EFFECTIVE WAYS

OF DEALING WITH
LAND CONFLICTS
AND SUPPORTING
EMGs

National Legal Aid Agency of

Vietnam support by NOVIB
 POLICIES AND LAWS ON LAND IN VIETNAM
• Land Law 2003 affirms that lands belong to the
ownership of the whole people represented by the State;
• Different landholders: agencies, organizations,
individuals, enterprises, communities, etc;
• Land users are granted land-use certificates (LUCs);
• Both names of husband and wife are put in LUCs;
• Provincial People’s Committees have the authority to grant
land-use rights to organizations and Vietnamese residing
overseas; District People’s Committees grant lands to
individuals and households;
• These Committees also have the authority to take back the
lands;
• The land disputes can be resolved by the court (if
parties have LUCs) or the people’s committees (without
LUCs).
 The land users have 8 rights
• Right to use lands;
• Right to inherit the land use right;
• Right to transfer the land;
• Right to exchange lands;
• Right to sell the land use right;
• Right to collerate the land use right;
• Right present the land use right;
• Right to use land as an investment
 The main forms of land conflicts
• Conflicts between landholders (who had left
their lands for a long time) and the new
landholders (who were allowed to take over
these lands by the State).
• Conflicts among land-holders on the
transactions or boundaries of their lands.
• Conflicts over inadequate compensation for
for developing infrastructure.
• Conflicts between landholders and local
authorities over administrative decisions on
settling land conflicts.
 Causes of land conflicts
There have been a lot of changes of legislature and
land users in the past 30 years:
• Population growth, urbanization and migration
• Land privatization and a large numbers of land
speculators;
• Old landholders (who left their homelands) claimed
back their land which have been taken back by the
State and allocated to other users.
• Indigenous (normadic) groups claim their
customary land rights. They do not have any
certificates for the right to use their reclaimed
lands.
 Causes of land conflicts
• Legal documents on land have been changed many
times (6 times from 1998 to 2009); there have been
many vague and inconsistent provisions
• Legitimate interests of land users were not paid enough
attention when the legal documents were developed.
• In the withdrawing of lands, the relationship between the
ownership of lands of the State and the rights of land
users has not been properly dealt with. The interests of
the society, investors and land users have not been
adequately balanced. In addition, sometimes, the legal
procedures for withdrawing the land have not been
strictly followed by state agencies and investors.
 Causes of land conflicts
• The capacity of local authorities in managing lands is
still weak. Good systems of keeping files of lands and
monitoring the use of lands have not been in place.
Monitoring of the use of lands after the investors are
given lands has not been effective.
• Mechanisms and structures of dealing with complaints
on lands have not met practical demands. In some
provinces, the complainers have not been properly
received and guided by competent agencies, even
with corruption in these field
• The legal awareness of people on land users is quite
low. People do not understand much about the land
law, their land rights and legal procedures to deal with
land conflicts.
Efforts of the Gov.t in reducing and resolving
land conflicts
• Has recently issued a large number of legal
documents of implementation of Land Law
• Categorized land conflicts into groups to develop
suitable solutions
• Shorten time for issuing land users certificate
• Draft new law on resolving major problems (e.g. anti-
corruption, accountability, one-stop shot…) in the
system of legal documents on land administration
• Improve the capacity of agencies responsible for land
administration nationwide so that land conflicts can be
better studied and resolved (e.g. setting up Land
Registration Center).
• Develop programs to provide legal aids, infrastructure
development, livelihoods support, forest plantation
targeting ethnic minority groups
 Legal aid forms:
The NLAA as one agency in charge of collecting
recommendations and claims on lands regulations from
PLACs;
• Legal advice provided by legal aid staffs or collaborators.
Collaborators are lawyers, paralegals, social workers or gov.
staffs...
• Legal representation in legal proceedings can be provided by
legal aid staff or collaborating lawyers; Lawyers are paid on a
case by case basis from gov.funds; representation out side courts;
• Legal aid organizations also make petitions to competent
agencies to ask the setflement of the case following the law; to
ask take admendment laws or review the behaviour of gov. staff
• The Legal aid organizations has the right to make
recommendations on resolving loopholes of the law for law
reform or amendment discovered while dealing or through cases,.
 Legal Aid System
• Clients can come directly or throught Poor
their relatives or throught the public
comunication forms;
• Juveniles or who are kept in custody,
their representatives or relatives can
apply for legal aid on behalf of them; Ethnic minority

• 63/63 Provincial Legal Aid Centers

(PLACs) and their 132 branches, >3000
legal aid clubs with 300 staff and over
1,000 collaborators have received over
1.4 million cases/10 years- legal aid Children
clients and 516,514 have land conflicts
(210,498/10 years -Ethnic minority
clients);
Domestic violence
 Legal aids cases
60000
civil
50000
criminal
40000
labor
30000
land
20000
Administrative
10000
other
0
2005 2006 2007 2008
 LACs: approaches to land conflicts
• Giving legal advices to the poor on how to deal with
their land conflicts;
• Making petitions to local authorities to request the
settlement of the cases for protection the rights and
interests of clients;
• Raising conflict cases in Wiseman's meetings, media,
newspapers…;
• Representing clients in court proceedings if the land
conflicts are taken by the courts;
• Mediating parties in land conflicts;
• Organizing legal-aid mobile clinics to areas where
there are many land conflicts;
• Coordinating with mass org. Women & Farmer Union
 LACs: approaches to land conflicts
• Organizing legal talks and dialogues with people in
communities to inform them about their legal land
rights and legal procedures to deal with land conflicts;
• Meetings with other partners on compensations,…
• Organizing meetings with legal aid clubs in communes
with representative of the local People’s Committee to
discuss their legal problems, including land conflicts.
• Circulating leaflets to inform people about important
provisions of land law.
• Compiling legal aid casebooks demonstrating typical
cases on land conflicts.
 LACs: approaches to land conflicts
• Using both national laws and customary laws in
explaining and assisting ethnic minority people
in dealing with their land conflicts.( In many
cases, customary are consistent with national laws
and therefore legal aid providers can use the rules of
customary laws to deal with the cases. For example,
customary laws of Bana say that the settlement of
land disputes must be based on the principles of
negotiation and mediation. The parties can use
Wiseman as arbitrators if they cannot discuss. In
some cases, the customary laws are contradictory to
national law when say that, lands reclaimed or
inherited by Bana people will belong to their private
ownership).
 LACs: Approaches to support EMGs
• Recruiting experts from relevant departments such
as the department for land administration to be
legal aid collaborators of the PLACs to deal with
land conflicts and provide training to the staff of the
PLACs on how to deal with land conflicts
• Recruiting ethnic minority people to be staff,
especially using Wiseman or village heads in
communities of ethnic minority people as
collaborators of the PLACs for ethnic minority
people.
 Challenges
• Language barrier; Small numbers of LAC’s staff know
and can use EM languages (need interpreter when
that person do not have legal backgrounds);
• Land law recognized a community as a legal entity on
land users while Civil code has not;
• Land law and procedure keep changing and
sometimes contradictory; however conflict cases must
be resolved based on the law applicable during the
period of that conflict occurred.
• Customary laws are not documented in written form 
they have not been recognized fully by the State when
developing new law;
• Ethnicity minorities groups (12% of the population)
have very low access to resources, including legal
support.
 Achievements
• Awareness of poor and ethnic minority people about
land rights has been raised, though not as high as we
expected;
• Awareness of state officers in general and officers of
land administration officers in particular about legal aid
services and their obligations in protecting legitimate
interests of ethnic minority and other disadvantaged
groups have been significantly improved through their
involvement in legal aid activities;
• Procedures to deal with land conflicts and issuing
LUCs, especially at the grassroots level has been
publicized and shorten;
• The NLAA and the PLACs have made a number of
recommendations to the competent agencies to
improve the system of legal documents on land.
 Achievements
• Over the past 12 years, the legal aid
system has dealt with more 500,000 land
cases, around 50% of them are
successfully solved.
• Many long-pending cases of land conflict
have been resolved when the clients came
to the PLACs.
• A number of PLACs minority staff in
mountainous areas have acquired
knowledge on land law.
Many Thanks