The Urban Law and Conflict Series (Volume 3, Early Recovery): Enhancing Urban Law to Protect Housing, Land and Property Across the Conflict Cycle

​​As global urbanization accelerates, cities are increasingly on the front lines of humanitarian crises and post-conflict recovery, while bearing a growing responsibility to uphold the right to adequate housing. Conflict is now predominantly unfolding in urban settings, as seen in recent crises in Palestine, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen, where widespread housing destruction and mass displacement have placed large civilian populations at risk of losing their homes, land, and tenure security. Many of the resulting challenges, such as safe return, restitution, adjudication, and dispute resolution, are rooted in pre-existing tenure insecurity linked to weak governance, unplanned urbanization, fragile land administration systems, and inadequate housing laws and policies.

​Against this backdrop, urban law plays a critical role in creating conditions for peace, security, and recovery during emergencies and in post-conflict contexts. As the third publication in the Urban Law and Conflict Series, focusing on urban recovery, it examines the role of urban law and policy as critical instruments for respecting, protecting, and fulfilling HLP rights during society’s transition from conflict toward lasting peace. Legal frameworks for urban governance, spatial planning, land administration, and housing regulation must strike a careful balance between safeguarding HLP rights and addressing potentially competing urban recovery priorities.​