DS Turns 10! 28 December 2016 DS marks its tenth anniversary after its founding in Geneva on the same day in 2006. DS Director and Founder Scott Leckie reflects on the activities and victories of the past ten years, and what to expect from DS in the years to come. Dear Friends, It's hard to believe that DS has now been active for ten busy and eventful years involving an extraordinary team of dedicated HLP experts from around the world. From developing the Peninsula Principles, spearheading efforts to obtain land for climate displaced people, IDP return designs in Timor Leste, Somalia, Colombia, Bhutan and many more, carrying on-site investigations in Tuvalu, Solomon Islands, Panama, Kiribati, Bangladesh and many other climate change hotspots, to HLP rights analysis and restitution design work in Myanmar, the publication of several books, inaugurating the world’s first law school courses on climate displacement, and scores of DS reports, producing films, building homes for climate displaced families in Chittagong, and so much more, this dramatic decade has been an exhilarating one. On this tenth anniversary of DS, I would like to thank all of our supporters for making this journey so productive and even sometimes victorious. Special…...

From 13-15 March 2019, DS and our partners at NRC led and conducted two training workshops entitled ‘Understanding Restitution’ in Myanmar. The first, led by DS, was review of DS materials developed addressing HLP rights in Myanmar, and orientation for NRC ICLA staff from its field offices. The second, a more in-depth and strategic 2 day-workshop for key partners; namely the Karen National Union and Karen Development Committee as well as other NRC staff. It focused on the key elements required for building knowledge, and planning and developing institutional capacity to address restitution of housing land and property for individuals and families that have been forcibly displaced throughout Myanmar. Attended by 40 senior representatives of all three organizations, the workshop prepared the participants with a basic understanding of the mechanisms for restitution, and the building blocks for a future when restitution can assist internally displaced families and provide some form of closure for refugees to enjoy their full rights to housing, land and property in Myanmar.  ...

This report provides an in-depth understanding of customary land dispute resolution in Kayin State, Eastern Bago Region and Shan State and its interaction with the formal statutory Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar(GORUM) system. A participatory community-based research approach was used to understand customary practices concerning land, including how land title is defined, enforced and how land disputes are contested, negotiated and resolved at the community level. Based on the perceptions of local people and village leaders in the three research sites, the report identifies current practices as well as prior work on this topic in Myanmar and seeks to identify ongoing dispute resolution mechanisms and practices used by communities in ethnic nationality areas with a view to informing policy and programming on restitution. Key to this analysis is the question of what a genuine restitution process might look like in Myanmar and how customary practices might be integrated into it. Furthermore, if a genuine restitution process was established, what realistic capacity is there to integrate customary dispute mechanisms and authorities into it. Based on in-depth qualitative research in 31 villages across 3 regions/states, it offers an insight into understandings of customary mechanisms that people use to…...

Climate Change and Displacement (LAW5454) - Will be Offered 2-6 March 2020 at Monash Law School Human rights and access to justice, will be increasingly affected by the consequences of climate change. This will manifest in a multitude of ways, with the issue of climate displacement providing perhaps the most graphic example in this regard. The scale of climate displacement is likely to dwarf current levels of displacement throughout the world caused by conflict, disaster and poorly planned development projects. While estimates of the scale of future climate displacement are notoriously difficult to prove with any precision, it is certain that tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people will be forced by the consequences of climate change to flee their homes and lands, and in some instances, their countries. International and national laws and institutions are arguably not yet capable of ensuring that the rights of climate displaced persons will be fully respected. Offered in March 2020, Climate Change and Displacement (LAW5454)will provide a state of the art, up to date overview of the links between human rights and climate change, the phenomena of climate displacement, an understanding of the dynamics of climate displacement, the countries which are now and in…...