Global learnings for land reform in Scotland: Towards more radical solutions

Scotland has long been one of the most unequal countries in the world in terms of land ownership – yet interestingly, it is also a global outlier when it comes to genuine land reform. A seminal moment was the 2003 Land Reform (Scotland) Act, and in early 2024 the Scottish government introduced a new round of legislation which aims to strengthening provisions of the earlier Act. While community tenure offers a valuable solution which offers lessons globally, when it comes to achieving change in the actual distribution of land, Scotland’s land reforms are weak when compared to the historic experience of many other countries globally. They fall far short of any genuine structural change – and treat the property rights of landlords as sacrosanct. It is therefore critical to look at land reform questions in Scotland from a global perspective – both to better understand the history of land tenure in the country, and the potential solutions from a perspective of redistributive justice.