Reforming Ethiopia's Expropriation Law

Ethiopia is increasingly using expropriation as the single most important device to take land particularly from small landholders to supply it to corporate farmers and industrialists with a declared intention of boosting economic growth. This is happening in the context where expropriation laws are inadequate to protect peasants and pastoralists. The state is not paying cash compensation for land use rights, compensation for property on the land is paltry, and uniform rehabilitative schemes are absent. There are also no sufficient administrative and judicial mechanisms in place to restrain the government in exercising its power of expropriation. This is lax expropriation system that runs counter with the country`s Constitution which pledges tenure security for small landholders. This article recommends enhanced judicial scrutiny of expropriation, recasting land use rights as human rights, and emphasis on the quality of projects that necessitate expropriation. Ethiopia should expedite these and related measures in the interest of justice, securing the livelihoods of the masses and national stability.