1.
Presented by Internet Silk Road
An Internet Bar Organization Initiative
Land Dispute Resolution using
Mobile Technologies
© 2010 Internet Bar
Organization

2.
Internet Silk Road Research Agenda
Legal
Empower
ment
Use 0f technology and
development of Rule of
Law to build financial
and marketplace
infrastructure
Mobile
Telephony
Land Rights Mobile
Clarification Commerce
Mobile
Banking
© 2010 Internet Bar Organization

3.
Land Situation in Afghanistan
 Refugee resettlement
 Pastureland conflicts
 Rural inaccessibility to judicial system
 Corruption
 Multiplicity of deeds due to successive regimes’
systems
 Overburdened land registries
© 2010 Internet Bar Organization

4.
© 2010 Internet Bar Organization

5.
Negative Effects
 Property owners cannot offer
land as collateral for loans
 Disputants find graft makes
dispute resolution
expensive/impossible leading
to violence
 Foreign investors feel unsafe
because of the lack of clarity
on ownership
 Underinvestment and conflict
ensue
© 2010 Internet Bar Organization

6.
Attempts to Rectify Land Issues
Attempt Shortcomings
Registration/mapping Lack of resources to complete; doesn’t
address verification of ownership/disputes
Government freeze on sale of gov’t land Freeze on sales doesn’t address underlying
[to avoid land grabbing] lack of clarity of rights
Use of tax records to determine land Tax records use favors the wealthier,
use/ownership regardless of actual land occupation/use
Jirga dispute resolutions Jirgas’ results are customary and outside
of formal system. Therefore results aren’t
reflected in titles
Court-based dispute resolutions Courts are over-burdened
© 2010 Internet Bar Organization

7.
Using Simple Mobile Technologies to
Streamline the Process
 Training of Afghans in using mobile technologies to:
 Collect evidence on jirga customs during needs assessment
 Aid in mapping disputes & transmission of mapping information
to centralized location
 Detect new disputes
 Transmit decisions made by ADR jirgas to e-registry
© 2010 Internet Bar Organization

8.
GSM Subscribers 12,113,571
CDMA Subscribers 78,796
Landlines 50,532
Penetration 49%
Investments in $
1,276
Millions
Telecom Base
The Afghan Mobile Station
3,285
Phone Market today Population Coverage Over 80%
Statistics above from Afghan Ministry of Communication, December
In 2007, the number of mobile phone 2009; Photo below: A man sells mobile phones in Kabul. Source:
Bloomberg News via WSJ
subscribers in Afghanistan was
150,000 (12% of Afghan population)
[Associated Press]
By December 2009, the number had
shot up to 12 million [Afghan
Ministry of Communications]
© 2010 Internet Bar Organization

9.
© 2010 Internet Bar Organization
Land Mapping and Registration
GPS coordinates of individual
plots recorded
Photographs taken of
Land Mapping
boundary markers
Written description of
boundary markers
Online database of data
collected will be pitched to Informal clarification
Afghan government for Land Registration of land rights within
community
update of land registry
Online database of land
data can be used as Informal clarification
informal basis for Titles reduce land
Title used as collateral reduces land disputes
dispute and increase
loans, land dispute for loans and increases tenure
tenure security
security
resolution in the
meanwhile

10.
© 2010 Internet Bar Organization
ADR Mechanism
Level 1 disputes ODR to solve
Disputes SMS-ed Resolved;
Disputes arising disputes; Decision monitoring
to e-registry sent to e-registry
over mapping
Level 2 disputes
ISR-trained ADR Decision SMS-ed to Resolved;
Smaller claim land arbitrators e-registry monitoring
disputes
Level 3 disputes Decision of tribes
Similar model to Resolved;
SMS-ed to e-
Pasturelands level 2 model monitoring
registry

11.
Trust and Governance
 Transparency
 Monitoring: tracing of digital footprints in e-registry editing
 Viewing access to e-registry database open to the public
 Security
 Limiting access to editing e-registry to a few accountable
individuals
 Encryption of information entered into database
 Privacy – experiment with different privacy models
 E.g. Make grievance data anonymous
© 2010 Internet Bar Organization

12.
How Mobile Technologies Can Help Now
 Information gathering
and uploading Individual
 GPS coordinates
 photographs
Central
 Written Individual
registry
Individual
descriptions of
boundary markers
and disputes Individual
© 2010 Internet Bar Organization

13.
Future Applications
 Accessibility of deed
registry through mobile Individual
phones
 ADR mechanisms to
resolve low-level land Individual
Central
Individual
registry
disputes
 Integrating deed records
as proof of collateral for
Individual
mobile micro-lending
© 2010 Internet Bar Organization

14.
Partnering with the experts
Online Dispute Resolution  Ethan Katsh, Director of the
National Center for Technology and
 SMU Masters program on Dispute
Dispute
Resolution; led by IBO board
member Dan Rainey and Alma
Jadallah of the American University Cell phone mapping:
School of International Service.  Todd Huffman - mobile developer
 Colin Rule, Dir. of Online Dispute who has implemented key
Resolution at ebay/Paypal technology projects in Afghanistan;
working with the Haiti
 National Defense University
OpenstreetMaps Team
 Jin Ho Verdonschot, Faculty of Law,
University of Tilberg Institute for
Interdisciplinary Studies of Civil Law
and Conflict Resolution Systems
(TISCO)
© 2010 Internet Bar Organization

15.
Local Partners
GIS/GPS advisors ground:
 Amir Zeb Khan, GIS  Afghan Judiciary
specialist and consultant
 Afghanistan Bar Association
 Afghan Land Consulting
Organization; Harakat  Afghan Land Consulting
(ALCO) Organization (ALCO)
 Afghan Center for Dispute
Resolution (ACDR)
 Afghan Land Authority
(ALA)
Potential collaborators on the © 2010 Internet Bar Organization

16.
Thank You
Presentation prepared by:
RuhaDevanesan, VP & Exec Dir IBO
James Cormie, ISR researcher
Ivan Goering, ISR researcher
Contact:
www.internetsilkroad.org
Jeff Aresty, President, IBO
Jeff.aresty@gmail.com
RuhaDevanesan, VP & Exec Dir.
ruhatd@gmail.com
© 2010 Internet Bar Organization