Panel on Internal Displacement and the Marsh Arabs of Iraq

On 1 March 2006, the Brookings-Bern Project organized a panel on internal displacement and the Marsh Arabs (Iraq) at the AMAR Foundation Conference in London.

The panel consisted of Walter Kälin, Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, who gave the keynote address which introduced the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement; Dina Abou Samra, Middle East Analyst, Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Norwegian Refugee Council, who discussed the requirements for sustainable returns to the Marshlands; Dr. Norbert Wuehler, Director of the Claims Programmes, International Organization for Migration, who addressed property and compensation issues in Iraq; Buraq J. Swaady, Officer-in-Charge, UNHCR Iraq (Basra), who discussed the development of Iraq’s National Policy on IDPs; and Roberta Cohen, Co-director, Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, who gave a summation and closing remarks.