Waal, Darfur.
38. O'Fahey, The Darfur Sultanate.
39. Musa Adam Abdul-Jalil, "Land Tenure, Land Use and Inter-Ethnic Conflict in Darfur, " in Understanding the Crisis in Darfur: Listening to Sudanese Voices, eds. A. Ahmed and L. Manger (Bergen, Norway: University of Bergen, 2007).
40. Abdelgalil Elmekki, DDDC Common Ground Consultations and Public Hearings (Khartoum: Darfur Dialogue and Consultation, 2009).
41. Rex O'Fahey, The Darfur Sultanate.
42. Rex O'Fahey, The Darfur Sultanate.
43. Carey Gordon, "Recent Developments in the Land Law of the Sudan: A Legislative Analysis, " Journal of African Law 30 (1986):143-174.
44. A waqf is an Islamic law religious endowment of land or property and is regarded as inalienable. Most often created for charitable purposes, waqf can exist in a variety of forms, and are influenced by local political, economic, and social conditions (Sait and Lim 2006). Sait and Lim (2006) provide a succinct definition, "Under the waqf, an owner permanently settles property, its usufruct or income, to the use of beneficiaries for specific purposes. "
45. Siraj Sait and Hilary Lim, Land, Law, and Islam: Property and Human Rights in the Muslim World (London: Zed Books, 2006).
46. James Anderson, Islamic Law in Africa (London: Frank Cass and Co. LTD, 1970).
47. John Bowen, Islam, Law and Equality in Indonesia: An Anthropology of Public Reasoning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
48. Satish Ganjoo, Economic System in Islam (New Delhi: Amnol Publications LTD, 2004).
49. Erein Stiles, An Islamic Court in Context: An Ethnographic Study of Judicial Reasoning (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
50. Rex O'Fahey and M. Abu Salim, Land in Dar Fur: Charters and Related Documents from the Dar Fur Sultanate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
51. Rex O'Fahey and M. Abu Salim, Land in Dar Fur: Charters and Related Documents from the Dar Fur Sultanate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
52. Rex O'Fahey and M. Abu Salim, Land in Dar Fur: Charters and Related Documents from the Dar Fur Sultanate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
53. O'Fahey, The Darfur Sultanate.
54. Goz are areas of stabilized sand dunes that are preferred for agriculture.
55. Egemi, Land Tenure Issues in Darfur.
56. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
57. O'Fahey, The Darfur Sultanate.
58. Sara Pantuliano, The Land Question: Sudan's Peace Nemesis. Humanitarian Policy Group (London: Overseas Development Institute, 2007).
59. Sait and Lim, Land, Law, and Islam.
60. O'Fahey, The Darfur Sultanate.
61. Sait and Lim, Land, Law, and Islam.
62. O'Fahey, The Darfur Sultanate.
63. O'Fahey, The Darfur Sultanate.
64. Omer Egemi, Land Tenure Issues in Darfur (Nairobi: UN Habitat, 2009).
65. O'Fahey, The Darfur Sultanate.
66. O'Fahey, The Darfur Sultanate.
67. Marcel Leroy, Environment and Conflict in Africa: Reflections on Darfur (Addis Ababa: University for Peace, 2009).
68. To help address such disputes, during the current conflict a local NGO, Ajaweed (meaning "group of elders"), was started, with one of its purposes being to minimize involvement by government in dispute resolution, because according to them, when government gets involved the conflict often gets worse. Ajaweed notes that interaction with government by conflicting parties usually results in failure of dispute resolution and an impasse.
69. One approach suggested by Ajaweed is that the Council of Tribes handle specific cases and decide on compensation by one tribe to another. The tribe to pay then obtains money from each tribal member and can pay the other tribe in installments. Another suggested strategy is for a tribe to forgive a specific occurrence of violence and forgo compensation, which then obligates the other tribe to not attack them in the future. Such arrangements have occurred in the past.
70. Egemi, Land Tenure Issues in Darfur.
71. National Peace and Development Forum, An Application to Join the Ongoing Peace Talks in Abuja, unpublished manuscript (National Peace and Development Forum, 2005).
72. Flint, Beyond "Janjaweed. "
73. Darfur Peace Agreement, Darfur Peace Agreement: Article 20 (Abuja: Nigeria, 2005).
74. Darfur Land Commission, Conceptual Framework (Khartoum: Transitional Darfur Regional Authority, 2007).
75. See for example Jon Unruh, "Land Tenure and Legal Pluralism in the Peace Process, " Peace and Change: A Journal of Peace Research 28 (2003): 352-376.
76. See for example Ade Renner-Thomas, Land Tenure in Sierra Leone: The Law, Dualism and the Making of a Land Policy (London: Author House Press, 2010).
77. See for example Mohamed Foray, Draft National Land Policy for Sierra Leone, National Land Policy Reform Project (Freetown: Ministry of Lands, Country Planning and the Environment, 2011).
78. Colombia has among the most innovative forms of restitution.
79. see Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural, La Restitucion de Tierras si es Possible en Colombia (Bogota: Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural, 2010).
80. Jon Unruh, "Constituencies of Conflict: Land Rights, Narratives, and Legal Pluralism in Darfur, " presented at the Commission on Legal Pluralism Conference, September 8-10, 2011, University of Cape Town, South Africa.