Scott Leckie
Scott Leckie (born 1962) is an international human rights and global housing advocate in the field of economic, social and cultural rights. He established several human rights organisations and remedial institutions.
Career
Scott Leckie is currently the Director of Displacement Solutions, a Geneva-based NGO working to assist people who are displaced from their homes due to conflict or climate change.[1]
Leckie is also Director of Oneness World Foundation, an organisation that identifies practical, peaceful and evolutionary ways to establish a post-nation-state world governed on the basis that all humans are equal citizens of Earth, rather than exclusively citizens of individual nation-states.[2]
Leckie founded the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) and was Executive Director from 1991 to 2007,.[3]
He has worked with the Centre for Human Settlements of the University of British Columbia, the Panos Institute, the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM).
From 1989 to 1999 he acted as Legal Counsel and United Nations Representative for Habitat International Coalition.
Scott Leckie was born in Los Angeles, USA and holds citizenship in the Netherlands. He currently resides in Australia.
Career Milestones
1998
- Prepared a Plan of Action on behalf of UNHCR for the possible return of refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the Republic of Georgia and South Ossetia, including a draft Law on Housing and Property Restitution of the Republic of Georgia.[4]
1999
- Designed the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) Housing and Property Directorate,[5] which to date has settled over 29,000 restitution claims in the territory.[6]
2002
- With the support of the OSCE and the World Bank, he developed a legal reform plan in Albania to facilitate the restitution of properties illegally seized during the period of dictatorship and provided legal analysis of the draft Law on Return and Compensation for Property of Former Owners.
2003
- Mr Leckie worked with a leading judge in Sri Lanka, on behalf of UNHCR, to prepare the institutional design and normative framework required to enable the exercise of the right to land, housing and property restitution for returning refugees and IDPs in Sri Lanka. The proposed Sri Lankan Land Commission was subsequently presented to the parties during the initial phases of the Norwegian-led peace process.
- at the request of the UN Mission in Iraq, headed by Sergio Vierra d’Mello, he designed the Iraqi Housing, Land and Property Directorate, which was under discussion at the time of the tragic bombing of UN Headquarters in Baghdad in August 2003.
2004
- at the request of the United Nations, he prepared a draft UN Policy on Housing, Land and Property Rights in Post-Conflict Settings.
2005
- he worked in Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Thailand on land restitution issues in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean Tsunami.
- In the same year, a process he initiated in 2002 culminated in the adoption by a UN body of the Principles on Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and Displaced Persons (‘Pinheiro Principles’) which provided the first international normative framework specifically dedicated to these issues.
2006
- he developed the Burma HLP Initiative and the Bougainville HLP Initiative, both of which are designed to promote greater attention to HLP rights in these conflict-ridden countries.
2007
- he established Displacement Solutions and continued to work on a diverse range of issues relating to the resolution of ongoing displacement throughout the world.
2008
- he has devoted most of his time to exploring the links between climate change and displacement, focusing in particular on the issues as they affect the Maldives, Papua New Guinea and various Pacific Island nations.
Publications
2008 Cambridge University Press (CUP) published his edited volume Housing, Land And Property Rights In Post-Conflict United Nations And Other Peace Operations: A Comparative Survey & Proposals For Reform.
2007
- Housing, Land and Property Restitution Rights of Refugees and Displaced Persons: Laws, Cases and Materials was also published by CUP.
- Handbook on the Implementation of Housing, Land and Property Rights for the Internal Displacement Division of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
2003
- Returning Home: Housing and Property Restitution Rights of Refugees and Displaced Persons was published by Transnational Publishers.
Guest Editor
- April 2000 Oxford University’s Forced Migration Review
- 2000 UNHCR’s Refugee Survey Quarterly (2000)
References
- ^ "Scott Leckie: Displacement Solutions". Displacement Solutions. Retrieved 3 June 2013.
- ^ "Who We Are". Oneness World Foundation. Retrieved 3 June 2013.
- ^ Leckie, Scott. "Message from COHRE's Founder Scott Leckie". Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions. Retrieved 15 February 2010.
- ^ "Georgia: Europe". Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. Retrieved 3 June 2013.
- ^ Leckie, Scott (n.d.). "Resolving Kosovo's housing crisis: challenges for the UN Housing and Property Directorate" (PDF). Forced Migration Review. 7: 12–15. Retrieved 3 June 2013.
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: CS1 maint: year (link) - ^ "Housing and Property Directorate and Claims Commission in Kosovo (HPD/HPCC)". UN Habitat. Retrieved 3 June 2013.
External links