UN to Adopt Pathbreaking New Global Standard which Demands Return of Confiscated Refugee Land and Housing

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GENEVA -- The United Nations is expected to adopt a sweeping series of principles today that urge governments everywhere to ensure all refugees and persons displaced due to conflict and natural disasters are entitled to return to, recover and reside in their original homes, lands and properties. Prepared by the UN's Special Rapporteur on Housing and Property Restitution, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro of Brazil, the 'Pinheiro Principles' will provide the first consolidated global standard on the housing, land and property rights of the displaced. "The best solution to the plight of millions of refugees and displaced persons around the world is to ensure they attain the right to return freely to their countries and to have restored to them housing and property of which they were deprived during the course of displacement, or to be compensated for any property that cannot be restored to them. It is the most desired, sustainable, and dignified solution to displacement", said Pinheiro.