Liberia is at a Crossroads: Recognising Land Rights Can Safeguard Against Violence

Aug 10, 2016 | Jennifer Duncan and Jaron Vogelsang
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The government of Liberia has an unprecedented opportunity to pass progressive land reform legislation that could positively impact millions of people, but the window of opportunity is rapidly closing. If Liberia’s legislature doesn’t vote to adopt the draft Land Rights Act before it goes on recess on August 30, the bill will likely stall during the 2017 election year and face an uncertain future when a new government assumes office in 2018.

A working group of Liberian civil society organizations has cautioned that failure to pass the Land Rights Act could plunge Liberia into violence and conflict. This is not empty rhetoric: Conflict over land and natural resources were one of the root causes of Liberia’s 14-year civil war that ravaged the country. The civil war, which continued virtually uninterrupted from 1989 to 2003, killed 270,000 people, displaced almost 80 percent of the population, ruined the economy, and threatened to destabilize the region. More than a decade later, Liberia is beginning to emerge from the crisis period, and has turned its attention to needed reforms.

Restructuring the country’s outdated and broken land rights system is a keystone to these reforms. In the post-conflict period, a new land rights policy was met with optimism when it was introduced in 2013, and received the support of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. The proposed reforms would recognize customary land rights for millions of rural Liberians. But the policy means little without passage of the Land Rights Act, which would turn its promises into enforceable law.