"Land confiscation is one of the leading causes of protest and unrest in Burma, having led to the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in recent years. It also undermines Burma?s fragile peace processes... •The 2008 constitution and subsequent laws are used to legitimize arbitrary land confiscation, deny access to justice, and perpetuate an environment of impunity... • Land confiscation for profitable large-scale development and commercial projects enrich the military, state- owned enterprises, and regime cronies, but result in the loss of livelihood and human rights abuses for local communities... • Land confiscation often involves violence, resulting in grievous injury, to force people off their land, or to suppress resistance to land confiscation... • Benefiting from land grabs, linked in some cases to ethnic cleansing or war atrocities, poses a risk to foreign investors and increases their exposure to judicial claims... • Prevailing censorship and other institutional obstr uctions hinder access to accurate information required for due diligence processes. • It is in the interests of the international corpora te community to ensure that legislative and institution reforms include equitable and transpare nt land acquisition procedures and measures to protect communities from impunity... Since President Thein Sein took office in 2011, the regime has allowed unbridled land confiscation for infrastructure, commercial and military development projects... The 2008 constitution identifies the state as being the ultimate owner of all land in Burma. Antiquated laws such as the 1894 Lan d Acquisition Act give the regime the right to take o ver any land, making local people extremely vulnerable to forced displacement without any recourse to remedy. Given that an estimated 70% of the population depend on small- and medium-scale agriculture for their livelihoods, land confiscation has had a devastating impact."