Displacement and Dispossession Through Land Grabbing in Mozambique: The Limits of International and National Legal Instruments

This working paper examines the limitations of international and national law to address displacement and dispossession from land grabs within the case study of Mozambique. The main question that I seek to answer is: What limits international and national law in addressing displacement and dispossession due to land grabs in Mozambique? I will argue that the limits of law to address displacement and dispossession are not due to a lack of institutionalising international good governance norms into domestic-level legal frameworks. Nor can the limits be attributed to state incapacity. Rather, the limits of law lie within the norm implementation process, wherein norms are conditioned by the local Mozambican governance context to serve domestic interests