INTRODUCTION
Peace thrives on stability and predictability. A society is more likely to experience harmony when there is a shared and consistent understanding of how its members relate to one another—and how they should respond to each other’s actions. In many ways, law is the architecture of this predictability. It defines norms, enshrines expectations, and disciplines deviation. While several schools of thought exist on the origins of law, one dominant idea holds that law is an expression of society’s collective will—an agreement on how people wish to live and resolve their affairs. It is, in essence, a social contract of order. In Uganda, this recognition has found expression in our legal frameworks, particularly in how we treat land ownership. The Constitution and related laws acknowledge and protect customary land tenure—a system where land is owned communally, passed down through generations with shared responsibilities and benefits. This has historically been the cornerstone of landholding in the Northern region, where cultural traditions deeply entrench communal stewCONTEXT
ardship of land. However, society is never static. And in recent years, we at BarefootLaw have observed a disturbing pattern emerging—one that risks turning the very soil under our feet into a battleground. According to BarefootLaw’s Impact Department, in just the first two quarters of 2025, over 40% of all mediations were land-related disputes. That figure placed land second only to family matters—and upon closer scrutiny, a startling 53% of those family disputes themselves originated from property disagreements.Similarly, the Uganda Police Force reported increasing land-related crimes, rising from 478 in 2018 to 561 in 2022
1. This is not merely a spike in statistics. It is the symptom of a deeper shift—a slow but steady move from customary tenure toward private, individualised freehold ownership. Whether driven by economic aspirations, erosion of extended family trust, or diverging land use purposes, the result is the same: what was once shared is now being claimed. What was once communal is becoming individual. And in that transition lies a growing fracture in the social fabric. A stark illustration of this can be found in Amuru District, Northern Uganda. In 2008, the Amuru District Land Board allocated approximately 40,000 hectares of land—traditionally held under customary tenure by local communities—to the Madhvani Group for commercial sugarcane farming. The community members contested this allocation, asserting their customary ownership of the land. However, in a 2009 ruling, the High Court found against the community, stating that they did not hold the land under customary tenure and that the Land Board had acted within the law in allocating it to the company.[1] This decision ignited significant unrest. Community members expressed deep-seated grievances, with some warning of potential violence reminiscent of past conflicts. In neighbouring Nwoya District, a land dispute escalated into violence, resulting in the burning of 200 huts in the Koch Goma area.[2] These incidents underscore the volatile nature of land disputes in regions transitioning from customary to freehold tenure systems.
