Malaysian Experience of Orang Asli Involuntary Resettlement Compensation Package

Abstract

The Malaysian land law provides that upon registration, the title shall be indefeasible under the National Land Code (Revised 2020) (NLC) where the proprietor is guaranteed the security of tenure. However, for the Orang Asli, the Aboriginal Peoples Act 1954 (Act 134) only declares a communal right to them and the right to revoke the declaration is vested in the government. Thus, only the courts' decisions proclaim the Orang Asli's land rights and an equitable compensation accorded to them upon eviction. This article examines the Orang Asli's' land rights and the compensation for involuntary resettlement. Keywords: registration, land right, aborigines, revocation, compensation, resettlement eISSN 2514-751X © 2022. The Authors. Published for AMER & cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under the responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), College of Built Environment, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/aje-bs.v7i21.407