Recalibrating rights, limitations and obligations in land governance

Land rights are typically subject to limitations and come with obligations, and it is this interplay of rights, limitations and obligations that underpins many of the most difficult governance problems – from managing conflicts within families and communities, to reversing legacies of historical injustice. Effective responses often require not just securing certain precarious rights, but also addressing imbalances between the rights and obligations of different groups.

This article explores pathways for legal reforms to recalibrate rights, limitations and obligations in land governance. It reconfigures long-established notions of “bundles of rights” and discusses illustrative arrangements that limit tenure rights or connect them to obligations.