In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

6. The Legal Trajectory of the Palestinian Refugee Issue From Exclusion to Ambiguity Susan Musarrat Akram at the end of 2011, out of a total Palestinian population of about 11.2 million persons, some 7.4 million were refugees or internally displaced.1 The Palestinian people constitute one of the largest and longeststanding unresolved situations of displacement in the world; about one in three refugees worldwide is Palestinian.2 Given the size and protracted nature of this refugee flow, one would imagine that a great deal of energy would be expended on adapting international legal principles to craft a durable solution for this problem. Instead, it is often said that the Palestinian refugee problem is unique, that existing principles are inapplicable, that existing legal instruments do not cover Palestinian refugees, and hence that the problem is intractable.3 since the drafting of the Universal declaration of Human rights in 1945, both widespread state practice and a codified body of law have developed that address almost every aspect of refugee and displaced persons’ rights.4 a central premise is that all refugees, without distinction, have certain rights, and that states have concomitant obligations to respect, protect, and implement those rights. The core legal principles applicable in the search for durable solutions for mass refugee flows are: the right to return to one’s home and place of origin in safety; the right to voluntarily choose among available resettlement options; the right to full restitution of property left behind ; and the right to compensation for loss or damage to refugee property.5 The right to protection for refugees and stateless persons, and the engagement of the international community in providing the benefits that are lost 122 susan musarrat akram from failure of national protection, have been spelled out in explicit terms in several of the most widely ratified treaties that exist today, including the 1951 refugee Convention and the 1954 Convention on stateless Persons.6 These treaties broaden the fundamental customary international law rights of return and restitution, incorporate what are considered binding international definitions of refugees and stateless persons, and expand international obligations to implement fundamental refugee and stateless persons ’ rights.7 These rights have not only been codified in widely ratified treaties, they have also been increasingly incorporated in peace agreements all over the world accompanying solutions for mass refugee flows. Peace agreements in the former yugoslav states of Kosovo, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina recognize and implement refugee return and property restitution.8 The same is true for peace agreements concerning Georgia; tajikistan; the multistate CIreFCa agreement of Central america involving Guatemala, el salvador , Honduras, and Mexico; and many african agreements such as in sierra Leone, rwanda, Burundi, Mozambique, and Liberia.9 In Liberia, angola, rwanda, Georgia, Myanmar, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, afghanistan, Iran, the democratic republic of Congo, Guatemala, abkhazia, and the russian Federation, negotiated agreements specifically require that refugees and displaced persons are to be permitted to return to their homes or former places of residence.10 These and other agreements recognize and implement property restitution, including those for Bosnia, Kosovo, Cambodia, Guatemala , Mozambique, rwanda, Croatia, Burundi, and Georgia.11 These agreements not only spell out legal rights but also create implementing mechanisms to make the rights a reality. as scott Leckie of the Center on Housing rights and evictions (COHre) has remarked, “during the past two decades millions of people throughout the world have been able to formally exercise their housing, land, and property restitution rights and return home, from tajikistan to Kosovo, from Mozambique to Liberia, and from BosniaHerzegovina to south africa and beyond.”12 at the same time, there has been increased attention to addressing root causes of displacement, with an emphasis on restorative and sometimes retributive justice and security as essential elements of the durability of solutions.13 This is not to say that such refugee solutions are perfect, or that they are always respected, or that the solutions always remain durable. The point is that in these cases there is greater attention to and awareness of the core rights and obligations that must be part of any postconflict refugee plan. In other words, there is a re6 .154.103] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 01:55 GMT) The Legal Trajectory of the Palestinian Refugee Issue 123 newed focus on framing political solutions on rights grounded in international law.14 In sharp contrast is the Palestinian refugee case. despite the development of a significant body of as-yet-unimplemented law on Palestinian refugee rights, the Palestinian...

Share