III. State Action Taken and Needed There are never any sanctions, the true landowner suffers and pays and pays, while the illegal seller acts with ill-will and faces no consequences. That’s why people keep doing it. If there were sanctions, this problem would be over. —Original landowner, victim of an illegal land sale, February 2013181 While many local government officials and humanitarian actors are trying to find solutions to the land conflicts that plague western Côte d’Ivoire, they find themselves without effective support from the national government. At the village and sub-prefectural levels, there are formal mechanisms to resolve land conflicts.182 Generally, a person with a land complaint brings the issue first to the village chief, who in many cases oversees a village committee resolving land disputes.183 If the village chief is unable to resolve the dispute, the complaint may then go to the canton chief, a customary leader who oversees an area comprising several villages.184 If the dispute can still not be resolved, it goes to the sub-prefect, many of whom oversee administrative committees resolving land disputes. The hierarchy is not always followed, as some people go directly to the sub-prefect.185 A plaintiff could always bring a complaint 181 Human Rights Watch interview with Guéré woman, victim of an illegal sale prior to the crisis, Guiglo, February 7, 2013. 182 Decrees subsequent to the 1998 land law created committees for rural land management (comités de gestion foncière rurale, CGFR), establishing both the CGFR overseen by the sub-prefect and a committee overseen at the village level (comités villageois de gestion foncière rurale, CVGFR). See Décret n°99-593 du 13 octobre 1999, Organisation et attributions des comités de gestion foncière-rurale (C.G.F.R), http://www.droit-afrique.com/images/textes/Cote_Ivoire/RCI%20-%20Domaine%20foncier%20rural%20%20Decret%20application.pdf (accessed September 3, 2013), pp. 1-2; and Décret n°99-594 du 13 octobre 1999, Modalités d’application au domaine foncier rural coutumier, http://www.droit-afrique.com/images/textes/Cote_Ivoire/RCI%20%20Domaine%20foncier%20rural%20-%20Decret%20application.pdf (accessed September 3, 2013), pp. 3-6. These land committees are tasked primarily with managing the process by which people transform their customary rights into a land certificate. At least in western Côte d’Ivoire, some committees are also involved in resolving land conflicts related to the crisis. However, the committees operate in different ways and even vary in terms of which groups are represented. Some committees’ composition does not conform to what is outlined by the 1999 decrees cited above. While the land committees’ actions in managing the process of land certificates appears fairly standardized under the 1999 decrees, their involvement in resolving claims of land dispossession— including those linked to the post-election crisis—appears more ad hoc, without consistent rules and procedures. 183 If a dispute involves two Guérés from the same family, dispute resolution often starts with the head of family. Since that does not involve any customary or administrative authority linked to the state, Human Rights Watch will not focus on that mechanism in this report. 184 Canton chiefs typically get involved when a case involves parties from two villages within the canton, for example when a person from one village claims that a person from a neighboring village illegally sold his land. Unlike at the village and subprefectural levels, their role is not specifically recognized under Ivorian law, but exists according to custom. 185 In a 2012 report from the Norwegian Refugee Council, which has worked extensively to help communities in western Côte d’Ivoire resolve land disputes, researchers found that “most community members did not agree about a clear hierarchy or “THAT LAND IS MY FAMILY’S WEALTH” 62