The Urban Law and Conflict Series (Volume 2, Emergency Response): 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 the conditions for peace, security, and recovery during emergencies and in post-conflict contexts. As the second publication in the Urban Law and Conflict Series, this report explores how urban law can support accountable, inclusive, and responsive urban governance, spatial planning, land administration, and housing law and policy to mitigate the immediate impacts of conflict on housing, land, and property (HLP) rights. This includes, among other measures, reducing residential disruption and displacement, safeguarding land records, enabling emergency shelter, and regulating secondary occupation.