Working with the United Nations in Kosovo in 1999, I had witnessed the despair of displaced populations in the aftermath of conflict – their little prospect for return and for recovery of their housing, land and property. I soon became involved in the establishment of the first international mechanism – the Housing and Property Directorate/Claims Commission (HPD/CC) – that would adjudicate such individual housing, land and property claims. Scott Leckie, then Director of the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), had designed the blueprint for this unique claims settlement mechanism, and the farsighted UN leadership – notably Dan Lewis – made it possible to set this important precedent for the handling of displacement-related claims. From there on, it would become a recurring and dominant topos of my research and professional career, responding to requests for expert guidance in places such as Yemen, Georgia and the Sudan.