Conflict and post-conflict land administration – the case of Kosovo

Abstract

Land and its administration are always negatively affected during conflicts and in post-conflict periods. If land and its administration are neglected or not properly addressed after the end of a conflict, they can be a cause for a renewed armed conflict and an obstacle in the rebuilding of a post-conflict society. This paper aims at identifying interventions in land administration that occur in conflicts and post-conflict contexts and relate them to the characteristics of post-conflict societies. A case study is conducted in Kosovo, where with the support of the international community developments in the land administration sector were evident. A strong relation is recognised between interventions in land administration and the characteristics of post-conflict societies. In this regard, it is revealed that strengthening the institutions in the land sector, which obviously occurred in the case of Kosovo, had a positive impact on the institutional weaknesses of a post-conflict society. In addition, interventions in housing and property rights and land administration are identified as elements that contributed to solving the prevailing social and economic problems. Addressing specific land issues in the peace agreement document and the availability of a land dispute resolution mechanism supported settling disputes over land and reduced conflict tensions; these interventions supported the overall security situation. This paper concludes that interventions in land administration indeed facilitated the rebuilding of post-conflict Kosovo.

Keywords:

• Conflict
• Post-conflict
• Land administration
• Post-conflict societies
• Kosovo

Introduction

There is a specific correlation between conflict and land: they meet each other at every point of the cycle of armed conflicts. This is observed in many countries around the world (Guterras, 2009). United Nations (UN) ‘Humanitarian response review’ identified land as a critical gap in international response capacities (OCHA, 2005). Awareness of the importance of housing, land and property issues in post-conflict contexts has increased over the past 15 years, which is significantly shown in the literature related to the issue, where the correlation between conflict and land is elaborated on and the effects of their mutual impacts before, during and after the conflict are investigated and documented (EU-UN, 2012; FAO, 2005; Pantuliano, 2009; UN-HABITAT, 2007, 2009; Unruh and Williams, 2013). Recognising the important role that land plays in conflicts and post-conflict contexts, this paper explores how land is administered in these circumstances.

The aim of this paper is to identify interventions in land administration in conflict and post-conflict contexts and link them with the characteristics for rebuilding post-conflict societies. Linking these two topics is supported by the assumption that a relationship between the two exists. This relationship will be further investigated in order to identify how interventions in land administration contribute to the rebuilding of post-conflict societies.

One of the countries where the intervention in land administration in conflict and post-conflict contexts can be explored is Kosovo. Kosovo is a country where discriminatory laws were applied in relation to real estate transfers before the conflict. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) found out that more than half of the population was displaced and almost half of the housing units were destroyed or left uninhabitable as a consequence of the conflict (OSCE, 2000). All state archives, including cadastre and property archives, were partially or fully removed from the territory of Kosovo (Ratia, 2000). According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), after the end of the conflict, a new wave of displacement took place. The properties of those displaced after the conflicts were the target of new destruction as revenge, or were illegally occupied by returnees from the conflict period (UNHCR, 1999a).

To better understand the interventions in land administration in conflict and post-conflict contexts, a qualitative research approach (obtaining data via a case study) was applied to our case – Kosovo. Primary data were collected in interviews with relevant local (9) and international (6) professionals involved in the land sector in Kosovo and secondary data were collected from various organisations dealing with land issues. A comprehensive literature review complements this research.

In this paper, the logical argument is organised as follows. First, in the next section, conflict and post-conflict land administration, and post-conflict societies are addressed based on the available literature. The findings from the collected evidence from Kosovo are elaborated per conflict phase in the following four sections, which show the identification of the various interventions in land administration. Identifying these interventions suggests that they can be recognised as elements addressing the different characteristics for rebuilding a post-conflict society. To build on this, the next section discusses the rebuilding of post-conflict Kosovo in relation to land in a post-conflict context. This is done in the structure of the characteristics of war-torn societies as given by Ball (2001). In the final section, the paper concludes that interventions in land administration address these characteristics and this contributed to rebuilding of post-conflict Kosovo. Further investigation to which extent this contribution exists is recommended.

Conflict and post-conflict land administration, and post-conflict societies

In this section, an overview of the available literature is presented on the topics (1) conflict and post-conflict land administration and (2) post-conflict societies.

Conflict and post-conflict land administration

Causes of armed conflicts are many, and they may be found in territory, ideology, dynastic legitimacy, religion, language, ethnicity, self-determination, resources, markets, dominance, equality and, of course, revenge (Heinz-Jürgen et al., 2006). Among the characteristics of violent conflict, the most serious concerns are the number of people killed, widespread destruction of properties and infrastructure and displacement. While wars today seem to kill fewer people than conflicts in the past, greater numbers of civilians appear to be exposed to and become vulnerable to violence (UNHCR, 2012). The UN reports that at the end of 2013, approximately 51.2 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced as a result of violent conflicts (UNHCR, 2014). Also, it appears that, although most violent conflicts are not ‘caused’ by conflicts over land per se, almost every major eruption of a violent conflict has had a land dimension (Putzel, 2009).

The post-conflict period starts when the main hostilities have ceased, some kind of peace agreement document is signed and international assistance can be given. This period generally distinguishes three phases: emergency, early recovery and reconstruction. Some scholars observe post-conflict phases based on time (Maier, 2010) and according to Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the UN, based on activities undertaken (FAO, 2005). Activities in the emergency phase typically focus on the establishment of basic governance and the provision of humanitarian services. Activities in the early recovery phase could be identified as the development of policies, strategies and legal frameworks, the establishment of government and administrative infrastructures, and the development of interim and long term policies. The reconstruction phase is characterised by the implementation of those policies, strategies and laws from the early recovery phase. The phases should not be understood as absolute, fixed, time-bound or having clear boundaries, but are contextually determined (FAO, 2005; NEPAD, 2005).

Land issues always arise during the conflict, but they become very complex immediately after the conflict as many displaced people return to their places of origin and find their houses and properties destroyed, damaged or illegally occupied by secondary occupants (Leckie, 2000). The moment of return of the displaced persons is considered as critical, because frustration about lack of justice and fairness easily lead to the eruption of a new conflict. Other land-related issues that come up in the conflict and post-conflict contexts are landlessness, access to land, non-functional land administration systems, forced transactions, emergency occupation of land, and housing and property rights. Land disputes and claims over land are a very frequent problem in post-conflict settings. Thus, land dispute resolution mechanisms are viewed as a conditional tool for a good peace process (Unruh, 2001). Observing the conflicts from the past, a joint European Union (EU) and UN publication (EU-UN, 2012), concludes that in the majority of cases, land is seen as politically too sensitive or technically too complicated to be tackled early in the post-conflict period. In addition, Wehrmann (2005) claims that the criteria of good governance applied to post-conflict land policy and land management would provide a good basis for a sustainable and low-conflict development.

By identifying the specific role that land plays in conflict and post-conflict contexts, this paper further explores how land is administered in these circumstances. Land administration is here considered as ‘the process of determining, recording and disseminating information about tenure, value and use of land when implementing land management policies’ (UN/ECE, 1996). Land administration is the appropriate instrument for implementing national land policies, with a number of functions, such as support for the establishment of a land market, land use planning, land tax administration and management of state land (van der Molen, 2002). Post-conflict situations lead to a dysfunctional land administration system characterised by limited prioritisation of land policy, discriminatory land law, a poor institutional and regulatory framework that allows the grabbing of public and private land by powerful individuals and groups, poor management information systems for updating records as well as weak state capacity that was incapable of helping internally displaced people and refugees (Augustinus and Barry, 2006). The most obvious blow for land administration in post-conflict contexts follows from the loss of staff and records. Staff can be killed (forced to), leave the area or not be able or willing to return to their jobs within land administration systems (Zevenbergen and Burns, 2010). Incomplete, out of date or contested land records can pose a threat to tenure security and the overall peace situation. United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) argues that issues about land records in post-conflict situations that require appropriate attention are inadequate land records, fragmented responsibility for land records, lost, stolen, fraudulent and altered land records and women and children's property and inheritance rights (UN-HABITAT, 2009).

The literature about long term capacity building in developing, transition and post-conflict countries in the area of land administration reveals that this is often a missing link. It appears that the usual capacity building focus is on short and mid-term, and is often synonymous to human resources development, training and education of staff only (Enemark, 2003). Adequate developments of the land administration system should cover the appropriate building of the capacities not only at an individual level but also on an organisational and societal level. Even when the key focus is on education and training only to meet the short and medium term needs, capacity building measures should also address the wider context of institutional infrastructures to safeguard the implementation of land polices in a sustainable way (Enemark and van der Molen, 2008).

We found that housing and property rights and land administration are always negatively affected by conflicts and if not addressed properly in a post-conflict context, they can be a cause of secondary conflicts and even erupt into another armed conflict (Todorovski et al., 2012). Looking back in history, in the majority of conflict cases, peace agreement documents (PAD) contained only limited references to land issues, mainly in relation to displaced people and their basic human right to return to their properties with dignity (examples are Cambodia (PAD, 1991) and Mozambique (PAD, 1992)). However, literature shows that there is a need to ensure that land issues are put on the agenda of the international community and that they are tackled in PAD or national land policies of the states emerging from a conflict (EU-UN, 2012).

Post-conflict societies

After hostilities have ceased and a peace agreement has been signed, in general, the first challenge that post-conflict societies face is the peace-keeping process, which is understood as a situation with an absence of armed conflict and a modicum of political process. Peace building is described as a compound of actions undertaken by international or national actors to institutionalise peace (Call and Cousens, 2008). Peace building requires some form of doing justice and if justice is required, rule of law becomes one of necessary perspectives for looking at the given post-conflict context (Buyse, 2008). It is recognised that the rule of law is critical to states emerging from conflict on their way towards stability and long-lasting peace. It is important that the rule of law is not only provided for in the law but is also practiced by the officials of the state, allows participation of the citizens and is enforced by the courts (Rugege, 2013). Having cognisance of what institutions are (e.g. ‘rules of the game’) the development of institutions would entail the rule of law.

But apart from the peace-keeping challenge, what makes up the rebuilding of post-conflict societies? The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) defines state building as ‘purposeful action to build capacity, institutions and legitimacy of the state in relation to an effective political process to negotiate the mutual demands between the state and societal groups’ (OECD, 2008), or Fukuyama as ‘the creation of new government institutions and the strengthening of existing ones’ (Fukuyama, 2004). In particular, when it regards state building in post-conflict contexts, we refer to Ball (2001), who elucidates the rebuilding of war-torn societies and postulates three main characteristics. First, she describes ‘institutional weaknesses’, like non-participatory and malfunctioning political and judicial systems, strong competition for power instead of attention to governing, a limited legitimacy of political leaders and no consensus on which way society should go. Second, she observes ‘economic and social problems’, like a destroyed or decaying social and economic infrastructure, an increase of the illegal economy, people reverting to subsistence activities, hatred among population groups and conflicts over land and property. Finally, she distinguishes a third element, namely that these societies have to cope with serious ‘security problems’, such as huge quantities of small arms freely circulating among the population, political influence of the armed forces, demobilisation and disarmament. Because the characteristics of war-torn societies developed by Ball (2001) are widely accepted, we will apply those when we will discuss post-conflict societies in relation to land within post-conflict context, in particular for Kosovo.

A related condition might be that in post-conflict contexts, close and unified co-operation between all actors is essential. International actors with available resources and skills should facilitate local processes and create a space for local actors who are the main workforce. Together, they should define and consolidate their policies in order to build responsive, resilient and robust institutions (Chesterman et al., 2005).

After this short overview on the available literature on conflict and post-conflict land administration and post-conflict societies, the following sections will explore these theoretical aspects in a real-life situation about the interventions in the land administration (a) before and during and (b) after the conflict in the case of Kosovo.

Before and during the conflict in Kosovo: how was land administered?

In this section, we will address the land administration situation before, during and at the end of the conflict in Kosovo. We base themselves on the findings from the case study and on existing literature.

Before the conflict: how was land administered?

Land administration in Kosovo, before the tensions intensified in 1989, was under the jurisdiction of the Directorate for Cadastre and Geodesy of the Socialistic Autonomous Province of Kosovo. The headquarters were based in Pristina. Municipal Cadastral Offices (MCO) were established in 26 municipalities, while three municipalities had no local cadastre office but were serviced by one of the others (Vikman, 1999). The total number of employees in the Directorate and the MCOs varied from 300 to 350 at different time periods (Todorovski, 2013a). The legal framework under which land administration was practiced was based on the ‘Law on land survey and cadastre’ of the Socialistic Republic of Serbia (Republic of Serbia, 1976).

Property rights were, of course, approached from a socialistic perspective. Residential property in Kosovo had two primary categories: private single family homes and socially owned apartments. The apartments were built and administered by either socially or publicly owned enterprises, primarily for their employees. Employees were allocated with permanent rights of use over these apartments known as occupancy rights as derived from the Law on Housing Relations from 1986 (Republic of Serbia, 1986). An occupancy right was less than an ownership right but considerably more than a leasehold right (Cordial and Rosandhaug, 2008). Privatisation was introduced with the Law on housing from 1992, which allowed purchasing of the apartments and converting the occupancy rights into full ownership rights (Republic of Serbia, 1992). An independent Agency for the Registration of Apartments was established, mandated to record these apartment rights and to monitor the process of privatisation (Todorovski, 2013b). This Agency was also based in Pristina.

In the beginning of the 1990s, the Government of the Republic of Serbia enacted a series of laws and administrative measures known as ‘special measures’: a programme for achieving peace, freedom, equality, democracy and prosperity in Kosovo. Although these measures were not specifically discriminatory in text, application of the measures resulted in discrimination. One of the side effects was the removal of the Directorate for Cadastre and Geodesy of the Socialistic Autonomous Province Kosovo to the Republic Geodetic Authority in Belgrade in 1991 (Todorovski, 2013a). Performance of the land administration in Kosovo was further hindered by the ‘special measures’ referring to two laws, later found by United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) as also being of discriminatory nature (UNMIK, 1999b):

• The law on changes and supplements on the limitation of real estate transactions (Republic of Serbia, 1991a); and

• The law on the conditions, ways and procedures of granting farming land to citizens who wish to work and live in the Territory of Kosovo and Metohija (Republic of Serbia, 1991b).

Discriminatory effects came in particular from the first law, which almost fully limited transactions of real estate property and required that every contract for purchase, lease and sale of real estate in Kosovo needed to be approved by the Directorate of Property Rights Affairs of the Ministry of Finance in Belgrade. The Ministry could refuse to approve the transaction if it considered that it would have had an effect on ‘the national structure of population’ or on the ‘emigration of members of a particular … nationality’ (OSCE, 2000). This law had the objective and effect of restricting the transactions of property from Serbs to Kosovo Albanians as a means of ensuring that the Serb population in Kosovo did not decline. About 98% of the files were reported as ‘being rejected’ by the Ministry of Finance. As a consequence, the citizens had no other option and they continued making informal property transactions, which were not registered in the cadastre (Cordial and Rosandhaug, 2008), which deteriorated the quality of the files. With this intervention, the functions of land administration in Kosovo were negatively influenced, and after the conflict, land records were already about 10 years out-of-date, not fully reflecting the situation on the ground (Ratia, 2000).

From a technical viewpoint, in the period before the conflict, all the MCOs were equipped with personal computers and software for cadastral updates and maintenance in which all cadastral units and all cadastral parcels were inserted. This software was used for issuing a copy of the possession list and also for registering all new transactions in the electronic form. A back-up of the datasets was done periodically, which proved to be very useful for the period after the conflict (Todorovski, 2013a).

Other federal laws were passed between 1992 and 1996 (e.g. the Law on Public Survey and Registration of Real Estate Rights; Republic of Serbia, Official Gazette No. 83/92, 53/93, 48/94, 12/96, 15/96), which introduced a radical change of transforming the ‘land’ cadastre into a ‘real estate’ cadastre. However, there was neither funding nor were there qualified professionals to implement the proposed changes in Kosovo (Zherka et al., 1999). Although the headquarters were moved to Belgrade, MCOs still existed in Kosovo. Just before the conflict, there were 250 employees working in those offices: about 150 Serbs and 100 Kosovo Albanians (Ratia, 2000).

As a summary, before the conflict, the administration of land was becoming part of discriminatory practices. The practice to circumvent such laws resulted in informal transactions not recorded in cadastral records. Records were partly located at local municipal offices and at the headquarters, which were moved to Belgrade.

During the conflict: what happened in Kosovo and what happened to the housing and property rights?

The conflict in Kosovo escalated after an event that took place on 28 February 1998. After four police officers were shot in Likosane, Serbian police conducted a series of actions in the Drenica region of Kosovo. Houses were burned, villages emptied and dozens of Kosovo Albanians were killed. In many reports, this date is seen as the start of the armed conflict (HRW, 2001). Our findings reveal that this clash was a development caused by a self-determination movement, whose goals intensified after adaptation and implementation of the earlier mentioned ‘special measures’. A study of Spiegel and Salama (2000) estimates 12 000 people killed directly related to the war in the following period from February 1998 to June 1999 based on a survey performed among Kosovo Albanians. However, according to the Government of the Republic of Serbia, the numbers of non-Albanian people killed and missing in the armed conflict on the territory of Kosovo in the period January 1998–November 2001 is set at 3276 (Republic of Serbia, 2001). Irrespective of the number of people killed, it already depicts the seriousness of the conflict at this stage.

In the period before the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) intervention in March 1999, more than 260 000 people were estimated to be internally displaced in Kosovo and an additional 100 000 in the region (Morris, 1999). By the end of the conflict, almost half of the total population of Kosovo (then approx. 800 000) sought refuge in neighbouring Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro. Estimates vary, but it has been estimated (UN, 1999a) that up to 500 000 persons may have been categorised as internally displaced persons (IDPs).

The long confrontations between the Kosovo Albanians and Serbian authorities attracted the prolonged attention of the international community. After the intensification of the violent conflict, the UN Security Council adopted a series of Resolutions on Kosovo in 1998 and 1999. Also, the European Union and NATO were strongly involved, both politically and militarily. An attempt to end the conflict was made with the start of negotiations in France in February 1999 but the resulting document was not supported by Yugoslav Authorities. As a consequence, there was no official Peace Agreement signed by both sides in the conflict. Instead of a mutual agreement, Kosovo Albanians and representatives of the international community signed the Rambouillet Accord ‘Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo’ (Rambouillet, 1999) in Paris, France, on 18 March 1999. Subsequently, and on request of the UN Security Council, on 24 March 1999, NATO began its aerial military intervention against the Republic of Serbia. After an intensive bombing campaign, the conflict finally ended on 9 June 1999 with the signing of the Military Technical Agreement (NATO, 1999) between the NATO and the Government of Yugoslavia.

What happened meanwhile to the housing and property rights? Surveys performed by the international community estimated that some 103 000 housing units were either destroyed or rendered uninhabitable, representing almost half of available housing units in Kosovo and that as many as 75 000 properties were abandoned (Valstad, 2004). UN (1999a) identifies that ‘serious violations of property rights in Kosovo have occurred before, during and immediately after the military conflict’. Land administration during the armed conflict functioned with lower intensity. There were only a few official land transactions based on court decisions and registered in the cadastre. The circumstance that highly affected its work was the announcement that NATO was preparing to bomb the whole territory of the Republic of Serbia (including targets in Kosovo) from the air. Because of this, a majority of civilians were displaced to safer places leaving their properties behind. All municipal cadastre offices were closed during the NATO intervention. From 20 March 1999, the office in Pristina was closed for about 4 months (Todorovski, 2013a). Implementation of the ‘special measures’ and the conflict itself resulted in a number of absent and dismissed employees. The number varies with the sources. One of our interviewees said that no one from MCOs was forced to leave until 1 month before the NATO intervention, because they were public administration officers who were bringing in tax funds to the state budget (Todorovski, 2013b), another source said ‘a few in higher positions at the MCOs were fired’ (Todorovski, 2013c). A third source states ‘during the period 1989–1999, 205 Albanians, with secondary and university education, were fired from respective cadastral departments’ (KCA, 2011). Whichever source is correct, capacity was deteriorating.

Another complicating factor was that the Serbian authorities when retreating, removed all archives from the public authorities and this was also the case with the archives from the municipal cadastre offices. In a majority of international reports and in the literature, it is stated that the Yugoslav Army and in some cases the Russian Military executed this activity. A frequently repeated story about this event (stated here by one interviewee) is that ‘in the period of 20–24 March 1999, the Yugoslav Army arrived with trucks and removed all the cadastral original plans with updates, cadastral archive documentation, geodetic equipment and personal computers from the Pristina municipal cadastre office’ (Todorovski, 2013b). However, from the interview with a retired head of the Kurshumlija cadastre office in a newspaper, it could be derived that removal of the cadastral archives was done by order of the President of the Republic of Serbia to the Director of the Republic Geodetic Authority. The Director delivered this task to the heads of the cadastral offices from Serbian territory, nearest to Kosovo. The head of the Kurshumlija cadastre office and the head of Vranje cadastre office with assistance of local transporters removed the cadastral archives from the Pristina cadastre office and 10 other cadastre offices from the territory of Kosovo when the Yugoslav Army and Serbian police retreated at the end of the conflict (Zecevic, 2012). The fact that cadastral records were taken to Belgrade, later appeared to be a huge obstacle in the implementation of the peace agreements.

The large numbers of displaced people, the destroyed houses, illegal occupation of properties and the incomplete and out-of-date property registration system created numerous housing and property rights and land administration problems for the coming post-conflict period (Cordial and Rosandhaug, 2008).

At the end of the conflict: how were the housing and property rights dealt with?

Looking back to the conflict, Wallensteen and Moller (2003) consider the Kosovo conflict as an intra-state type of conflict, which resulted in a state's formation. The UN Security Council, by its resolution 1244 (UN, 1999a) on 10 June 1999, authorised the Secretary-General, with the assistance of the relevant international organisations, to establish an international civil presence in Kosovo, in order to provide an interim administration. This effectively transferred Kosovo into a UN protectorate. The preliminary concept for the UNMIK was presented to the Security Council on 12 June 1999 (UN, 1999b) and the detailed report of the UN Secretary-General on the UNMIK mission in Kosovo was presented to the UN Security Council on 12 July 1999. This detailed report can be considered as a basic document for building the new-born state of Kosovo (UN, 1999c).

What does it say about housing and property rights, and related administration? The detailed report of the Secretary-General on UNMIK (UN, 1999c) included specific housing and property rights and land administration issues. From the section relating to the situation on the ground about security issues immediately after the conflict, it can be derived that ‘an increased number of incidents committed by Kosovo Albanians against Serbs were noticed, in particular, a high profile of killings and abductions, as well as looting, arsons and forced expropriation of apartments’. Prominent attention was given to issues related to refugees and IDPs, and their secure return to their homes and properties in the sections related to the ‘humanitarian situation’ and the ‘administration and public infrastructures’. In the section, ‘main components of the mission’ housing and property rights issues were tackled, more precisely: ‘how to establish a registry of property claims’ and ‘redress legal measures on property, and rebuilding property and cadastral records’ (UN, 1999c). The international community appeared to be aware that the conflict left the administration of land with huge gaps (Valstad, 2001).

From this sub-section, it reveals that at the end of the conflict, the UNMIK administration was aware of the land question. In the following section, we will see how public interventions developed, during each of the three generally accepted and for this paper adopted phases of post-conflict: ‘emergency’, ‘early-recovery’ and ‘reconstruction’ phases.

Emergency post-conflict Kosovo: housing and property rights and land administration

Associating the post-conflict phases to the case of Kosovo based on activities, the ‘emergency’ phase could be observed from the moment that the Military Technical Agreement was signed in 1999. This phase lasted for 2 years until mid-2001, when the ‘early recovery’ phase started.

The period of the first 6–12 months after the conflict was also known as a ‘lawless’ period, which was the result of having many laws in force, which were labelled as discriminatory by UNMIK and which were subsequently abolished. Preparation and adoption of new laws required a long time and meanwhile old laws from the period before 1989 were allowed to be applied at least if they were not found to be discriminatory (Todorovski, 2013c). Land issues come to the forefront specifically in the emergency post-conflict phase, when a mass of people return to their place of origin in a short period of time (HPG, 2008). This was also the case in Kosovo. The largely spontaneous repatriation of refugees began, and it is reported that by the end of July 1999, more than 700 000 refugees had already returned to Kosovo (UNHCR, 1999b). At the same time, violence against minority groups was rife and caused a mass exodus of mainly Serbs, but also Roma and other non-Albanians, who fled, fearing reprisals by the Kosovo Albanian population (Cordial and Rosandhaug, 2008). There are several estimates of the number of all non-Albanians who fled from Kosovo; UNHCR (1999a) estimates that 245 353 people were displaced after the end of the conflict.

One of the characteristics of conflict and post-conflict contexts is that displacement and return foster the urbanisation process (Todorovski et al., 2013). Pristina was the most populated city in Kosovo; however, its population doubled after the conflict. In 1991, the city was home to about 200 000 inhabitants; by February 2000, it was estimated that the population had risen to approximately 550 000, including 200 000 IDPs (OSCE, 2006).

Activities related to housing and property rights in the emergency phase had their impact on the security situation. There were numerous reports of illegal occupation of land and property, as well as indications that criminal groups were profiting from the instability by taking control of houses and land (Vikman, 1999). As many Kosovo Albanian returnees found that their homes had been damaged or destroyed, they moved into the properties that had been abandoned by Serbs and other minorities, causing unauthorised ‘secondary occupation’ of properties (Leckie, 2000). This was particularly the case in the cities as many Kosovo Albanians moved from the countryside into the cities in search of accommodation and work. Abandoned properties were often reallocated by local authorities and this ostensibly served the purpose of providing humanitarian shelter but ultimately served to reward political patronage as allocations were made in favour of so-called political or military elites as rewards for loyalty (Cordial and Rosandhaug, 2008).

Another activity in relation to housing and property rights was that some properties, which were burned and destroyed due to the conflict in the urban areas, were declared ruins by the municipal commission. Possession of these properties was declared to be converted to the municipalities as public land for reconstruction and development. Even after the conflict, the burning and destruction of properties, especially bigger abandoned estates previously owned by Serbs, continued and these properties were transferred from being privately owned into publicly owned properties, which were later distributed in the same way as the abandoned properties (Todorovski, 2013c).

Allocation of public land is a usual practice in post-conflict contexts. For example, to provide locations for first aid centres, camps for returnees, location for facilities for the international community and international security troops, etc. This practice also took place in Kosovo, but this was done in a non-transparent way. Beneficiaries from the allocation of public land were the followers of the new political elite and military commanders. This is supported by the fact that there were court cases against people under suspicion of fraud, which resulted in some persons in ‘high’ positions in the land sector being jailed. An example of this was a head of the Pristina municipal cadastre office who spent 6 months in jail (Todorovski, 2013c).

The emergency phase shows a volatile picture of dealing with housing and property rights. How was that with the land administration activity?

Land administration in the emergency phase

Reports and documents from the UN and the EU agencies note that immediately after the conflict, work teams were created for the assessment of the situation on the ground about the status of land administration in Kosovo (TOR, 2000). The mandate for action for these activities was given to the United Nations Environment Protection (UNEP) and the UN-HABITAT agencies. A Balkan Task Force was created on 9 April 1999 by the Executive Director of UNEP and UN-HABITAT. The Task Force mobilised three teams of international experts in order to carry out environmental and human settlement assessments in the region, focusing on the areas of municipal administration, regularisation of housing and property rights, and development of a cadastral information system in Kosovo. For this assessment, the Task Force approached the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE) because of their capability, expertise and know-how on land administration in its Working Party on Land Administration. As such, the UN/ECE secretariat in July 1999 appointed a senior UN/ECE representative to work as a focal point person in the Balkan region. Based on field work for fact finding, a comprehensive strategy on land administration in the Balkans and especially for Kosovo was developed later in June 2000 (Ratia, 2000).

The focal person found the prevailing land administration system in a poor state, which could be attributed to both the discriminatory laws from the period before the conflict, and the destruction, loss and removal of property certificates and supportive documentations (TOR, 2000). The assessment of the situation highlighted the following major areas of concern:

• property certificates and registries had been partially removed

• property boundary markers, survey control points and associated documentation had been destroyed or defaced;

• geodetic surveying equipment and computers had been removed;

• discriminatory legislation applied over more than a decade and a lack of effective control over property registration and taxation had deterred people from recording property transfers; and

• restrictions in the recruitment of personnel for public sector positions and the displacement of people after the conflict had left many MCOs without qualified staff (Valstad et al., 2002).

The mission led the Swedish Government Agency (Sida) to commission a consultant (Blom International) to carry out a more in-depth study of the situation and to develop a strategy that would support the re-establishment of the system and improve operation of the MCOs (Valstad et al., 2002). Initial proposals for rebuilding the cadastral system defined the following areas of action: inventory and secure existing cadastral information, rebuilding an integral geo-information database, restoring the geodetic network, designing the framework for a modern cadastre and land registration system, in order to meet the immediate demands of the MCOs and the establishment of a central co-ordinating facility to guide this task (TOR, 2000). Based on the lessons learned, UN-HABITAT developed later the ‘Post-Conflict Land Administration and Peacebuilding Handbook’ (UN-HABITAT, 2007).

The terms of reference for the implementation of the Kosovo Cadastre Support Programme were the result of the above process, where, for re-establishing efficient mechanisms of governance in Kosovo, the re-introduction of a land and property management system was envisaged. A functional land administration system was considered as a pre-requisite for implementing reconstruction activities, such as upholding the rule of law, promoting economic development and resolving long-standing conflicts and uncertainties (TOR, 2000). Relating land administration to ‘governance’ and ‘rule of law’ suggests that developing land administration was considered a contribution to rebuilding post-conflict society (we will elaborate this link hereafter).

Land administration organisation and the legal framework in the emergency phase

The land administration organisation after the conflict consisted of 26 MCOs (for the 29 cadastral municipalities) and the Pristina Institute for Geodesy and Photogrammetry. At the beginning of the post-conflict period, this institute was acting in a similar manner as the former Directorate for Cadastre and Geodesy, but its activities were not according to the real needs of the local situation (Todorovski, 2013a). By the end of 2000, at local level, 30 Municipal Assemblies were elected and every municipality had the right to set up their own cadastral office (Anderson and Onkalo, 2004). No formal real estate transactions were being registered in either the cadastre or court registration systems from February 1999 until October 1999. The reason for this was due to the fact that both the court transaction deeds registration system and the supporting cadastral system were not operational (Ratia, 2000).

The Kosovo Cadastral Agency (KCA) was established in November 2000 as a result of a UNMIK Administrative Direction no. 2000/14 of 7 June 2000 (UNMIK, 2000a). Regarding the legal framework, federal laws passed in 1992–1996 were revoked by the UNMIK in December 1999. Therefore, the ‘old’ Law on Land survey and cadastre from 1976 (Republic of Serbia, 1976) was in force until the changes in the law were enforced later.

Status of the land records and land professionals in the emergency phase

The status of land records is reported differently. As we saw earlier, and also noted in the TOR (2000), cadastral documentation was missing completely from six municipal cadastre offices. This included cadastral original plans with updates, paper copies of the cadastral original plans with updates and supportive cadastral documentations (geodetic elaborations, files with data and sketches from field measurements and files with property documentation). From 12 cadastre offices, covering an area of 15 municipalities, the cadastral documentation was missing, but mostly for the period of 1989–1999. In only eight offices, a complete set of cadastral documentation was still present (TOR, 2000). Other sources argue, however, that overall most of the cadastral original plans with updates had been removed (Valstad et al., 2002). Yet another presentation of the status of removed land records is that only six cadastral offices had a complete cadastral documentation (including cadastral original plans with updates and cadastral documentation) and the rest of the 23 offices had only 15% of the available cadastral plans and documentation (Meha, 2004; Todorovski, 2013a). In most cases, the municipal cadastre offices had copies on paper from the cadastral plans – but not containing all updates since the late 80s (Blom, 2000). All the archive original cadastral plans made during the years 1950–1984 for the whole of Kosovo were found to be in excellent condition in the former building of the Federal Government in Pristina. However, these cadastral plans did not include updates registered in the cadastre after the recording-production phase (Todorovski, 2013a). In any case, we can assume that a major and essential part of the usual cadastral information was missing.

Valstad (2001) found that, because the data were processed using ‘punch card’ equipment, it was possible to re-build a digital cadastre based on the back-up of the cadastral records. The system was based on a simple read-only database in MS-Access (Interim Database version 1.0), which was easy to reconstruct from textual data obtained from the Electronic Data Processing Facility of Kosovo, where back-ups for all cadastral records for the whole territory of Kosovo until 1989 were available. Another database (Interim Database version 2.0) was a read–write database developed in Visual Basic and MS-Access. In the second version, the cadastre offices were able to improve the quality of the data by introducing new information. Old information from the Interim Database version 1.0 has been archived as a supportive database, and all new updates were based on information found in the cadastre offices up to 1997 (Valstad, 2001).

As the security situation on the ground was stabilising, displaced persons returned and established basic living conditions. Also employees who previously were working in the public sector, started to return to their previous jobs. During the first days of the entry of the United Nations Security Forces for Kosovo, staff members who previously worked in the cadastral offices started reorganising themselves in their own ways (Meha et al., 2004). Around 90% of the Kosovo Albanians who left their work places during the tensions and conflict period came back to their former work positions after June 1999 (Todorovski, 2013a), whereas large part of the Serbs who left their workplace did not return (Ratia, 2000).

Although there were enough professionals available to quickly start a reconstruction and modernisation of the cadastre with international multi-donor support within the Kosovo Cadastral Support Programme, only a few among them had up-to-date relevant professional qualifications in 1999. Most of them were lacking the professional experience of the last 10 years, and in that period there had been many technical developments in the field of surveying and cadastre. Onkalo et al. (2002) reported that very few young professionals had graduated in the last few years, and that the new graduates lacked surveying and cadastral work experience. Discrimination in the past had led to a considerable knowledge and skills gap among the professionals. Many employees were excluded from their posts in the municipal cadastre offices in the period of 10 years and most were not exposed to new technologies or technical and managerial concepts (Anderson and Onkalo, 2004).

From this sub-section, it reveals that different figures and different presentations of the status of the land records and of the quality and quantity of land professionals complicated post-conflict land administration in Kosovo.

Register of property claims in the emergency phase

The Housing and Property Directorate (HPD) was the central mechanism created by the UNMIK to resolve residential property disputes (OSCE, 2000). The HPD and the Housing and Property Claims Commission (HPCC) were established by UNMIK Regulation no. 1999/23 from 15 November 1999 (UNMIK, 1999a), and the Rules and Procedure and Evidence of the HPD and the HPCC were under UNMIK Regulation 2000/60 from 31 October 2000 (UNMIK, 2000b). The HPD and its Claims Commission presented refugees and IDPs with the opportunity to file claims for restitution of residential property and to have any disputed claims resolved before an independent quasi-judicial forum in an impartial and transparent manner (Tibaijuka, 2008).

One year after establishing, the HDP and HPCC were basically serving as a register of the claims and disputes. Further regulations about operating procedures were needed including the principles of law and evidence that would be applied as a prerequisite for its functionality. It is for this reason that the local population continued to lodge property claims with the courts – one example is the Gnjilane Municipal court, where, as of 9 July 2000, 56 out of 110 cases were property cases (OSCE, 2000).

Arriving at the end of the emergency phase, we conclude that inline with the UNMIK document, which included specific housing and property rights, and land administration issues, various institutions were created, both concerning law and organisations. The international community was prepared to contribute to better housing and property right regimes and to better land administration. Although staffing remained problematic, the early recovery phase could start with a certain fundamental for the further development of the land sector. We will see how that worked out in the following sections.

Land administration in Kosovo in the early recovery post-conflict phase

Based on the activities that characterise an early recovery phase, this phase in Kosovo was from mid-2001 to the end of 2003.

In this early recovery phase, two important developments took place: first, the implementation of the Kosovo Cadastral Support Programme, an umbrella programme that developed the function of cadastre and the capacities of associated stakeholders in Kosovo, and, second, the regulation to decide on property claims.

The developments in the area of land administration in the post-conflict early recovery period were focused on the implementation of the UN-HABITAT's Kosovo Cadastral Support Programme. Generally, the implementation programme has been recognised as good practice, where all actors involved were very well co-ordinated, including the donor organisations and the UN agencies. From the situational review of the land administration sector in Kosovo (Smith, 2002) and the final report of the Programme (Anderson and Onkalo, 2004), interesting outcomes and lessons can be learned. In any case, the final report underlines the ‘decisive development of the land administration in Kosovo, which took place from 2000 to 2003’ and identifies strengths and weaknesses, which may be beneficial for other cases of interventions in land administration in post-conflict contexts. In the following part, we will see what the Programme delivered and how did it materialised, in particular, institutional (law and organisation) and how justice was served (claims and restitution).

Kosovo Cadastre Support Programme

The programme started in November 2000 and it was completed in October 2003. The overall objective of the project was to ‘create a well-functioning land sector, which will contribute to economic growth, democratic and sustainable development supported by a real property market, rights protection and an improved cadastral and land registration system’. This overall objective distinguished two ‘sub’-levels. On the municipal level, the objective was: ‘municipal cadastre offices should be able to render proper land and property services to the beneficiaries’. On the central level, the objective was: ‘create improved development, co-ordination and implementation of cadastral activities in Kosovo’ (Blom, 2000).

Establishing the KCA as an institution at central level and strengthening the municipal offices at local level were thus two important and major parts of the Programme. These parts have been achieved and according to the report, ‘have reached beyond the initial objectives’ for the central Agency, while for the MCOs, ‘the development for different reasons has not been so encouraging’ (Anderson and Onkalo, 2004).

Regarding the Agency, at the end of the Programme, it was established as a well-respected organisation with a good reputation in the region, employing well-trained personnel. At the end of 2002, there were 14 international and 32 local experts in the Agency, and together with the administration and support staff, there were 80 employees in total. However, in July 2004, the total number of KCA employees fell to 54, all being local (Valstad, 2004). Key successes of the Programme were the renovation of the technical infrastructure related to the cadastre and the land administration, and the upgrade of the technology and development of new tools and processes for the Agency and the MCOs. These successes occurred in three different areas: the fundamental geodetic framework, new ways of registering immovable property rights and possession to land and a new ways of mapping immovable property. Another success of the Programme was the recognition that the functions of the cadastre and land administration are established to provide products and services according to the needs of the stakeholders. Within the Programme, the collaboration of all stakeholders in building common ideas and visions for Cadastral and Land Information Systems was evident (see Annexe 6 in Anderson and Onkalo, 2004). The Agency took a leading role in shaping governmental policies such as: the ‘Development of Strategy’, the reform of the Property Law (2003) and the Land Administration Policy (2003). In this period, two very important laws for the performance of the Agency and the municipal offices were adopted: Law on the Establishment of Immovable Property Rights Register (UNMIK, 2002) and the Law on Cadastre (UNMIK, 2003).

The cadastral offices operated as independent entities organised under the Ministry of Public Services. All cadastral surveys and registration of cadastral information were carried out by the MCOs and the Agency provided a lot of resources to bring them up-to-date on technology and skills. Along with the training of staff and the delivery of computers, the offices could start updating the cadastre on their own at the end of 2001 (Valstad et al., 2002). Within the Programme, training courses were developed for all employees (on both central and local level) about subjects, such as basic Windows, the use of Total Station, GPS and GIS software (Onkalo et al., 2002). Although in 2004, the MCOs employed about 300 persons, the result of all the training was unsatisfactory. Only four offices achieved a satisfactory level in handling the new technology (Valstad, 2004).

By recognising that the central Agency and the MCOs did not have a hierarchical relationship, there was an initiative to organise both into a single organisation. This might ensure financial sustainability and one responsible body for surveying, mapping and cadastre (Valstad, 2004). But until today, this single organisation was not realised: the municipal offices fall under the Ministry of Administration and Local government, and the central Agency is an agency under the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning, with a mandate to guide and support MCOs (Todorovski, 2013a).

From the very beginning of the Programme, there has been a tremendous demand for information about possession rights and in particular for geo-information, from a range of customers. Most of the customers preferred digital data in order to be able to use those in their own digital systems. The Agency and the offices could quickly deliver aerial photos and orthophotos in digital form and hard copies. For example, municipalities used these data in urban planning and in Property Tax Pilots to identify and register buildings and apartments. The Kosovo Trust Agency used the geo-information together with cadastral data to prepare for the privatisation of socially owned enterprises (Anderson and Onkalo, 2004).

Register of property claims and property restitution in the early recovery phase

For the displaced population who found their properties totally destroyed and for whom it was impossible to go back to their homes, an alternative shelter was provided. Where possessions were intact, many people faced difficulties, even violations in relation to the repossession of their property. Commonly, secondary occupation made re-establishment of property rights impossible. For those people, an opportunity was given to submit a land claim for property restitution via the mandated agencies: the HPD in the beginning and later the Kosovo Property Agency (KPA).

Rules and Procedure for Evidence of the HPD and the HPCC were established under UNMIK Regulation 2000/60 (UNMIK, 2000b). The Directorate developed its internal operating procedures later and their practical implementation was prolonged. These operating procedures focused on making the process accessible to all potential claimants. Offices were initially opened in Kosovo in four of its regions and mobile units served minority enclaves and rural areas. However, as it subsequently became apparent that the majority of potential claimants were dispersed outside Kosovo, representative offices were established in these regions in late 2001. Following lengthy negotiations with the authorities in Serbia, offices were opened in Belgrade (Serbia), Podgorica (Montenegro) and a small liaison office was also opened in Skopje (Macedonia) (HPCC, 2007). In total, 29 160 claims were lodged and the Directorate started the adjudication of claims in January 2001. Meanwhile, all claims have been decided upon and as of April 2008 decisions have been implemented in 99.9% of all cases (Cordial and Rosandhaug, 2008). The Directorate's and Commission's mandate were finished on 6 June 2007 and there was a transfer of responsibilities to the KPA.

Reports reveal that the Kosovo Cadastre Support Programme worked out well and a cadastre function started to develop. Potential threats to the peace after every conflict in general are ‘conflicts over properties’, which were tackled adequately in Kosovo, at least a first substantial trench. These circumstances appear to be a good starting point for the third and last post-conflict phase, the reconstruction.

Land administration in Kosovo in the reconstruction phase

As regards the activities that characterise the reconstruction phase in the case of Kosovo, this phase started at the end of 2003. The reconstruction still continues today.

After the Cadastre Support Programme ended in November 2003, there was an extension of the Programme for the next 3 years: the ‘Support Program for re-establishment of the Cadastre in Kosovo’. The period from 2004 onwards has been a period where many related projects and different donors supported the development of land administration in Kosovo. The main activities that the projects addressed in this phase were:

• reconstruction of cadastral information

• building cadastre construction

• Kosovo positioning system – KOPOS

• new law for cadastre 2011

• address register 2012

• digital topographic maps 1:2500, JICA 2013

• GeoPortal

• KCLIS, the overall project for harmonisation of maps and cadastral data, the first module being the textual (legal) data and second graphical (mapping) data (Todorovski, 2013a).

Donors and funding organisations involved in these project activities were the Norway project implementation via Statenskartverket (2004–2013), World Bank, which financially supported the RE CAP project (2006–2011), and continued for next 5 years; in 2008, GTZ (now called GIZ) started a project on Land Management and Cadastre, which finished at the end of 2013, with the possibility for continuation of the project (Todorovski, 2013a).

The continuation of these projects and all related activities shows that the Kosovo Cadastral Support Programme has been a programme with the perspective of long term continuous development of the functions of land administration in Kosovo.

Also the procedures to solve property claims continued. As has already been stated, the KPA was established as an independent agency by promulgation of UNMIK 2006/10 ‘On the Resolution of Claims Relating to Private Immovable Property including Agricultural and Commercial property’ (UNMIK, 2006). As of 16 December 2014, this Agency received 42 479 claims in total (99% of which were related to ownership and 1% related to user rights), where the number of decided claims was 42.116 and 633 of which were withdrawn by claimants. Implementation of the decisions is expected to be done until mid-2015 (www.kpaonline.org). Implementation of the decisions from the claims was further processed within four procedures: claim closure (with possibility to reopen the case) implementation of compensation scheme, repossession of property and administration of the property by the KPA (KPA, 2012).

From all this about the post-conflict property restitution, we can derive that in cases where land records and supportive land-related documents were available this can be of great advantage. It helped Kosovo to finalise property restitution as a success story.

These findings from the collected evidence from Kosovo, as elaborated on in these three sections, suggest that these interventions in land administration can be recognised as elements that contributed to rebuilding the post-conflict society. Institutions were developed (both laws and bylaws), organisations were established (both at central and municipal level), capacity was built (both staff and equipment), performance was enhanced (both by vocational work instructions and guidance). Each of those actions was aimed at the creation of a sustainable land administration structure. But how can we conceptualise this contribution better and link it to rebuilding the post-conflict society? To answer this question, we will discuss identified interventions in land administration reflecting on the theoretical aspects of the characteristics of post-conflict societies and see how those fit to the case of Kosovo.

Post-conflict societies: observations in particular for Kosovo

With reference to our findings before, we will structure those now in the framework of the three characteristics of Ball (2001) to come to grips with the role of housing and property rights and related land administration activities in addressing the characteristics of post-conflict Kosovo.

Institutional weaknesses

As has been said, in post-conflict contexts, states face institutional weaknesses like limited legitimacy of the state, a non-functioning political system and government structure, lack of adequately skilled professionals and an inadequate legal framework. The legitimacy of the state in Kosovo was fully realised by intervention of the international community and UNMIK (UN, 1999c), and UN-HABITAT's intervention in the land sector. Development and implementation of various policies, including land policies and implementation programmes, are considered to have had a large influence on the population in the sense of strengthening the legitimacy of the state (OECD, 2010). Establishment of organizations, such as HPD, Housing and Property Rights Claim Commission and KCA as governmental entities contributed to the post-conflict government structure. Within the Kosovo Cadastre Support Programme, a training programme was developed and employees were trained and educated (Onkalo et al., 2002). The example of Kosovo shows that first a specific organisation (the Agency) and implementing programmes (the Programme) with mandate for development of the housing and property rights and land administration were created, which later led to the development and adoption of the Land Administration Policy (2003) and the Law on Cadastre (UNMIK, 2003). From this, we can derive that strengthening the institutional weaknesses in the land sector can be identified as an element that contributed to strengthening of the institutional weaknesses of post-conflict Kosovo.

Social and economic problems

Post-conflict countries also witness social and economic problems, such as death and injury, displacement, destroyed properties and infrastructure, hatred between people, loss of proof of identity and ownership. Addressing land issues in the UNMIK document (UN, 1999c) was a first step of involvement of specific housing and property rights and land administration in the improvement of the social and economic situation. This contributed to the solution of displacement and destroyed properties by providing cadastral products and services. The availability of land dispute resolution mechanisms (such as HPD, the HPCC and the KPA) supported the displaced people in settling the land disputes and reducing the social and security tensions (UNMIK, 2006). Furthermore, the creation of the KCA and the development of the land policy and land law resulted in an improvement of the land registration and land administration system in Kosovo (Smith, 2002). The development of the land administration function in Kosovo was supported by the Programme, which contributed to sustainable development and supported the real property market. The success of the Programme suggests that it influenced the economic development and reduced social tensions. Development of land administration, specifically in the recovery of the land records that were removed, contributed to the service provision to all land-related sectors and significantly increased the security of rights. This is also seen as a support of the establishment of the land market within the overall economic development of Kosovo (Anderson and Onkalo, 2004). Interventions in housing and property rights and land administration, which contributed to the development of land associated sectors, lead us to identify them as elements that contributed to improving the social and economic problems of the post-conflict Kosovo.

Security problems

One of the biggest challenges that post-conflict states face is the process of keeping the peace (Call and Cousens, 2008). The security situation in post-conflict Kosovo could be described as tense and fragile, with a large international community and presence of the UN Security Forces for Kosovo (UN, 1999b). Addressing specific housing and property rights and land administration issues in the UNMIK mission document (UN, 1999c) was their first involvement in support of the security situation. Land dispute resolution mechanisms, widely viewed as legitimate and pursued by the state, in general can contribute to a peace process (Unruh and Williams, 2013). In Kosovo, land dispute resolution mechanisms and the organisations mentioned supported the settlement of the disputes over land and reduced conflict tensions. Therefore, interventions in housing and property rights and land administration can be identified as elements that supported reducing the security problems in post-conflict Kosovo.

Scheduling the interventions

In order to better illustrate the interventions in housing and property rights and land administration in Kosovo in the overall post-conflict state building process, the following Table 1 is created as a result from the discussion.

Table 1 Interventions in housing and property rights and land administration in post-conflict society – Kosovo

Interventions in housing and property rights and land administration in post-conflict society – Kosovo
Institutional weaknesses	Economic and social problems	Security problems
Legitimacy of the state (international community and UN, and UN-HABITAT for the land sector)	Displacement – providing cadastral products and services	Including land in a peace document (to some degree supports security situation as well)
Political System	Destroyed properties and infrastructure – providing cadastre products and services	Land dispute resolution (adjudication method)
Government structure (authorities dealing with land claims, land administration)	International community and local authorities participation/co-operation	Displacement-land relation (reducing secondary conflicts)
Building capacities in housing and property rights and land administration	Citizen participation
Legal framework (land policy, land law, improvements in land registration)	Recovery of land records
	Implementation programmes (with aim to uphold rule of law, reduce conflicts, uncertainties and support economic development)

Conclusions and recommendations

This paper describes the conflict in Kosovo during various stages. Taking cognisance from general insights about the role of land in conflicts, we found that before the conflict that the administration of land became part of discriminatory practises, which fuelled ethnic tension dramatically. During the conflict, we found that, apart from the most regrettable casualties, major parts of the housing stock were destroyed and property rights were severely violated. At a technical level, in many cadastral offices, the existing records were purposely taken away and transported to Belgrade. At the end of the conflict, we found that the land question was adequately included in the peace agreements, which led to the involvement in land matters by UNMIK and the international community, in particular UN-HABITAT, which pushed the Kosovo Cadastre Support Programme. We found that during the phases of post-conflict development, of the emergency, the early recovery and the reconstruction phase, the international community, the UNMIK administration and local actors developed a system of housing and property rights and related land administration function. Developments were evident at an institutional and technical level, creating laws and bylaws, organisations, mandates and offering building the capacities both in staff and equipment. In addition, an efficient mechanism was put in place to solve the numerous housing and property rights claimed by returning displaced citizens. It reveals that all this has created a good basis for further societal development.

All these developments brought us to the question whether housing and property rights and the related land administration functions might be seen as contributors to post-conflict state building. Our findings show that such a relationship is suggested. Therefore, we discussed the interventions in housing and property rights and land administration from the perspective of a post-conflict societies theory, in a structure, which we adopted from Ball (2001). Namely that contributions from housing and property rights and related land administration function that address post-conflict society issues can be grouped under the three characteristics, namely improvement of institutional weaknesses, tackling social and economic problems and enhancing the security situation. A first reconnaissance guides us to the conclusion that indeed the interventions in land administration made a positive contribution to addressing each of these three characteristics. That brings us to our recommendation, which is to further investigate this relationship and to see whether interventions in land administration as a whole contribute to the overall post-conflict state building. For now, we expect that this positive relation exists, as this case already points that way.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Kadaster (the Netherlands Cadastre, Land Registry and Mapping Agency). We appreciate the time and contributions provided by all the people during the fieldwork and the interviews. Lastly, we thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable and insightful comments.