State Property vs. Customary Ownership: A Comparative Framework in West Africa

This article examines relations between state and customary land claims in Francophone West Africa. This region, despite a broadly common legal heritage at the time of independence, experienced a wide variety of changes at the national scale to the point where these countries now form a full spectrum of statutory/customary relations. After a historical review of rural property rights in Francophone West Africa, this article proposes a typology of State vs. Customary ownership in the region with a focus on four exemplary cases: Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Mauritania.