Jon Unruh, PhD. is a professor in the Department of Geography at McGill University in
Montreal. He has over 25 years experience in developing and implementing research,
policy and practice on war-affected land and property rights in the Middle East, Latin
America, Africa, and Asia, and has published widely on these topics. His specialty is
housing, land and property (HLP) restitution claims in war-affected scenarios. Most
recently he has assisted the UN in a mass claims HLP restitution project in Yemen; and he is
currently working on an approach for mass HLP restitution claims for Ukraine. Dr. Unruh has also conducted research and policy work regarding HLP in, Syria, Sudan, Liberia, Somalia, Mozambique, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Uganda, Zambia, Malawi, Madagascar, Cambodia, Angola, Cameroon, Jordan, Colombia, Peru, Zanzibar, Kenya and Saudi Arabia, and remotely on Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. He has worked with the UN, The World Bank, USAID, DFID, and other multilateral and bilateral donors and NGOs.
Interests: Postwar land tenure
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Displaying 11 - 12 of 12Structuring land restitution remedies for peace and stability in fragile states
Large-scale dislocation of populations due to land expropriations and armed conflictpresent significant difficulties for political stability and food security in fragile states.With increased use of mass claims programs by the international community andgovernments in order to attend to the problem, attention is focusing on what works.While organizing mass claims programs is challenging, the real difficulty is derivingremedies that are realistic, effective, implementable, and that fit the wide variety of circumstances that people, communities and nations find themselves.
Mass Claims in Land and Property Following the Arab Spring: Lessons from Yemen
The Arab Spring uprisings have released a flood of land and property conflicts, brought about by decades of autocratic rule. Expropriations, corruption, poor performance of the rule of law, patronage and sectarian discrimination built up a wide variety of land and property transgressions over approximately 30 years. The result has been the creation of longstanding, acute grievances among large components of national populations who now seek to act on them.