This is the concept of how the established authority of the state –any state in force- has the final say in the use of land, or its allocation. In usual terms, this takes the form of the state making compulsory purchases or even seizures of land normally in the name of “Development”.

In an ideal situation, where the people running the state are the same as the people they govern in culture, interests and outlook, this should not be a big problem.

However, in most modern states, coming as they do out of a legacy of European conquest (and all that this implies), the usual reality is that the owner-managers of the state in question are fundamentally different from those they govern. This could be in the form of being European settlers, or an colonially imposed ethnic or religious elite, or a continuing European power arrangement over non-European people.

In such circumstances, Eminent Domain becomes a lethal weapon in the process of dispossessing indigenous peoples of their spaces, and of the culturally and economically different uses they may have for those spaces.