DS carried out its latest mission to Myanmar in October with a focus this time on the question of housing, land and property restitution rights and how best to ensure these rights for everyone with an HLP loss and valid restitution claim in need of remedy. DS and the Norwegian Refugee Council will shortly be reducing a major new study on restitution, which it plans to publicly launch in Yangon in January 2017. A range of restitution measures are already in place in Myanmar, signalling a major concrete outcome of the political reform process. The new study proposes a series of specific recommendations on how to move to the next level of the quest of restitution for all. These efforts build on DS' extensive global experience on designing restitution laws and systems throughout the history of the organisation. ...

DS Director Scott Leckie and DS associate Zeke Simperingham again visited Myanmar for a two-week DS mission in May 2016 to explore recent developments in the land sector, and the prospects for restitution forming part of the expanding peace process in the country.  With the new NLD-led government in power for the first time, the prospects for positive action within the land sector are noteworthy. DS worked together with the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in developing recommendations for the British Government's aid agency DFID, and how the UK might best support land-related activities in the context of the peace process. Land is key negotiating issue between the government and the various ethnic negotiating partners, and will invariably form a key basis for the eventual conclusion of peace agreements in the future. DS will continue to expand its Myanmar HLP Initiative in the coming year with a variety of projects within the land sector, including a joint project with Landesa on climate displacement within the country. ...

  http://issuu.com/displacementsolutions/docs/ds-nrc_pinheiro_principles_in_engli?e=31296948/53928323...

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…...