Land Tenure and Land Acquisition Enforcement in Vietnam

Abstract

Land tenure is an individual relationship to the land. Vietnam applies a regime of universal ownership of land. The land belongs to all the people of Vietnam, but the State represents the owner. Land ownership in Vietnam includes three fundamental rights: the right to possess, use, and dispose of land. When the State allocates land to land users, it only assigns them the right to own and use land. This article evaluated one out of eight rights to dispose of land by the State, land acquisition. Data was collected from a survey with 100 land-expropriated households, five interviews with authorities at all levels, and five interviews with households living next to the study area. The results show that land acquisition does not ensure fairness for families who lose land. Compensation rates are six to eight times lower for agricultural land. The right to access land information is also not appreciated when people do not know their household compensation details. Another inequity was also seen between households who lost land and those living around the land acquisition project.