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Abstract
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Summary
We examine conflicting land claims through the lens of a human rights perspective. A human rights framework that balances individual property rights with social and economic rights is set out. This perspective calls for a concerted strategy to protect people's livelihoods through a wider protection of property rights ranging from land to work. Because the government of Zimbabwe argues that law is an obstacle to historical and social justice, the current accelerated land reform program in Zimbabwe constitutes an important site to explore conflicts between international law, regional law, national law and political contestation. We ask how and if this land reform program is protecting the needs of vulnerable groups such as farm workers, children and women. We conclude that the government is engaged in serious human rights violations and that it is appropriating land to distribute to its followers for political not social justice ends. The land reform program is indeed a political process but one which entails recentralizing of power and resources in the hands of an undemocratic elite. |