Patrick McAUSLAN, 1937-2014

Patrick McAuslan was the Professor of Law and Emeritus Professor of Urban Management in the University of London. He trained as a lawyer, had taught, researched and practiced in the area of land law, land use law, land and natural resources policies and management in developing countries for over 40 years.

He was the Land Management Adviser to the World Bank/UNDP/UNCHS Urban Management Programme (UMP) based in Nairobi from 1990 – 1993, of which he was the International Co-ordinator from 1992 – 1993. He has drafted legislation (which is now in force) on land tenure reform in Tanzania (1996 – 2000) and Uganda (1998); on forests in Tanzania (2002); on wildlife law in Uganda (1994); on land use planning in Tanzania (1977 – 81), Malawi (1984) and Mauritius (2004). He was team leader of FAO teams advising on land reform in Swaziland (1997) and Namibia (1995) and of a DANIDA team to review urban land tenure reform proposals in Namibia in 1998. He was a member of a team reviewing Botswana’s land policies in 2002. He was Senior Technical Adviser to a DFID project to assist the Government of Uganda to implement the Land Act in 1998, which he had been principally responsible for drafting and worked in Kampala in the Ministry of Lands for a year (1999 – 2000). He had worked on land law issues in Serbia, Albania and Ukraine and participated in workshops on land law issues in Romania, The Czech Republic and Slovakia. He had also worked on local government reform in Tanzania, Afghanistan and Syria.

He was the author of many books and papers on land law and policies including (as co-author) the 1992 UMP/World Bank publication Reforming Urban Land Policies and Institutions in Developing Countries and the 2003 publication Bringing the Law Back In: Essays in Land Law and Development.

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