| Ownership in Cambodia – A few dates |
| By Ka-set | |
| 20-02-2008 |
| Chronology summarising landmark dates regarding the issue of land in Cambodia from 1975 to the present day.
- 1975-1979 (Khmer Rouge regime of Democratic Kampuchea): Ownership is abolished and ownership titles destroyed.
- 1979-1989 (People's Republic of Kampuchea): Access to property is allowed but not officially recognised by the 1981 Constitution which specifies in Article 17 that “No one has the right to purchase, sell, lease or use land for sharecropping.”
- 1989: Private ownership rights are restored by decree and protected in the April 1989 Constitution which creates the State of Cambodia.
- 1992: Transition from planned economy to free market is enforced.
- August 1992: Cambodia ratifies the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
- 1993: The new Constitution recognises the right to private land ownership.
- 1993-1999: The government has awarded concessions over nearly a third of the country's most profitable land to private companies for commercial development projects, according to the November 2004 report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for human rights in Cambodia [entitled "Land concessions for economic purposes in Cambodia – A human rights perspective"].
- 1998-2003: The municipality of Phnom Penh reportedly carried the forced eviction of 11,000 families from the poor informal settlements where they used to live, according to a report of the World Bank ["Cambodia : Halving poverty by 2015? Cambodia poverty assessment", published in February 2006].
- 2001: A land law is passed and it guarantees the right to request a land ownership title for people who have lived on their land for over five years in a peaceful and notorious manner. It also condemns illegal expropriation and creates a Cadastral Commission within the Ministry of Land Management.
- May 2003: Prime Minister Hun Sen announces a new urban housing policy and promises the upgrading of a hundred poor communities in Phnom Penh every year for five years.
- December 2005: A Sub-decree on economic land concessions is adopted and states inter alia that their size must not exceed 10,000 hectares.
- February 2006: A National Authority for Land Dispute Resolution is created.
- Late 2006: 14.5% of Cambodia's productive land were granted as concessions according to the June 2007 report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for human rights in Cambodia [entitled "Economic land concessions in Cambodia – A human rights perspective"]
Also on Ka-set
- Organisations protest against forced evictions (20-02-2008)
- Unfavourable ground for a rapid resolution of the land issue (20-02-2008)
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