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

This book provides the first overview of how United Nations peace operations have addressed the housing, land, and property rights challenges that face all countries emerging from conflict. Through analysis of UN peace missions in various locations, this volume provides a unique array of perspectives on what the UN has done right and what it should do in the future.

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.