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Scott Leckie (born 1962) is an international human rights and global housing advocate in the field of economic, social and cultural rights. He established several human rights organisations and remedial institutions.
Scott Leckie is the Director of Displacement Solutions, a Geneva-based NGO working to assist people who are displaced from their homes due to conflict or climate change. [1]
Leckie is also Director of Oneness World Foundation, an organisation that identifies practical, peaceful and evolutionary ways to establish a post-nation-state world governed on the basis that all humans are equal citizens of Earth, rather than exclusively citizens of individual nation-states. [2]
Leckie founded the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) and was Executive Director from 1991 to 2007. [3]
He has worked with the Centre for Human Settlements of the University of British Columbia, the Panos Institute, the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM).
From 1989 to 1999 he acted as Legal Counsel and United Nations Representative for Habitat International Coalition.
He was born in Los Angeles, California and holds citizenship in the Netherlands. He resides in Australia.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency with the mandate to protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities and stateless people, and assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to a third country. UNHCR‘s mandate does not apply to Palestinian refugees, who are assisted by UNRWA.
The United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) is the officially mandated mission of the United Nations in Kosovo. Currently, the UNMIK describes its mandate as being to "help the United Nations Security Council achieve an overall objective, namely, to ensure conditions for a peaceful and normal life for all inhabitants of Kosovo and advance regional stability in the western Balkans."
A refugee, generally speaking, is a displaced person who has been forced to cross national boundaries and who cannot return home safely. Such a person may be called an asylum seeker until granted refugee status by the contracting state or the UNHCR if they formally make a claim for asylum. The lead international agency coordinating refugee protection is the United Nations Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The United Nations have a second Office for refugees, the UNRWA, which is solely responsible for supporting the large majority of Palestinian refugees.
An internally displaced person (IDP) is someone who is forced to flee his or her home but who remains within his or her country's borders. They are often referred to as refugees, although they do not fall within the legal definitions of a refugee.
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related ethnic conflicts, wars of independence and insurgencies fought in the former Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001, which led to the breakup of the Yugoslav state. Its constituent republics declared independence, despite unresolved tensions between ethnic minorities in the new countries, fueling the wars.
A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced persons who have fled their home country, but there are also camps for internally displaced people. Usually refugees seek asylum after they have escaped war in their home countries, but some camps also house environmental- and economic migrants. Camps with over a hundred thousand people are common, but as of 2012, the average-sized camp housed around 11,400. They are usually built and run by a government, the United Nations, international organizations, or NGOs. There are also unofficial refugee camps, like Idomeni in Greece or the Calais jungle in France, where refugees are largely left without support of governments or international organizations.
Forced displacement is the involuntary or coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region. This movement may have been caused by a variety of factors including natural disasters, violence, ethnic cleansing, individual or group persecution, droughts, civil wars, deportation and population transfer. The UNHCR however defines 'forced displacement' more narrowly as: displaced "as a result of persecution, conflict, generalized violence or human rights violations".
Economic, social and cultural rights are socio-economic human rights, such as the right to education, right to housing, right to an adequate standard of living, right to health, victims' rights and the right to science and culture. Economic, social and cultural rights are recognised and protected in international and regional human rights instruments. Member states have a legal obligation to respect, protect and fulfil economic, social and cultural rights and are expected to take "progressive action" towards their fulfilment.
Afghanistan refugees are nationals of Afghanistan who left their country as a result of major wars or persecution. The 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan marks the first wave of internal displacement and refugee flow from Afghanistan to neighboring Pakistan and Iran that began providing shelter to Afghan refugees. When the Soviet war ended in 1989, these refugees started to return to their homeland. In April 1992, a major civil war began after the mujahideen took over control of Kabul and the other major cities. Afghans again fled to neighboring countries.
In 2008 there were about 500-700 Romani people in Mitrovica refugee camps. These three camps were created by the UN in Kosovo. The camps are based around disused heavy metals mines which have fallen out of use since the end of the Kosovo War of 1999. There have been complaints that the residents are suffering severe lead poisoning. According to a 2010 Human Rights Watch, Romani displaced from the Romani quarter in Mitrovica, due to its destruction in 2000, continued to be inmates of camps in north Mitrovica, where they were exposed to environmental lead poisoning.
The Kosovo Property Agency (KPA) was established on 4 March 2006 under UNMIK Regulation 2006/10, as an administrative agency functioning independently pursuant to Chapter 11.2 of the Constitutional Framework of Kosovo. It is mandated under UNMIK Regulation 2006/50 to resolve the resolution of claims resulting from the armed conflict that occurred between 27 February 1998 and 20 June 1999 in respect of private immovable property, including agricultural and commercial property - and has three main functions; (a) receive, register and resolve specific claims on private immovable property; (b) enforcement of legally final decisions; and (c) administration of abandoned properties. The KPA has, subject to appeal to the Supreme Court of Kosovo, exclusive jurisdiction to resolve the claims for private immovable property resulting from the conflict period specified above.
Cypriot refugees are the Cypriot nationals or Cyprus residents who had their main residence in an area forcibly evacuated during the Cyprus conflict. The government of Cyprus also recognizes as refugees the descendants of the original refugees in the male line regardless of place of birth.
The Norwegian Refugee Council is a humanitarian, non-governmental organisation that protects the rights of people affected by displacement. This includes refugees and internally displaced persons who are forced to flee their homes as a result of conflict, human rights violations and acute violence, as well as climate change and natural disasters.
Bruno Geddo is an Italian national, born in Milan on October 30, 1959. He has served as a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) official for over 30 years in various capacities in Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the Middle East.
The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) was a Geneva-based international non-governmental organisation founded in 1994 by Scott Leckie as a foundation in the Netherlands.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Representation in Cyprus is an office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) opened in August 1974 upon the request of the Government of Cyprus and the Secretary-General of the United Nations. UNHCR Representation in Cyprus was designated as Coordinator of the United Nations Humanitarian Assistance for Cyprus. UNHCR was also responsible upon the request of the Cyprus Government to examine applications for refugee status.
United Nations Security Council resolution 1239, adopted on 14 May 1999, after recalling resolutions 1160 (1998), 1199 (1998) and 1203 (1998), the Council called for access for the United Nations and other humanitarian personnel operating in Kosovo to other parts of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Azerbaijani SSR was one of the first republic of Soviet Union that faced the problem of refugees and internally displaced persons. The refugees are ethnic Azerbaijanis from Armenia and the internally displaced persons are ethnic Azerbaijanis from Nagorno-Karabakh and the seven adjacent rayons which are controlled by the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.
The Kampala Convention is a treaty of the African Union (AU) that addresses internal displacement caused by armed conflict, natural disasters and large-scale development projects in Africa.
Refugee crisis can refer to difficulties and dangerous situations in the reception of large groups of forcibly displaced persons. These could be either internally displaced, refugees, asylum seekers or any other huge groups of migrants.
