In recovering assets that are or that represent the proceeds, objects, or instrumentalities of corruption, do states violate international human rights, such as the right to property? This book poses a question about the relationship between means and ends in public international law. The first part of the riddle, “corruption,” is the subject of some thirteen multilateral conventions on crime control. The second, “asset recovery,” is tied to the fundamental principle of “the return of assets” in the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), the most recent and comprehensive anti-corruption treaty.1 The third, (individual) “rights to property,” were once a catch cry of the revolutionary French and American bourgeoisie and are now individual and collective entitlements in international treaties and, perhaps, customary international law. Theirs is not a simple story of universal entitlements circumscribed, of the fundamental rights of deposed autocratic leaders – the “bad guys” of our time – to a “fair go” when new governments seek to (re)claim expatriated illicit wealth. The concepts themselves are far from hard-edged. And their relationship unfolds in the decentralized and loosely coordinated system of public international law against a backdrop of concerns with the pernicious effects of globalization, global income inequality, and “bad governance,” as well as the lack of accountability of states and international organizations for people(s) beyond their territorial and institutional borders.