Housing, Land, and Property Rights in Post-Conflict United Nations and Other Peace Operations: A Comparative Survey and Proposal

Description

For more than sixty years, the blue helmets of the United Nations peacekeeping missions have come to symbolize both the promise and the fragility of the UN. Though beset with unresolved conflicts, underfunded, and invariably burdened with sentiments of over-expectation, UN peace operations have made a difference with their 'peacebuilding' initiatives. While peacebuilding has been extensively analysed and critiqued, the UN's role in addressing and ameliorating housing, land, and property rights challenges has not. This volume seeks to fill the void by examining the UN's experience grappling with the immense and inevitable housing, land, and property rights crises that emerge in all countries during and after conflict. Through analysis of UN peace missions in Burundi, Cambodia, Iraq, Kosovo, Rwanda, Sudan and elsewhere, this volume provides a unique array of perspectives on what the UN has done right, what it has done wrong, and what it should do in the future.

Scott Leckie is an international human rights lawyer, advocate, and researcher with twenty years experience in the international protection and promotion of human rights in more than 65 countries. He is Director of Displacement Solutions, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to resolving cases of forced displacement throughout the world. He is Founder and Special Advisor to the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) and Founder and Director of Oneness World Foundation, which supports projects promoting a post-nation-state world. He has worked for a range of United Nations and other inter-governmental agencies, including the UN Mission in Kosovo, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN Habitat Programme, the UN Development Programme, the World Bank, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the Council on Europe. He has written more than 150 books, articles, and reports on housing rights, forced evictions, property restitution for refugees, and other human rights themes.

"...With this resource in hand, one can readily relate to both the problem and solution...succinct but authoritative coverage of the need for reform. It presents reasonable, and doable, recommendations..." --ASIL UN21 Interest Group Newsletter [ISSUE #39: May 2009] "...The book delivers on its title...an excellent reference work...Overall the book offers an excellent resource on the challenges of realizing an emerging international property rights and housing regime in post-conflict areas..." --Allan K. McDougall, Professor Emeritus, Political Science, University of Western Ontario, The Law and Politics Book Review [Vol. 19 No. 7: July 2009]