Amazon.com description: Product Description: The relationship of a people and their land has many aspects: spiritual, familial, economic. Land provides the home and shelter for the family, the sense of security which is essential to human dignity. Land is a source of food; it is a source and the most permanent form of wealth. And so, the stability of a society depends upon the justice and effectiveness of the laws and institutions which govern and protect the access of the people to land. East Timor begins its life as a new and independent nation without the benefit of established laws and institutions to regulate land, its ownership and use. It must create those laws and institutions in order to foster the peace, security and economy of its people. In addressing questions of such magnitude, there is an inevitable risk that the solutions might be inadequate or, in copying the provisions of more developed legal systems, inappropriate. East Timor is fortunate in having Mr. Fitzpatrick’s Land Claims in East Timor to assist. It is a work of scholarship, based firmly on his research into the existing situation in East Timor.

Gerard Brennan Former Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia