Comparing property laws

This chapter navigates the intricate landscape of property laws, specifically exploring economic development strategies of land titling and the elimination of informalities through property rights. These development strategies end up focusing on private property regimes rather than social models of property rights well established in both Western and African legal systems. Drawing examples from the German, South African and Latin American property law regimes, the chapter dissects the multifaceted layers of property rights, incorporating legal, economic, social, political, and cultural dimensions. Emphasizing the shift from individual to communal principles and to relational concepts of property, it posits that property law carries both individual rights and social obligations. In moving beyond mainstream comparisons of private property regimes, a critical perspective entails comparing collective property, commons, indigenous property, and informal property regimes and their sociocultural contexts. The last section scrutinizes land reforms based on titling in Kenya and Ethiopia, revealing the complexities and challenges of implementing property reforms in postcolonial settings based on the formalization of private property regimes.