A comparative overview on agricultural contracts in Sudan

Abstract

Sudan, like other African nations, has experienced challenges related to land ownership, aggravated by its previous status as the largest country in Africa before South Sudan’s secession. Traditionally, land in Sudan has been held collectively by tribes, managed by chiefs or tribal leaders through customary regulations. In this system, an individual’s right to land is derived from their membership in the community or tribe. Specific areas for communal use are exclusively reserved under customary law, where individuals can access them as a shared resource. This concept aligns with the notion of a native common good in modern terms, as described by the economic analysis of law, where ownership rights prevent individuals from excluding others. The right to exclude others does not apply in this case. These customary traditions remained mostly unaffected by colonial and post-colonial governments, which introduced a separate land tenure system based on the state’s authority to allocate land. Alongside these customs, Islam, as a religious faith, also played a significant role, providing principles and regulations that intertwined with customary traditions to form a binding body of law. However, the religious rules themselves are only one component of the living law, whose content is shaped through the interaction with customary practices. Official land law in Sudan, influenced by colonial practices, has undergone modifications under successive governments but remains fundamentally rooted in the colonial land laws. These laws were initially implemented to confiscate large land areas for commercial farming, particularly cotton production, and to regulate urban residency in support of colonial regime security. One of the fundamental issues related to rural land tenure stems from the principle introduced by the British colonial power in 1898, which assumes that unregistered land is owned by the government unless proven otherwise. Considering the premises, the purpose of this contribution is to analyse the land laws in Sudan and, in particular, the main type of agrarian contracts.