The responsible governance of tenure requires, inter alia, certainty about access rights to land, fisheries and forests as well as the institutionalization of their management. National legal frameworks are of crucial importance for the clarification and protection of tenure rights, for the determination of the use and management of the resources, and for the assignment of institutional responsibilities for tenure rights administration and dispute resolution. Well-designed and effectively-implemented national laws are instrumental not only to the creation of secure and equitable tenure rights, especially to vulnerable segments of society, but also to the optimal utilization of natural resources for development purposes

FAOLEX
This comprehensive and up-to-date computerized legislative database is one of the world's largest electronic collections of national laws and regulations on food, agriculture and renewable natural resources. Users of FAOLEX have direct access to the abstracts and indexing information about each text, as well as to the full text of most legislation contained in the database. Browse the database

FAO Legislative Studies
The FAO Legal Office regularly publishes legal studies in the FAO Legislative Studies Series.

FAO Legal Papers
The FAO Legal Papers series presents, on a periodic basis, articles and reports on comparative and international law topics relating to food policy, agriculture, rural development, biodiversity, the environment, and natural resource management.

Partner publications on legal aspects of tenure
This category features selected FAO publications on the area of law and governance of tenure.