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An Overview of Land Tenure in the Near East Region

Part 1, Part 2

Year of publication 2012

Author Jon Rae

Product type Book (stand-alone)

Edition 1

Synopsis (short abstract) This review of land tenure in West Asia and North Africa (WANA or the Near East region) places contemporary developments in their historical context. Land tenure in the region has its origins in state, customary or religious law, or more often a combination of the three. With the ascendancy of the nation state over the past century, official legal systems has sought to entrench sovereignty over land with the abolition of customary law and the evolution of Shari’ah to deal with moder n needs of economic development. Often this has meant a degree of secularisation in property rights law with western legal concepts gaining influence across the whole of the region. With rapidly rising human populations across the region, the area of arable land and pasture per capita has decreased in all countries during the past thirty years. These growing pressures has prompted a policy shift in most counties in the region towards finding new, adapted or novel combinations of prop erty rights alternatives to enhance productivity, technology adoption and better resource management practices.

Language English

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