13 Two main types of land conflict. It is also important to differentiate between two types of land and resource conflicts: n A “land dispute” involves conflicting claims to rights in land by two or more parties, focused on a particular piece of land or resource, which can be addressed within the existing legal framework. These may include cases involving inheritance, boundary disputes, legal titles, and commercial transactions. Such land disputes may or may not reflect some broader conflict over land. n By contrast, a “structural land conflict” involves competing claims to large areas of land by groups, of a breadth and depth not easily resolved within existing law. There is often no consensus on the rules to be applied, and the parties may have quite different understandings of the nature of the conflict. As used by studies in this paper, “conflict” implies tension and the danger of violence, but not necessarily violence itself, unless this is specifically mentioned. Latent conflicts based on structural or other fundamental problems may be triggered by events to turn violent. All the country studies here focus on structural land conflicts. Many of these land conflicts raise questions of land governance, as they are related directly to national and local government policies, and to decisions of public officials. They involve not just individuals or single families but may affect entire neighborhoods and communities in significant numbers, causing physical and psychological harm, with extensive impacts on their social, economic, and political lives, as the studies will show. Methodology and data sources For the land conflict studies from Indonesia, Nepal, and the Philippines, the researchers themselves collected and analyzed hundreds of land conflict cases collected from both primary and secondary data sources. On the other hand, the land conflict studies from Bangladesh and India are based entirely on secondary sources. For the Cambodia study, STAR Kampuchea engaged with the Provincial Government of Kampong Chhnang Province to study the mechanisms for conflict resolution at the local level. Table 1 on page 14 shows the sources of data collection on land conflict cases. Regional Summary: A Perspective Overview of Land Conflicts in Six Asian Countries self-determination, stifling of protests, or curtailment of political and civil rights).

Select target paragraph3