Pierre-Etienne KENFACK

The search for land for agro-industrial plantations has become increasingly widespread in light of the recent financial and food crises in the world. Searching for safe-havens or land to grow crops destined to feed their populations or bio-fuel, investment funds and certain industrialised States seek and obtain vast areas from Central African States through concessions. These investments affect the rights of both public and private individuals. They affect the rights of the contracting State which, in Africa, is sometimes represented by people who, inadequately trained in international transactions or unconcerned about the public interest, sell off the land in opaque transactions, on a willing-seller/willing-buyer basis. They jeopardise food security and the survival of the people occupying and using this land who are treated as third parties despite their actual occupation of this land prior to the establishment of the States of the Central African subregion. How can we ensure that these investments are no longer made to the detriment of the rights of the State and communities? Such is the aim of this project which will give rise to several articles and perhaps a book on the subject.

Pierre Etienne Kenfack, a national of Cameroon, is a senior lecturer in Private Law at the University of Yaoundé II. Having completed his law studies with a postgraduate thesis at the University of Yaoundé, he went on to do a thesis on legal theory in 2003 at université Paris 1 before undertaking post-doctoral studies at the centre for comparative labour law at université Bordeaux IV.

Starting as assistant professor then lecturer and, since 2011, Senior Lecturer at the University of Yaoundé II, he has taught methodology of legal research, private international law, land law and social law. Today, his research focuses primarily on land law and natural resources.