Understanding the legal dimension of state-led dispossession: the use and misuse of law in Timor-Leste

Abstract

The role of law in dispossession is often overlooked or at least downplayed in the literature, with the law being represented as something that politicians and state officials can change or ignore at will. This is too simplistic. This socio-legal article argues that the way state authorities use and misuse the law in state-led dispossession impacts the outcomes of these processes and warrants consideration in the study of this phenomenon. Although variable, the law has autonomy from social, political, and economic factors. Building on four case studies from Timor-Leste, this article proposes an analytical framework through which the role of law in dispossession can be more precisely studied and thus better understood. This framework identifies three key points of analysis: (1) the legal mechanisms used for dispossession, (2) the uses of the law, and (3) the misuses of the law for dispossession, and proposes a typology for each.