Land ownership in the Marshall Islands
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Land in the Marshall Islands is divided into land parcels called watos. Watos may extend across an island from lagoon side to ocean side, or they may be located entirely in the interior of the island. The watos are typically demarked by natural boundaries; however, in urban areas such as Ebeye, or islands that sustained heavy bombing damage in World War II, conflict over a wato’s boundaries can arise.
Through the centuries, Marshallese devised a complex set of rules for the ownership and use of land. There are three primary classes of land ownership as determined by the three social classes in the Marshalls: iroij (chief); alap (owner or elder); and (c) rijerbal (worker or commoner). Every Marshallese family belongs to one of these classes and therefore has land ownership and/or use rights somewhere in the Marshalls. Additionally, families may be an iroij or alap for one or more islands and a rijerbal on other islands.
When talking of land, Marshallese distinguish titles from rights – although both are passed through the mother. For example, suppose a leroij (female chief) has two children (a boy and a girl) when she dies. Assuming that the leroij has no brothers or sisters, her title and all of her land rights pass to her two children. However, as the eldest, the brother inherits the title of iroij for the land, but both the brother and the sister inherit the rights of the iroij/leroij to the land. As the titled iroij, the brother has the right to make decisions on behalf of everyone else who may also hold iroij/leroij rights on that land – in this case, his sister. When the sister dies, her leroij rights pass to her children, but the iroij title for the land remains with her brother as he is the eldest surviving member of the family. When the brother dies, considering that he was the sole survivor of that generation, the title of iroij goes to his sister’s eldest child.
While this structure may seem autocratic, there actually is a system of checks and balances. For instance, while the iroij holds supreme power over the land, major decisions effecting the use of land require the consent of the alap and senior rijerbal as well. A land lease for example, is not legally binding anywhere in the Marshall Islands without the signatures of all three title holders - iroij, alap and senior rijerbal.
