Returning Property to Refugees and Displaced Persons - UN Report

Zoots


Joined: 05/02/2011
Posts: 669

Message Posted:
09/05/2011 18:24

This interesting UN Commission on Human Rights report was highlighted on another forum and raises interesting questions. It would make Turkish settlers and British expats "Secondary Occupants" dependent on Turkey/TRNC to about evictions in a proper way. But can foreigners expect any support when it's time to face the music?

17. Secondary occupants



17.1 States should ensure that secondary occupants are protected against arbitrary or unlawful forced eviction. States shall ensure, in cases where evictions of such occupants are deemed justifiable and unavoidable for the purposes of housing, land and property restitution, that evictions are carried out in a manner that is compatible with international human rights law and standards, such that secondary occupants are afforded safeguards of due process, including an opportunity for genuine consultation, adequate and reasonable notice, and the provision of legal remedies, including opportunities for legal redress.

(cont)

Zoots


Joined: 05/02/2011
Posts: 669

Message Posted:
09/05/2011 18:26

17.2 States should ensure that the safeguards of due process extended to secondary occupants do not prejudice the rights of legitimate owners, tenants and other rights holders to repossess the housing, land and property in question in a just and timely manner.



17.3 In cases where evictions of secondary occupants are justifiable and unavoidable, States should take positive measures to protect those who do not have the means to access any other adequate housing other than that which they are currently occupying from homelessness and other violations of their right to adequate housing. States should undertake to identify and provide alternative housing and/or land for such occupants, including on a temporary basis, as a means of facilitating the timely restitution of refugee and displaced persons’ housing, land and property. Lack of such alternatives, however, should not unnecessarily delay the implementation and enforcement of decisions by relevant bodies regarding housing,

(cont)

Zoots


Joined: 05/02/2011
Posts: 669

Message Posted:
09/05/2011 18:27

land and property restitution.



But what about this one?:



17.4 In cases where housing, land and property has been sold by secondary occupants to third parties acting in good faith, States may consider establishing mechanisms to provide compensation to injured third parties. The egregiousness of the underlying displacement, however, may arguably give rise to constructive notice of the illegality of purchasing abandoned property, pre-empting the formation of bona fide property interests in such cases.

http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/577D69B243FD3C0485257075006698E6

deputydawg


Joined: 30/03/2010
Posts: 1727

Message Posted:
09/05/2011 23:23

Zoots. I read nothing above that indicates that those who bought in good faith in the North well before the Orams case believing that they were indemnified by the TRNC government via issue of TRNC title deeds will receive any compensation whatsoever. It seems to me that it is suggested that the governments both North and South be allowed to swindle thousands of foreigners of their life time savings and share the spoils between them. The proper treatment of the unfortunates as suggested above appears to be no more than"issue some valium tablets" as you physically remove them from the land and homes they paid for.

Tiggy


Joined: 25/07/2007
Posts: 1994

Message Posted:
09/05/2011 23:30

Same olde....same olde pike. tch.... tch....No wonder people leave this forum.



Are you up for any new awards at the palace soon ?

andy-f


Joined: 03/05/2009
Posts: 1256

Message Posted:
09/05/2011 23:38

Post deleted , you can put your point across without having to resort to rude language and personal insults

Simbas

andy-f


Joined: 03/05/2009
Posts: 1256

Message Posted:
09/05/2011 23:51

http://www.cyprus-mail.com/opinions/permanent-partition/20110508



and this is a south cyprus publication and they dont seem very confident do they !

caulkhead


Joined: 03/01/2009
Posts: 149

Message Posted:
09/05/2011 23:53

These are basically the Pinhero principles which are the UN rules relating to refuges property. However the ROC does not accept that the Pinhero principles apply becuase they say it is an internal matter and Pinhero only applies where it is not an internal matter.

YFred


Joined: 06/05/2009
Posts: 1471

Message Posted:
09/05/2011 23:53

Zoots, no matter what UN or anybody else says, the situation in the ground has been decided by ECHR which is very relevant today. The rule is very simple. If the occupant lived in their property first 14 years of their life, then it is deemed to be a home, otherwise it is property and the right to return is not guaranteed. I thank god, I was 14.5 when I left. Strangely this is the second time he has intervened in my favour. Last one was when I arrived in UK, whereby within 6 months the automatic right to residence was removed.

In reality, the GCs have been fooled by their leadership that one day they shall all return to their properties, knowing that the longer it takes the more improbable it becomes. Consequently they voted no to the one plan ever put in front of them which would have given them Omorfo and Marash as well as Karpaz, if that pillock had asked for it. Instead they will eventually have to accept the current dividing line as being the border.

YFred


Joined: 06/05/2009
Posts: 1471

Message Posted:
10/05/2011 00:02

I am finding it more and more difficult to understand my cousins in the south.

1. They complain that 200,000 1/3 of GC population were forcibly removed from their homes when the real figure is 160000

2. Thousands were raped, when in reality only 200 cases were registered with UN



3. 80,000 2/3 of the TCs were forced the other way. They have taken the lands of all those people and still had control of the government.



Talk of legalised illegalities or what?

Blackpoolfan


Joined: 03/12/2008
Posts: 1568

Message Posted:
10/05/2011 00:10

Zoots/Private Pike,



Still laugh at your photo in the sailor suit, looked like a rent boy off the love boat

Do us all a favour go back to your southern board

erolz


Joined: 17/11/2008
Posts: 3456

Message Posted:
10/05/2011 00:17

zoots as I pointed out on cyprus-froum.com, from where you have copied and taken this report.



Hoping that this report will defnine how property in the North will be dealt with, when the reoprt clearly shows the RoC itself is in clear violation of the report in regards of return of TC properties is perhaps somewhat misplaced.



Is you objective to 'unbiasedly inform' people on this forum or is it to create fear if you possibly can ?



If it is the later then why not explain how the UN is a political body, not a legal one. How its reports, whilst shaping and influencing interntaional law and norms ar not legal judgments and how this report was written in 2005. THen explain how the ECHR IS a legal body, not a political one, how its judgments are international law and how its rulings re the IPC made AFTER this report and in full knowledge of it differ from it.



Anyway the thread on cyprus-forum where real cypriots discuss this UN report and from which zoots has taken it can

[cont]

erolz


Joined: 17/11/2008
Posts: 3456

Message Posted:
10/05/2011 00:18

be seen here



http://www.cyprus-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=34147&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

andre514


Joined: 05/10/2010
Posts: 763

Message Posted:
10/05/2011 01:44

zoots would have us all believe that like batman,

he is a "fighter for justice" (when he is not doing his "balancing act")

that may not or may be so: of course any disposessed person anywhere

has something of a legal case...but no names, no packdrills



tantalizingly, north cyprus property investors have enjoyed an upgrade

in our member's estimation:

from "would you buy a stolen car?" to "secondary occupants" indeed,

as quoted heretofor



and as we all know more than a year ago it was freely admitted by

the european court that in cyprus itself that those who came here

to make their homes should not be arbitarily evicted,

robbing peter to pay paul as it were



a far cry mr zoot, from your "send the foreigners packing" of 2008!



perhaps you mellowed a tad, or rather more likely the objective situation

has shifted in a favourable direction: ...now that's what I call "progress"



apologies to marvel comics inc.,the crusader and his young friend robin

Scoty


Joined: 23/05/2010
Posts: 846

Message Posted:
10/05/2011 02:39

http://www.cyprus44.com/forums/62851.asp

Why, why, why the 2 keep at each other

MODS ?????

erolz


Joined: 17/11/2008
Posts: 3456

Message Posted:
10/05/2011 02:39

andre514 to be accurate you (expats that bought property on exchange title from TC) are not secondary occupants in the terms of this UN document. You would be 'third parties who have bought from secondary occupants' as per article 17.4



However on your other comments you are entirely right. To under stand what this document might mean for people in Cyprus, you have to understand what it represent and what has happend since it has been published.



UN documents such as these are NOT international law. They are generic guidlines that should help shape international law but do not cast it in stone as per their articles.



The ECHR is a international judical body. Its determinations are internationa law. When it looked at issues specific to cyprus it looked at the guidlines produced by the UN in this document above along with many other things and then produced its ruling on the IPC in light of this and other information.



[cont]

erolz


Joined: 17/11/2008
Posts: 3456

Message Posted:
10/05/2011 02:42

The decision the ECHR came up with, which IS international law, unlike the UN document that only seeks to be guidelines for forming of international law by judical bodies like the ECHR, is marked different from the UN document above in just about all the areas quoted.

erolz


Joined: 17/11/2008
Posts: 3456

Message Posted:
10/05/2011 02:44

scoty msg 15. The document that zoots quotes from and links to is a serious document. I beleive my posts in response to it, along with other posters, are a serious discussion about a serious document and what it does and does not mean for those of us living in Cyprus. I do not really understand why you think moderation is needed in this thread ?

simbas



Joined: 16/07/2007
Posts: 5943

Message Posted:
10/05/2011 07:02

Msg 6 , post deleted for reason given

Simbas