Presentation by Linlin Li on the "Adoption of the international model of a well-governed land expropriation system in China: problems and the way forward" which took place during the annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty held in Washington DC from March 23 to 27, 2015.

Based on the current international documents on a good governance of land tenure, a four-level participation procedure in land expropriation can be summarized. Although it is a combination of all the good experience from different countries which constructs an ideal model for expropriation, it is conducive to the improvements in current systems of specific countries, even in the developed countries. In the case of China, the lack of participation of affected parties is obvious throughout the expropriation process, especially in the first and the fourth stage—the participation prior to the approval of an expropriation decision and the participation of farmers in monitoring the use of the expropriated land. Overall, at least six issues have to be resolved in order to improve the current expropriation system. Although the central government keeps strengthening the land rights of Chinese farmers including a right to participate, the key question is that procedural rules which can secure this participation are not enough, and sometimes not available. In the future legal reform, in addition to a further acknowledgement of Chinese farmers’ substantial rights to collective land, more procedural rules are supposed to be established to enforce their procedural rights in land expropriation.

Linlin Li got her bachelor degree in law in 2008 in Qingdao University, China. In September 2008, she was enrolled at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing and got her Master degree in Civil Law and Commercial Law in 2011. Her Master thesis focuses on the mortgage of collective construction land use rights. Since September 2011, she is a PhD candidate in the Private Law and Notary Law in Groningen University in the Netherlands. In 2012, she partly participate in the project "Farmland Acquisition and Governance in China: Participatory Learning and Experimentation (2011-2013)", and contributed one chapter "Innovative Local Practices of Collective Land Acquisition through Farmer Participation". Her current research topic is Transformation of the law on farmland transfer in China - from a governance perspective.

Presentation by Linlin Li:

Linlin Li responding to a question by Eric Yeboah: