A new report documents the improper and systematic redistribution of land in Uzbekistan that regularly benefits property developers at the expense of individual citizens.

The report, published by the Centre for Public Administration at the University of Ulster and titled “A False Sense of Legality,” examines property seizures in Uzbekistan over an eight-year period from 2017-24.

“These landed expropriations to facilitate private, commercially oriented developments frequently involve serious abuses of public power, which are potentially in violation of Uzbekistan’s criminal code and constitution,” the report states. 

The report examines the rights of Uzbek property owners and leaseholders in detail and concludes that officials have regularly violated rules and regulations covering land transfers and lease-breaking. “While these egregious abuses have been brought to the attention of Uzbekistan’s president and national accountability bodies, no meaningful action has been taken to address them,” the report adds.

Five case studies are presented in the report in which private land is effectively expropriated not for the public benefit, but for the personal gain of officials and/or their friends and relatives. There is little that citizens can do to fight forced displacement because “administrative courts have proven unwilling to annul illegal decrees, even when the violations are condemned by oversight bodies including the Human Rights Ombudsman.”

Among the report’s recommendations is a call on international financial institutions (IFIs), including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and the International Finance Corporation, to develop enhanced due diligence procedures to identify illegal property transfers in Uzbekistan. It also urges IFIs to closely monitor “high-risk development projects” reflecting a “a rights-based approach and meaningful stakeholder engagement.”

Private-sector entities considering investments in real estate developments or agribusiness ventures also need enhanced due diligence procedures to ensure projects are in compliance with “private property protections and due process requirements set out in Uzbek law and international human rights law.”