Justice, Reconstruction’s Foundation

Joseph Schechla, Housing and Land Rights Network – Habitat International Coalition

Reconstruction is an advanced-phase response to the impacts of natural, human-caused, or human-exacerbated disaster. It follows foregoing phases of “rescue,” “relief,” and “early recovery” on the road to eventual “sustainable development” and the corresponding obligation of states to ensure “the continuous improvement of living conditions.” That progression provides specificity to fulfilling the human right to remedy, whose corresponding state obligations, as with all human rights, are at once individual, collective (with other treaty parties), domestic and extraterritorial in scope.

The last of these dimensions of duty governs each state’s cross-border performance. The associated obligations explicitly call on all states to engage in international assistance and cooperation. However, these domains of duty arise from each and every human right, not least the human right to remedy.

Theory

As in any complex task, it is essential to get the theory right. And reconstruction’s long-standing theoretical constructs, normative frameworks and best practices resonate with the conditions necessary for both a domestic and global rules-based order. Like other tools of statecraft, human rights obligations are not just legal impositions or moral enjoinments of statehood, but the very practical requisites for the coherence of any public administration system, preventing it from collapse into corruption, deprivation and violence.

As in any contractual arrangement, the legal obligations of the state as principal duty holder extend also to third parties, as in the case of any sub-contract or other form of subsidiarity. Therefore, the relevant human rights and other international norms apply to all actors involved in the process, encompassing all organs of the state, including sub-national government, and domiciled practitioners such as private sector and corporatist actors, and not least professionals engaged in urban planning.

In all disasters, including protracted crises, the remedial short-term emergency relief and longer-term and institution-building development approach should align to form policy coherence within the framework of human rights obligations, with their dual prophylactic and remedial functions. This discovery from long experience is reflected in the 2015 Framework for Action for Food Security and Nutrition in Protracted Crises (FFA), as well as the outcome of the World Humanitarian Summit of 2016.

Eroding the standard

This norm-based construct trumps the inferior-but-trendy Triple Nexus of humanitarian, development and “peace,” which 37 wealthy-nation OECD promptly thrust onto the already-existing global formula in 2016, and which UNDP reflexively endorsed in 2019, despite the purposes of the UN Charter and the integrity promised in the post-2015 Development System, the Vienna Declaration and Security Council mandating inter-agency coordination to the now increasingly defunded OHCHR. The Triple Nexus is unfit for purpose—assuming that the purpose is remedy, including the nonrepetition of the impacts—because the first two parts of the Nexus are mindful processes, while the seemingly unassailable third component (peace) is the outcome of the unacknowledged universal respect, protection and fulfillment of human rights. The Triple Nexus distraction obviates the essential ingredient of the remedial formula it purports to seek.

Applicability

The policy coherence previously defined actually aligns seamlessly with the three cardinal pillars and purposes of the prescient UN Charter, namely to uphold (1) peace and security, (2) human rights and (3) sustainable development (i.e., termed “forward development” in the civilizational sense). Thus, the Charter-based version of policy coherence applies to all states and, by extension, all their organs, constituent parts and domiciled actors. For the purpose of reconstruction, such professional ethics, as practical instruments, are the very tools of the trade for urban planners and their cohorts.

The details of these standards are enshrined in legal instruments, authoritative literature and technical guidance. We do not to invent them, as they were rather “discovered” generations ago, like the universal equation 2+2=4, the laws of physics, or the law of universal gravitation, which Ibn Haytham discovered 600 years before his plagiarist Sir Isaac Newton.

Non-implementation

Another of our wisdom keepers, Ibn Khaldoun, reminded us of the enduring principle “العدل أساس العمران,” lest we forget his 700–year-old findings. To give greater specificity to that adage, the international community has developed the criteria for remedy and reparations, which the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted exactly 20 years ago this year, after an exhaustive 30-year deliberation through the Commission on Human Rights. That standard, enshrined in A/RES/60/147, lays out the indivisible entitlements of victims of gross human rights violations and humanitarian law breaches.

Given the millennia of lessons to our advantage, the urban-planning dimension of any conscientious reconstruction plan should succeed only if grounded in this normative foundation. As early as the 6th century B.C.E., rebuilding after the destruction from conflict, occupation, war and population transfer by the Neo-Assyrians, Cyrus the Great issued the first known human rights charter to guide the process. His Cyrus Cylinder codified the rights of return; restitution of housing, land and property (HLP); freedom of movement; freedom of religion and conscience; and the Persian state’s duty to respect, protect and fulfill those rights, among others. While such measures repaired the ancient harm done to victims, nearer living memory were the first prosecutions of such repeated grave breaches at the post-Second World War International Military Tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo. But even those trials did not deliver, or even seek remedy for Nazi victims; they pursued only accountability of the culprits. Nor did the unheeded promise of “never again” protect Bosnians; Tutsis; Rohingya; Masalit, Zaghawa and Fur peoples; or Palestinians for most of a century that followed.

Re-learning Lessons

The serial plans to provide remedy and reconstruction to Palestine since the Zionist destruction began are instructive, if only for their omission of entitled reparations for the victims. Across 31 such reconstruction plans published since 1996, the structural incoherence seems contagious. Only three mention the pursuit of reparations, including UN, World Bank, EU and Arab League plans.

Across the wider region, the 54 million continuously dispossessed and displaced Arabs, plus the recent 3.2 million war-displaced Iranians, are entitled to reparation for the deprivation incurred, foremostly restitution of their housing, lands, properties (HLP) and natural resources, as well as non-economic loss and damage (NELD). This remedial and deterrence challenge—so grave in the Arab region—underscores the importance of operationalizing state obligations related to remedy and reconstruction for households, in addition to the private and public economic and civic infrastructure in need for reconstruction.

We should take heed also of SDG11 read in conjunction with the 2030 Agenda’s paragraph 35. These global commitments position urban planning, reconstruction and the duty to end conflict and occupations, without explicitly mentioning Palestine or Western Sahara. However, the post-2030 Agenda deliberations should be seized with such obvious contradictions as in Western Asia and North Africa.

Inspired by lessons re-learnt from 2004 Asian tsunami reconstruction failures, Housing and Land Rights Network produced a compilation of long-standing declaratory and binding reconstruction standards that form a coherent and indispensable guide for practitioners. While these norms remain operational, two decades of subsequent norms discovered and increasingly codified also how urban planning and reconstruction are needed to uphold the legitimate state system.

Neither IOM Arab regional consultations nor Arab League refugee and migration workstreams yet address HLP restitution. But the 20-year-old Pinheiro Principles, last year’s UN practical guide to applying them in our region and the UN Special Rapporteur’s Reconstruction Guidelines reaffirm and update the standards to be applied.

For durable reconstruction, all actors are duty bound to prioritize remedy and reparations for the victims in need of policy-coherent relief, early recovery, reconstruction and sustainable development. Urban planning operates across all these phases, and salvaging civilization may rely upon operating from its sound, time-honored normative foundation.

Endnotes:

    International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), 1966, Article 11, https://treaties.un.org/doc/treaties/1976/01/19760103%2009-57%20pm/ch_iv_03.pdf.

[1] Ibid., Article 2.1.

[1] International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), 1966, Article 2.3, https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/ccpr.pdf.

[1] Committee on World Food Security (CFS), “Framework for Action for Food Security and Nutrition in Protracted Crises” (2015), paras. 4, 8, 15–16, and 26(v)(viii), http://www.fao.org/policy-support/tools-and-publications/resources-details/en/c/423451/.

[1] General Assembly, “One Humanity, Shared Responsibility,” Report of the Secretary-General for the World Humanitarian Summit, A/70/709, paras. 130 and 134, and under “Core responsibility four: Change people’s lives: from delivering aid to ending need,” pp. 57–58, https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/A_70_709.pdf.

[1] Development Committee (DAC), “Recommendation on the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus,” OECD Legal Instruments, https://legalinstruments.oecd.org/public/doc/643/643.en.pdf. 

[1] UNDP, “Humanitarian, Development and Peace Nexus,” (undated), https://www.undp.org/crisis/humanitarian-development-and-peace-nexus; UNDP-Arab States, “Humanitarian-Development- Peace Nexus Approaches in the Arab region,” (undated), https://www.undp.org/arab-states/humanitarian-development-peace-nexus-approaches.

[1] Drawing on assets across the system, including scattered data: Repositioning the United Nations development system to deliver on the 2030 Agenda: ensuring a better future for all, Report of the Secretary-General, A/72/124–E/2018/3, 11 July 2017, para. 32, https://undocs.org/A/72/124; Coordination, accountability, pooling expertise and assets across the Organisation; Ibid., paras. 53, 79; Aligning development with human right obligations as common pillars of the UN Charter and System: Repositioning the United Nations development system to deliver on the 2030 Agenda: ensuring a better future for all, Report of the Secretary-General. A/72/124–E/2018/3, 11 July 2017, https://undocs.org/A/72/124; Independent Team of Advisors Findings and Conclusions, ECOSOC Dialogue on longer-term positioning of UN Development System in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, 16 June 2016,  pp. 72, 74, https://www.un.org/ecosoc/sites/www.un.org.ecosoc/files/files/en/qcpr/ecosoc-dialogue-publication.pdf; ECOSOC Dialogue on the longer-term positioning of the UN development system in the context of the 2030 Agenda, UNDG key messages for Workshop 5, 13 April 2016, https://www.un.org/ecosoc/sites/www.un.org.ecosoc/files/files/en/qcpr/undg-key-msgs-functions-and-funding.pdf; Implementation of General Assembly resolution 67/226 on the quadrennial comprehensive policy review of operational activities for development of the United Nations system, Report of the Secretary-General,  A/71/63–E/2016/8, 31 December 2015, para. 9, https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/820460/files/A_71_63%26E_2016_8-EN.pdf; General Assembly, Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, A/RES/70/1, 21 October 2015, paras. 3, 7–8, 10, 19, 29, 35, 74(e), at: https://undocs.org/A/RES/70/1; and Policy coherence: cross-sectoral and inter-ministerial, development commitments with legal obligations, and aligning short-term emergency relief and humanitarian assistance with the longer-term and institution-building development approach within the framework of human rights obligations, with their dual preventive and remedial dimensions: Committee on World Food Security, Framework for Action for Food Security and Nutrition in Protracted Crises, CFS/2015/42/4, paras. 15–16, http://www.fao.org/3/a-bc852e.pdf.

[1] General Assembly, “High Commissioner for the promotion and protection of all human rights,” A/RES/48/141, para. 4.i, http://www.un-documents.net/a48r141.htm.

[1] Ibn Khaldoun’s famous maxim, “العدل أساس العمران، والظلم مؤذن بخراب العمران” (“Justice is the foundation of civilization, and injustice its decline”) remains a living principle, encapsulating the key to the continuity and progress of nations and civilization, and the reason for their coherence, survival and stability.

ابن خلدون، المقدمة، الكتاب الأول، الباب في العمران الحضري، فصل: «في أن الظلم مؤذن بخراب العمران «، (بيؤوت: دار الفكر)، جزء 1، ص. 286–288.

[1] Bustenay Oded, Mass Deportations and Deportees in the Neo-Assyrian Empire (Wiesbaden: Reichert 1979), p. 16.

[1] Muhammad A. Dandamayev, “CYRUS iii. Cyrus II The Great,” Encyclopædia Iranica, Vol. VI, Fasc. 5, pp. 516–21 (updated 29 August 2013), https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/cyrus-iii/; Shapour Suren-Pahlav, “Cyrus the Greats' Cylinder: The World's First Charter of the Human Rights,” The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies (June 1998), https://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/History/hakhamaneshian/Cyrus-the-great/cyrus_cylinder.htm.

[1]بركات، سلطان. (2019). "استراتيجية إقليمية تعاونية لإعادة الإعمار في العالم العربي،" ز. عزام، محرر. في العالم العربي ما بعد النزاع (واشنطن: المركز العربي بواشنطن العاصمة)، ص. 87–96؛ بركات، سلطان وغسان الكحلوت. (2018). استراتيجية إقليمية تعاونية لإعادة الإعمار في العالم العربي (31 كانون الأول/ديسمبر 2018)، https://chs-doha.org/ar/Publications/Pages/A-Collaborative-Regional-Reconstruction-Strategy-in-the-Arab-World.aspx؛

 سلطان وغسان الكحلوت، "دروس مستفادة من تجارب الإنعاش بعد النزعات مسلحة،" إحاطة السياسة (الدوحة: معهد الدوحة للدرايات العاليا، 2020)، https://siyasatarabiya.dohainstitute.org/ar/issue030/Pages/Siyassat30_2018_Barakat.pdf؛ شكلا، المجع السابق؛ بركات؛Sultan Barakat, “A Collaborative Regional Reconstruction Strategy in the Arab World,” in Imad K. Harb and Zeina Azzam, eds., The Arab World beyond Conflict (Washington: The Arab Center in Washington, (1 June 2019), pp. 87–96, https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/a-collaborative-regional-reconstruction-strategy-in-the-arab-world/.

[1] Figures as of 30 April 2026 from regular monitoring by Housing and Land Rights Network. Details upon request.

[1] Ayaki Ito, “Up to 3.2 million Iranians temporarily displaced in Iran as conflict intensifies,” UNHCR (12 March 2026), https://www.unhcr.org/news/press-releases/unhcr-3-2-million-iranians-temporarily-displaced-iran-conflict-intensifies.

[1] Bikram Jeet Batra and Shivani Chaudhry, International Human Rights Standards on Post-disaster Resettlement and Rehabilitation (New Delhi: Habitat International Coalition – Housing and Land Rights Network (HIC-HLRN), People’s Movement for Human Rights Learning (PDHRE); and Bangalore: BOOKS for CHANGE, 2006), https://hlrn.org/activitydetails.php?title=International-Human-Rights-Standards-on-Post-disaster-Resettlement-and-Rehabilitation&id=o2lmZg==.

[1] IOM Arab Regional Consultative Process on Migration and Refugee Affairs (ARCP), https://egypt.iom.int/news/arab-regional-consultative-process-migration-and-refugee-affairs-meet-global-compacts-migrants-and-refugees.

[1] General Secretariat of the Arab League, Social Affairs Sector – Department of Refugees, Expatriates and Migration Affairs,  https://africaface.net/arab-league-holds-12th-regional-consultative-meeting-on-migration-and-asylum/?lang=en.

[1] Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and Displaced Persons: Implementing the Pinheiro Principles in the Middle East and North Africa (FAO, IOM, NRC, OHCHR, UN-Habitat, 2025), https://unhabitat.org/housing-and-property-restitution-for-refugees-and-displaced-persons-implementing-the-pinheiro; andرد حقو ق السكن والملكية إلى اللاجئين والمهجّري: تنفيذ مبادئ پِنْيَيرو في الشرق الأوسط وشمال إفريقيا،  https://unhabitat.org/ar/housing-and-property-restitution-for-refugees-and-displaced-persons-implementing-the-pinheiro.

[1] “Draft Guiding Principles for Reconstruction in conflict-affected countries and territories,”

https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/issues/housing/activities/guiding-principles-reconstruction.pdf;

“Legal Commentary on the Draft Guiding Principles for Reconstruction in Conflict-Affected Countries and Territories,” https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/issues/housing/activities/legal-commentary-guiding-principles-reconstruction.pdf.