What drives contemporary settlement projects in occupied territories? Settlement projects are sustained clusters of policies that allow states to strategically plan, implement and support the permanent transfer of nationals into a territory not under their sovereignty. This book explains the reasons why states launch settlement projects into occupied areas and introduces the international environment as an important enabling variable. By drawing comparisons between three such major projects - Israel in the West Bank and Gaza, Morocco in Western Sahara and Indonesia in East-Timor - Ehud Eiran classifies post-colonial settlement projects as a distinct cluster of cases that warrant a different analytical approach to traditional colonial studies. Built on a careful synthesis of existing principles in international relations theory and empirical research, the book advances a clearly formulated theoretical position on the successful launch of post-colonial settlement projects. The result yields a number of fresh insights into the relationship between conflict, territory and international norms. Ehud Eiran is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the University of Haifa.