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

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.

Part I. Introduction: 1. UN peace operations and housing, land, and property rights in post-conflict settings: from neglect to delicate embrace Scott Leckie; Part II. Case Studies: 2. Cambodia Rhodri C. Williams; 3. Kosovo Margaret Cordial and Knut Roandhaug; 4. East Timor, Bougainville, Solomon Islands and Aceh Daniel Fitzpatrick and Rebecca Monson; 5. Afghanistan Conor Foley; 6. Rwanda, Burundi and DR Congo Chris Higgins; 7. Iraq Nigel Thomson; 8. Sudan Paul de Wit and Jeffrey Hatcher; 9. Local housing market impacts of UN peace operations: inevitabilities and consequences Mayra Gomez; Part III. Conclusions: 10. Possible components of a unified global policy on housing, land, and property rights in post-conflict settings Scott Leckie.