VII. Conclusions and Recommendations

70. As positive as the legal and institutional developments supporting restitution rights over the past 30 years have been, those seeking to claim and enforce HLP restitution rights still lack a satisfactory answer as to why they still have no single institution in place to which they can turn to seek residential justice when domestic remedies are lacking. Despite the inclusion of restitution rights in numerous human rights standards, peace agreements, voluntary repatriation agreements, and national laws and policies as vehicles through which restitution due to post-authoritarian, post-communist and post-conflict settings as a tool for justice and to reverse ethnic cleansing, housing, land and property restitution rights lack institutional support.

71. And yet, if peace, restorative and residential justice, the rule of law and human rights are to mean anything to those who were forced from their homes, lands and properties restitution must be treated as a human right for all refugees and IDPs wishing to return to their former homes and lands, and be backed by the establishment of a new institution dedicated to these objectives. But failing to create conditions that make restitution possible will not only serve to severely undermine basic principles of justice and law, but will provide further justification and, quite literally, ammunition to those who are so emotionally and physically decimated by waiting to repossess their homes and lands, that they feel they are left with no other option than violence and a rejection of peaceful methods to achieve justice.

72. It is keenly hoped that this report - by showing that restitution is possible, feasible, affordable, legal and, above all, just and a prerequisite for sustained peace – will provide a way to avoid future restitution-based tragedies, and instead encourage all of those States which continue to refuse to return housing and property to those from whom it has been illegally taken, to have the wisdom and foresight to let residential justice prevail. For this will be in everyone’s ultimate best interest. Establishing a World Restitution Agency is the ideal way to begin to breathe new life into the promise of HLP restitution for all.