Displacement and land administration

Serious conflicts tend to lead to both significant displacements of people and competing claims over land. Forced displacement, due to the involvement of arms, disrupts the relation that people have with their land, leaving them with no other choice than to leave their land behind for their own safety. However, the temporary disruption has long-lasting or even permanent effects in land tenure or even in the formal land administration as a whole. The vacated land is occupied by secondary and successive occupants, sometimes with the consent and under the direction of authorities. After the conflict, when original tenants return a conflict of interests emerges because of overlapping interests and conflicting claims, which may each be regarded as legitimate under successive administrations. On top of that, returning refugees—people who flee their homes for their safety and cross the border of their country—often find their original properties destroyed, leaving them with little proof or evidence to justify their claims.