Examining Timor-Leste's current tangle of land ownership claims, this briefing recommends that the government and its partners act now to supplement titling with clear public information.

Measures to resolve land disputes in Timor-Leste must go beyond a draft law on land titling if they are to comprehensively reduce the risks posed, otherwise the law could bring more problems than solutions.

The need to balance land rights inherited from previous Portuguese and Indonesian colonial administrations with the reality of customary law, as well as the implications of a history of population displacements, have delayed the creation of a land administration system. Confusion over the present and future basis of property claims is widespread.

The current draft land law, approved by the Council of Ministers in March 2010 and awaiting parliamentary debate and approval, would establish the country’s first property ownership rights. Both the technicalities and the implications of the complex law are poorly understood. Sensitive issues include the fate of those Timorese who occupied empty properties in the violence following the 1999 referendum, the rights of Timorese living abroad to re-claim old property, and the holdings of the political elite. While passage of the draft law will help resolve many land disputes, further public information and debate should be a prerequisite for approval. Previous attempts to enforce laws on state property have often failed due to local resistance.

Though most disputes have to date been either resolved or frozen without recourse to violence, and many people are happy with the status quo, the issue will take on new urgency in light of ambitious new plans for government-driven development. Clarification of basic protections and resettlement plans for illegal or displaced occupants should be a priority, as should continued support to informal dispute mediation processes. The government should take initial steps now towards developing a comprehensive land use and housing policy, as well as to engage communities on sustainable ways of managing customary tenure systems.