The FELDA resettlement program in Malaysia is internationally recognized as a success story in terms of cultivated area, number of settlers, and scope of vertical integration in the Malaysian palm oil industry. Since the mid-1980s, however, a series of reorganizations of work and property rights in the settlement schemes have taken place. It is argued here that the recent adjustments of FELDA are in accordance with the new rules for international regulation of agricultural production and trade in the WTO. International trade regulations increasingly influence the direction of socioeconomic and institutional struggles over rural reform programs in developing countries. Keywords: palm oil, Malaysia, Southeast Asia, FELDA, resettlement, agricultural policy.