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…...

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.  ...

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....

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…...