New Opinion Piece: Remedying Displacement across Arab Lands
The Arab region faces a growing displacement crisis, with over 49.8 million people deprived of housing, land and property (HLP) rights due to conflict, occupation and war. In this opinion piece by Habitat International Coalition’s Housing and Land Rights Network (HIC-HLRN), Joseph Schechla outlines the scale and complexity of this regional crisis, and the long-overdue need for remedy, reparation and land governance reform.
At the time of the 1st Arab Land Conference (2018), the displaced and refugee Arab population across Arab states numbered at least 33.4 million, according to available data compiled by HIC-HLRN. By 2022, GLTN and UN Habitat published estimates, ranging from over 21 million to over 40 million displaced persons of all nationalities across the region. However, by 2025, available figures actually indicate over 49.8 million Arabs deprived of their housing, land and property (HLP) and related rights in their own region, a number roughly equivalent to the entire population of Sudan.
The crisis poses an opportunity for cross-border cooperation to apply the Pinheiro Principles for restoring housing, land and property rights to millions of Arab citizens eligible for reparation. Lessons learned over decades point to the need for deep reforms in land administration among the remedial and preventive measures to be taken. In 2025, the UN published its long-awaited handbook for implementing the Pinheiro Principles in the MENA region, which offers another tool for formulating regional policy and implementation approaches at remedy and reparation for the tens of millions of displaced and dispossessed Arab households.
Understanding the vectors and impacts of displacement across the Arab states should encourage governments and civil society to close gaps in regional HLP restitution policy responses. Conversely, the lack of such remedy continues to sever the affected people’s relationship to their land, deepen social injustice, erode public trust in government and the international order, while relegating an Arab population as great as all Sudan to permanent penury and destitution.
HIC-HLRN promotes a collective civil society approach grounded in states’ human rights obligations, deriving lessons and commitments from its 2024 regional Land Forum dedicated to remedying the pan-Arab displacement and dispossession crisis. The Network’s efforts through its Violation Database, Impact-assessment Tools and regular monitoring have demonstrated also the need for greater awareness of the applicable norms, more-diligent reporting, and advocacy vis-à-vis governments across the region toward the goal of more-integrated and complementary HLP-restitution programs.
