You're dead right about rights Dan. I've elided two separate strands of argument here - when the State Department calls for womens' rights to land, they're very clear that they're referring to individual rights. But there are other ways that rights can be made operative, such as through collective rights.

Traditional legal systems often have collective rights to land embedded within them. Trouble is that these systems are almost without exception even more oppressive than straightforward constitutional legal systems, in which individual property is prized above all else. This tightrope is one that was discussed, but not resolved, at the World Social Forum's discussions on women and land here