Land policy and administration

The government has seized back more than 12,000 hectares of land previously awarded to seven companies as economic land concessions (ELCs), according to a letter from the Council of Ministers. It explains that licences awarded from 2006 to 2011 for eight ELCs in the provinces ...

A British lawyer has filed new documents against senior Cambodian officials at the International Criminal Court, accusing them of systematic land grabs that constitute human rights abuses. A communication filed on Oct. 7 claims that over the last 14 years, an estimated 770,000 Cambodians, or ...

Cambodian government has revoked licenses of economic land concessions of three companies in Koh Kong, Preah Sihanouk and Kampong Speu provinces, according to sub-decree. The sub-decree dated October 7 said 1,635 hectares of economic land concessions have  been taken back from Vimean Seila LTD, Vatanak Co., ...

Activists from two local rights groups yesterday accused soldiers in Ratanakkiri province’s Lumphat district of seizing their cameras and stopping them from investigating a land dispute. ...

About 80 villagers locked in a land dispute in Preah Vihear province found their planned march to the National Assembly blocked by security forces in the capital’s Meanchey district yesterday. Village representative Meng Chanthorn said that the quashed march, which was ultimately abandoned without the use ...

About 100 residents of a community in the capital’s Russei Keo district yesterday rallied outside City Hall, demanding that authorities issue them land titles and end court action against six of their representatives. ...

Two protesters from the Boeung Kak lake community are weeks away from long-awaited land titles after City Hall officials yesterday measured plots for them amid a small crowd of angry former residents. ...

NGOs have filed a new complaint against Australia’s ANZ Bank claiming it owes compensation to 681 Cambodian families who say their farms were illegally grabbed by a sugarcane plantation the bank helped to finance. ...

Fearing loss of land, about 150 farmers in Svay Rieng province yesterday marched to the provincial hall, filing a petition that demands land titles on their property. Many villagers in Svay Chrum district’s Chhoeuteal commune lost parts of their property in 2011, when a dam was ...

Two-and-a-half years after Prime Minister Hun Sen imposed a freeze on the granting of economic land concessions (ELCs), Environment Minister Say Sam Al on Monday appeared to leave the door open to the government giving more companies access to the often-controversial land holdings. At a press ...

Cambodian Environment Minister Say Samal said Monday that the government has canceled licenses of economic land concessions (ELCs) for eight companies after they have not undertaken development on the lands for years.​ ...

A CPP commune chief in Battambang province led more than 150 villagers in a demonstration on Friday outside the local office of rights group Adhoc after a representative of the organization accused the official of corruption for allegedly selling plots of public land to local ...

Ruling party lawmaker Chheang Vun yesterday called for the governor of Battambang province to intervene in a long-running land dispute between 38 villagers and wealthy tycoon Lem Tealeng. ...

Villagers from Koh Kong province have descended on the capital, ready to petition Prime Minister Hun Sen and the government today to intervene in their long-running land dispute with prominent businessman Heng Huy. Phav Nhoeung, a representative of 15 families in Sre Ambel district’s Chi Khor ...

About 200 ethnic Phnong villagers gathered in Mondulkiri province’s Bousraa commune yesterday to protest against several companies that hold economic land concessions in the area, which they say are destroying their traditional livelihoods. The villagers from Pech Chreada district accused the Kau Su Dak Lak Company ...

The head of the National Assembly’s top human rights commission has warned Banteay Meanchey’s provincial governor to settle a land dispute involving 230 disabled soldiers’ families from the province’s Malai district, saying he will be sacked if the matter is not settled within three months. After ...

The last of 16 shacks that once clung to the edge of a mammoth development project in Phnom Penh’s Chroy Changva district were demolished by the Overseas Cambodia Investment Corporation (OCIC) on Monday. Seven families in Doeum Kor 2 village—where marshlands are quickly being pumped full ...

The National Assembly’s Human Rights Committee has laid out its plan to mediate negations to settle a more than decade-long land dispute between villagers and a powerful development company in Kompong Chhnang province’s Lor Peang village. The bipartisan committee announced early this month that it would ...

Minority villagers from Ratanakkiri’s O’Chum district climbed up a mountain to a community forest yesterday morning to challenge a company they claim is illegally felling their trees. ...

Six economic land concessionaires in Preah Vihear and Oddar Meanchey provinces have had their contracts to supply the government with wood to build housing for soldiers and their families cancelled. In 2011, after the conflict with Thailand over the Preah Vihear temple, the government encouraged the ...

The director of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court last week formally accused a property developer of attempting to defraud him of more than $200,000 he paid for a villa in Tuol Kok district when his name was not transferred to the land title, the businessman’s ...

Evictees from the Borei Keila community protested in front of City Hall on Friday to demand their inclusion in a working group that has been tasked with resolving the long-running dispute in which a development firm failed to provide decent housing for hundreds of people ...

Drive deep enough into Mondulkiri’s Pech Chreada district, and the rubber plantations that dot the roads fall away. Here, there is only mile after mile of lush, dark woodland: An ideal place to bury one’s dead and pay respects to the spirits that reside inside ...

The National Audit Authority (NAA), located on prime real estate on Phnom Penh’s Street 240, is in the midst of moving to a new location in Sen Sok district after   a property swap with a company owned by a military general, according to officials at ...