Land deals have been called ‘land grabs’ where these have prompted displacement and dispossession, in contexts of weak land rights laws and institutions. The panel combines two regional reviews – of Africa and Southeast Asia – with two more detailed case studies from Indonesia and Zimbabwe. These explore the mechanisms through which land rights are transferred, and the implications for existing land users and rights holders, and for common property regimes.

Chair: Paul Mathieu, FAO, Rome

• Liz Alden Wily, Political Economist and Land Tenure Specialist, independent researcher, Nothing new under the sun or a new battle joined? The political economy of African dispossession in the current global land rush 
• Robin Palmer (Mokoro, Oxford). Would Cecil Rhodes have signed a Code of Conduct? Reflections on global land grabbing and land rights?
• Suraya Afiff, University of Indonesia, Jacqueline Vel, Leiden University and John McCarthy, Australian National University, A Land Grab Scenario for Indonesia? Diverse Trajectories and Virtual Land Grabs in the Outer Islands 
• Derek Hall, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada, Land Control, Land Grabs, and Southeast Asian Crop Booms