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Displaced
The month of this Land Times/أحوال الأرض issue 23 is full with commemorations and processes that make us reflect on one of the greatest problems on our conflicted and climatically changing planet. The forced displacement of inhabitants, including entire human settlements, is as much a legacy of human activity as global warming itself.
Starting from the
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New UN Inquiry into Israel/Palestine “root causes”
The UN Human Rights Council (HRC) convened a special session on 27 May 2021 to debate and vote (24–9) on resolution A/HRC/S-30/1 to urgently dispatch an open-ended commission of inquiry in response to the recent events leading to military conflict between Israel and armed groups in the blockaded and besieged Gaza Strip. The resolution, entitled, “Ensuring respect for international human
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Targeting Homes, Shelter and Shelter Seekers
On 11 May, we saw the most-intense exchange of fire in years between Israel and armed Palestinian groups begin in Gaza. By the time the Israeli military famously announced its intended bombing of the Hanadi residential tower block, much unannounced Israeli destruction had already taken place across the occupied Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including Jerusalem. The Palestinian Health
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The Indigenous Palestinian People
A rare and much welcome event took place at the 20th Session of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII20), which convened on 19 to 30 April 2021. Meeting under the theme ““Peace, justice and strong institutions: the role of indigenous peoples in implementing Sustainable Development Goal 16” (Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice
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Gaza: Food Sovereignty under Fire
While we do not yet know the full extent of the environmental impacts that Israeli occupation measures have had on Gaza over the past several years, one point is certain: Israel’s central objective is to thoroughly deprive Palestinians of their natural resources and livelihoods.
Today, the people of Gaza live in a protracted humanitarian catastrophe. Several bodies established by the Charter
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Palestine vs. Israel Interstate Complaint
The process for inter-state complaints (also called inter-state communications, or state-to-state complaints) allows for a state party to a treaty to submit a complaint to a treaty oversight body about alleged violations of a treaty committed by another state party to the same treaty, unless the state opts out of that procedure at the time of ratification. The basis of inter-state complaints varies slightly
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Angola’s Unfinished Land Reform
Angola is currently undertaking major governance reforms that will devolve power and decision making to municipalities and lead to the election of the country’s first local councils. (Angola’s first Municipal elections were to be held in 2022, but may be delayed given the excuse of the Covid-19 pandemic.) A key to municipalization will entail decentralizing
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Women and Habitat Working Group - HIC Africa (WHWG)
1. Introduction and Background
The Vancouver Action Plan of 1976 acknowledges that the ideologies of states are reflected in their human settlement policies, these being powerful instruments for change.[i] A gender perspective on these policies reveals that villages, cities and neighborhoods, particularly in Africa, have been shaped by the values of patriarchy, which continues to influence social relations and material development.
The
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Women’s Land and Home Project in Africa
The second phase of HLRN’s Women’s Dispossession from Land and Home project will culminate in the summer of 2021. This phase added work from two HIC-HLRN partners new to the project – Zimbabwe People’s Land Rights Movement (ZPLRM) and Civic Forum on Housing and Habitat Zambia (CFHHZ), in addition to supporting further research by Shelter and Settlements Alternative: Uganda Human
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W(h)ither the UN Food Systems Summit
The UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), planned for September 2021, is taking takes shape, and so is much controversy around its structure, content and objectives. It has become manifestly clear that the UNFSS does not intend to bring about the changes needed to address the world’s great challenges of hunger, disparity, the pandemic and the climate crisis.
Much of civil society
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Refugee Convention @ 70
28 July 2021 marks the 70th anniversary of the Refugee Convention, a much disputed convention perhaps, but critically important in defining global responsibilities in the world’s refugees crisis. That crisis is only increasing with continuing conflicts, occupations and wars, as well as climate change amid large-scale development projects. In the past pandemic year 2020, the world has added three million new
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Reporting on Spatial Segregation in Housing
To complement the dialogue and consultation sessions held by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing Balakrishnan Rajagopal with relevant parties (regional and local governments, states and international organizations, and civil society organizations), the Special Rapporteur launched a survey, focusing on “the issue of discrimination in relation to the right to adequate housing, including the impact of
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Imagining Transitional Justice in Colonial Contexts
Transitional justice is the main contemporary method to establish justice and bring sustainable peace to societies and peoples that have suffered from repressive rule, and from an extended legacy of human rights violations, especially in countries that have suffered from colonialism. Transitional processes are designed to provide political and legal remedy for past grievances through contemporary mechanisms of justice. However,
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Reckoning with Colonialism in Canada
July 1st marked Canada’s national day of celebration, commemorating the joining of four British colonies into a single Dominion of the British Empire. But this year, local governments across the country cancelled Canada Day celebrations in light of findings confirming the existence of hundreds of unmarked graves of Indigenous children at “Indian Residential Schools,” with reminders from Indigenous nations that
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| Terminology Corner |
| Contributors to this Land Times |
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