-
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
The Internet Bar Organization’s Internet Silk Road Initiative involves research in several areas of using mobile technologies to improve rule of law and access to financial markets. We will be focusing on land in this presentation, because you’ve got Roshan on the panel to talk to you about m-banking and they are really doing wonderful things with mobile technologies and access to markets, but Anand asked me to briefly describe our research agenda regarding mobile banking to you so I’ll spend just a minute or two going over what our research is with respect to mobile banking.
Associated Press article from 2007: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20479899/Statistics on phone market from Afghan Ministry of Communication: http://www.mcit.gov.af/Why mobile phones? Internet access is still very limited in Afghanistan, especially rural Afghanistan and populations struggle with basic literacy, let alone technological literacy. But mobile phones are becoming omnipresent and people use them for simple activities as well as increasingly complex ones, like transferring money, receiving their salaries, and exchanging information.