This guide summarizes international human rights standards applicable to involuntary displacement caused by public and private infrastructure and urbanization projects. It provides guidance for all involved parties: urban planners and architects, public authorities, the legal community, national or international financing entities, governments, civil society, and affected populations. It aims to provide guidance to assist in the execution of development projects that respect, protect and fulfil the human right to adequate housing of the communities that will be affected by them.

This Handbook provides a summary and the actual text of the United Nations (UN) Basic Principles and Guidelines on Development-based Evictions and Displacement, acknowledged by the UN Human Rights Council in December 2007. A first short section focuses on India before looking at the international context.

The impacts of large-scale agricultural investments on rural communities’ land ownership, food security, productivity, income, and access to education and health differ within and between communities depending on business and government influence. Recent examples of large-scale investment models are dependent on the legal landscape in the investor’s country of origin, the investor-community linkages, and the nature of partnership with governments.

Despite an inflow of investment in rural communities, there are concerns about negative impacts on local people’s livelihoods, access to farming land, productivity, income levels, food security and access to social services. The Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA) research partnership assessed the impact and benefits of large-scale investments in the agricultural sector on livelihoods of smallholder farmers using two case studies. Evidence from this project suggests that the large-scale investments increased the income of surrounding communities.

Displacement induced by large scale investments and subsequent resettlement affects community access to land, land tenure patterns, and tenure security. This guide is published as part of the project ‘Strengthening Community Land Rights and Responses to Involuntary Displacements Caused by Development Projects in Zimbabwe.’ It highlights critical areas to be accounted for before introducing large scale developmental projects. These projects endanger communities’ land-related environmental, economic, social and cultural rights and benefits enshrined by the Constitution of Zimbabwe.

Government intervention and local level coordination of large-scale investment decisions are important components required for positive impacts on food security, nutrition and livelihoods of host communities. This policy brief reviews two case studies which illustrate the effects of foreign investment partnerships on local host communities and makes recommendations for improving government intervention at the provincial level

Spatiotemporal variation in ground-surface displacement caused by ground freeze–thaw and thermokarst is critical information to understand changes in the permafrost ecosystem. Measurement of ground displacement, especially in the disturbed ground underlain by ice-rich permafrost, is important to estimate the rate of permafrost and carbon loss. We conducted high-precision global navigation satellite system (GNSS) positioning surveys to measure the surface displacements of tundra in northern Alaska, together with maximum thaw depth (TD) and surface moisture measurements from 2017 to 2019.

On the heels of the rural ‘land grab’ debate, the ongoing urban transition combined with large-scale urban infrastructure investments and land scarcity forces us to also pay more attention to issues of land in urban discussions. Yet how can we conceptualise land-related problems in order to connect and integrate rural and urban debates in overarching discussions of development?

Cameroon is part of a global trend towards large-scale investments in infrastructure, agriculture, extractive industries, industrial facilities and real estate that are displacing many people. Deeming these projects in the public interest, governments often acquire land by expropriating locally-held land rights. But compulsory land acquisition has severe economic, social and cultural impacts for families and communities.

Sri Lanka has recently emerged from nearly three decades of protracted conflict, which came to an end five years ago in 2009. A number of researchers have explored the devastating effect the conflict has had on public health, and its impact on Sri Lanka’s health system - hailed as a success story in the South Asian region. Remarkably, no attempt has been made to synthesize the findings of such studies in order to build an evidence-informed research platform. This review aims to map the ‘research landscape’ on the impact of conflict on health in Sri Lanka.

ABSTRACTED FROM INTRODUCTION: 

This report provides an in depth analysis of the inheritance rights of children in Sri Lanka. Chapter 2 looks at inheritance rights of children from a human rights perspective. It examines the international human rights instruments which guarantee the right to adequate housing of children and which aim to protect their inheritance rights. It analyses the essential components of the right to adequate housing and looks at Sri Lanka’s obligations to protect and promote these rights.