This manual is a practical learning aid and helpful reference guide for community-based paralegals and organizations running community-based paralegal programs.

This Handbook provides a summary and the actual text of the United Nations (UN) Basic Principles and Guidelines on Development-based Evictions and Displacement, acknowledged by the UN Human Rights Council in December 2007. A first short section focuses on India before looking at the international context.

This toolkit provides an overview of the main international legal basis and popular claims that ground the human right to adequate housing. It comes with a checklist to compare these international texts with national states' engagements and practices.

This report seeks to investigate and propose mechanisms that can be used to improve the flow of benefits to mining-affected communities. The report sets out what requirements should be met for a community trust (or similar legal vehicle) to offer protection of trust assets. It sets out recommendations on the manner in which the legal document should be crafted to protect communities, and proposes that the time is ripe for regulation and clarity. Although it is focused on South Africa, it will be relevant for countries facing similar challenges in the mining and other commercial sectors.

This guide aims to help practitioners to research and use international legal norms, regional conventions, treaties and protocols to engage State officials and institutions, including local and customary legal officials; to encourage domestic compliance with State obligations; and to challenge local laws and court decisions regarding women’s rights to land and property. The guide provides the underlying international norms and relevant treaty provisions addressing women’s land rights. It also includes a series of questions focusing on how to build a case challenging local laws or a court decision which violates international or regional commitments that the state has made with regard to women’s land and property rights.

Land and labour rights can intersect in multiple ways. Investments in large-scale plantations often entail trade-offs between job creation and compressions of land rights. Also, labour relations can involve tenure dimensions, for example where estate managers sublet plots for workers to complement wages with food production for their family or local markets.

Casual or seasonal employment and limited application of labour legislation can create precarity not only in workers’ employment but also in their tenure rights, with entire families dependent upon the employment status of one individual – thus perpetuating generational labour obligations, affecting relations within the family and the distribution of tasks within the household, and disproportionately impacting women. International policy discourses have often neglected these intersections.

Over the past 30 years, an increasing number of states have passed good laws that significantly strengthen the tenure rights of their citizens. However, due to multiple barriers, a high percentage of many nations’ citizens are either unaware of their legal rights or unable to use national laws to protect their rights when threatened.

Legal empowerment efforts focus on strengthening citizens’ capacity to exercise their rights in a wide variety of forums, including in government administrative procedures, courts and tribunals, and when advocating for laws and policies. Legal empowerment is a key component of ensuring that the governance of land, fisheries and forests is responsible, equitable and just. Legal empowerment initiatives may include legal education; capacity development; efforts to shape state justice systems; legal support for citizens; and promotion of citizen participation in law-making.

Investment in agriculture is essential for sustainable development, in particular for achieving food security, adequate nutrition, decent employment, poverty reduction and environmental protection. In seeking to attract agricultural investment, many governments and local communities have entered into Agricultural Land Investment Contracts (ALIC). Mindful of the contractual challenges involved and considering the importance of enhancing knowledge of the legal regime applicable to agricultural land investment operations, the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT) in collaboration with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) have prepared this UNIDROIT/IFAD Legal Guide on Agricultural Land Investment Contracts (ALIC Legal Guide).

This guide provides guidance for producers, governments, legal advisors and civil society on contract farming arrangements, from negotiation to conclusion, including performance and possible breach or termination of the contract. It gives a description of common contract terms and a discussion of legal issues and critical problems that may arise under various practical situations, illustrating how they may be treated under different legal systems.