A new 76-page report prepared by DS Director Scott Leckie with the collaboration of Jose Arraiza of NRC, with the support of the Joint Peace Fund, outlines the components of what an eventual agreement in Myanmar on housing, land and property restitution could look like. The report, entitled BUILDING AGREEMENT ON RESTITUTION RIGHTS WITH THE MYANMAR PEACE PROCESS AND NATIONAL LEGAL FRAMEWORK examines all of the necessary components that would need to find recognition within an eventual national agreement designed to ensure that everyone with a viable HLP restitution claim could submit these to an independent judicial body with enforcement powers strong enough to ensure the full enjoyment of restitution rights throughout all corners of the country. Millions of people with legitimate restitution claims have yet to be able to have these claims heard by judicial bodies with the power to enforce these claims to return to, recover and/or re-inhabit the homes and lands from which they have been forced to flee over the past several decades. The report points out that HLP restitution rights are widely recognised in international law, and that many other countries have adopted restitution laws and procedures as key elements within peace processes and the…...

Have a look at Libby Hogan's article 'We feel like hermit crabs': Myanmar's climate dispossessed, published on 1 November 2018 in The Guardian. The article is one of the first published by international media sources focusing on Myanmar's latest displacement crisis, that of looming and massive climate displacement. DS Director Scott Leckie was interviewed for the article which also explores the need for the government of Myanmar to establish a national climate land back to deal effectively with climate displacement. You can access the article here: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/nov/01/we-feel-like-hermit-crabs-myanmar-climate-dispossessed....

Land in south-eastern Myanmar is a critical resource for the mainly rural population which is in need of greater safeguards within the formal, informal and customary systems of land administration. Customary law continues to operate at the village level, largely unchanged since pre-colonial times. While exhibiting many of the positive elements commonly attributed to such systems throughout the developing world, customary laws in relation to the resolution of land disputes are not always effective and equitable, and do not always display qualities which are consistent with rule of law standards. Deficiencies in transparency, accountability and equality have the potential to undermine the ability of marginalised sections of the population to access justice and obtain fair outcomes. Decades of military rule have exacerbated the structural inequalities experienced by Mon, Kayin and other ethnicities in their interactions with government authorities and the parallel administrations of Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs). This means that in addition to the large amounts of land-grabbing experienced by the population across Mon State, the avenues of resolving such grievances remain inaccessible to most poor rural populations, due to a combination of fear of authorities, language barriers, lack of knowledge regarding land law and dispute resolution mechanisms beyond the…...

DS Director Scott Leckie gave the opening address to a seminar on climate displacement at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, jointly hosted on 4 October 2018 by DS, LANDac and Utrecht University.  The meeting explored ongoing activities to prevent and repair climate displacement and urged governments everywhere, including the Netherlands, to elaborate and strengthen policies designed to better tackle this growing global crisis. As a result of the meeting, DS will host several MSc students to carry out field research in February 2019 in several key climate displacement hotspots including Bangladesh, Fiji and Panama. A report of the seminar is available here: Climate displacement seminar report....