United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, E/CN.4/Sub.2/2005/17, 28 June 2005: Housing and property restitution in the context of the return of refugees and internally displaced persons, final report of the Special Rapporteur Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, with the Principles on housing and property restitution for refugees and displaced persons
Source ID
SRC-154
Citation
United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, E/CN.4/Sub.2/2005/17, 28 June 2005: Housing and property restitution in the context of the return of refugees and internally displaced persons, final report of the Special Rapporteur Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, with the Principles on housing and property restitution for refugees and displaced persons
URL or path
research/retrieved/un-ods-e-cn4-sub2-2005-17.pdf
Type
Primary United Nations instrument
Hierarchy tier
1
Published
2005-06-28
Accessed
2026-08-16
Snapshot
Retrieved 16 August 2026 from the Official Document System API at https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=E/CN.4/Sub.2/2005/17&l=en&t=pdf by curl with a browser user-agent. HTTP 200, 58,775 bytes, SHA-256 b0ad6e856a9f34e22deec10e587baa83049c9d1f72c5f2cec68530bded3f799c. 15 pages, 42,526 characters of extractable text. READ.
Claims
CH4 Pinheiro Principles; 15.7; 17.1; 21.1; 21.2
Status
READ
Version history
The register keeps changing after the book is fixed in print. Each entry below was added to this row in the order shown.
OBTAINED AFTER CHAPTER 4 v7 PRINTED A DISCLOSURE SAYING IT HAD NOT BEEN, WHICH MAKES THAT SENTENCE FALSE AND IS A BLOCKING-CLASS DEFECT UNDER D-052. THE FAILURE WAS MINE AND IT WAS A FAILURE OF ROUTES, NOT OF ACCESS. One route was tried, the United Nations digital library, it refused on 15 August 2026, and the chapter recorded that as though it were the end of the matter. CLAUDE.md is explicit that a route this process could execute and has not is a bar on printing rather than a disclosure. SIX FURTHER ROUTES WERE PROBED ON 16 AUGUST 2026 AND THE DOCUMENT CAME BACK ON THE SECOND. ROUTES AND OUTCOMES, RECORDED SO THAT THE NEXT UN DOCUMENT IS NOT ABANDONED THE SAME WAY: undocs.org/E/CN.4/Sub.2/2005/17 returns HTTP 200 with a 4kb HTML shell, not the document. documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G05/145/24/PDF/G0514524.pdf returns HTTP 200 AND AN 83kb PDF WHICH IS AN ODS 'document does not exist' STUB, so a 200 and a plausible byte count are not evidence of retrieval and the file must be opened. refworld.org returns 403. unhcr.org media page returns 404 behind a 200-sized body. THE ROUTE THAT WORKS: https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=<symbol>&l=en&t=pdf, the ODS API, which returns the authoritative PDF directly. ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Publications/pinheiro_principles.pdf and 2001-2009.state.gov/documents/organization/99774.pdf also return large PDFs and are the handbook rather than the instrument. WHAT THE AUTHORITATIVE TEXT SETTLES. PRINCIPLE 15.7, VERBATIM: 'States may, in situations of mass displacement where little documentary evidence exists as to ownership or rights of possession, adopt the conclusive presumption that persons fleeing their homes during a given period marked by violence or disaster have done so for reasons related to violence or disaster and are therefore entitled to housing, land and property restitution. In such cases, administrative and judicial authorities may independently establish the facts related to undocumented restitution claims.' SO THE READING IS 'OWNERSHIP OR RIGHTS OF POSSESSION'. That is what the handbook's BODY has and what Chapter 4 v7 quoted. THE HANDBOOK'S ANNEX, WHICH READS 'ownership or possessory rights', IS THE DEVIATION FROM THE INSTRUMENT, NOT A RIVAL READING OF IT. CHAPTER 4's HEDGE, 'So neither wording is offered here as the Principle's own', IS NOW WRONG IN THE CHAPTER'S OWN FAVOUR: the Principle's own wording is established and the chapter already had it right. CORRECTED 17 AUGUST 2026 ON THE v9 DIFF REVIEW AT B1. This row previously read: 'The finding is also stronger than the hedge, because a United Nations handbook published to disseminate these Principles misprints one of them in its own annex.' BOTH 'MISPRINT' AND 'ANNEX' ARE WITHDRAWN. Misprint asserts a mechanism nothing opened establishes, and the divergence is systematic rather than a slip; annex is this project's own label, which the handbook does not use for those pages. WHAT IS ESTABLISHED: the handbook's closing reprint departs from the endorsed instrument at 12.4, where it has guidelines 'which ensure' for 'that ensure' and 'possessory rights' for 'rights of possession'; at 15.2, where it inserts a word; at 15.3; and at 15.7. The reprint footnotes itself to Sub-Commission resolution 2005/21, SRC-157, which endorsed the Principles as this instrument contains them, so it presents itself as the endorsed text while departing from it. HOW THE DEPARTURE AROSE IS NOT ESTABLISHED. See SRC-098, which this row contradicted until now. THE OTHER TWO PRINCIPLES CHAPTER 4 NAMES ALSO VERIFY AT THE INSTRUMENT. 17.1, THE SECONDARY OCCUPANT, QUOTED IN FULL AND WITH ITS TWO MODALS DISTINGUISHED, CORRECTED 17 AUGUST 2026: '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.' THE PROVISION USES TWO DIFFERENT MODALS AND THE DIFFERENCE IS THE POINT: 'should' for protection against arbitrary eviction, 'shall' for due process once an eviction is deemed justifiable and unavoidable. This row previously paraphrased the provision with a single 'should' governing both limbs, which is the same defect the chapter carried at v8 and which the v8 diff review found at B6. It was caught here by check_siblings reporting a REGISTER SIBLING, which is the second shape of the sibling-survives failure: the claim was corrected in the prose and its bare form still stood in the controlling register. 21.1, THE OWNER OFFERED SOMETHING OTHER THAN THE HOUSE: 'All refugees and displaced persons have the right to full and effective compensation as an integral component of the restitution process. Compensation may be monetary or in kind. States shall, in order to comply with the principle of restorative justice, ensure that the remedy of compensation is only used when the remedy of restitution is not factually possible, or when the injured party knowingly and voluntarily accepts compensation in lieu of restitution, or when the terms of a negotiated peace settlement provide for a combination of restitution and compensation.' AND 21.2: restitution is to be 'deemed factually impossible' only 'in exceptional circumstances'. THIS IS STRONGER THAN WHAT CHAPTER 4 CURRENTLY CARRIES and it bears directly on the deducted-share argument, because a scheme that hands an owner half a flat in place of the land is offering compensation in kind where 21.1 permits it only on the three stated conditions. ALSO VERIFIED: 2.1, the right to restitution or to compensation where restitution is factually impossible 'as determined by an independent, impartial tribunal'. THE PHRASE 'legal status' DOES NOT OCCUR IN THE INSTRUMENT, so Chapter 4 is right to attribute the not-a-treaty and persuasive-authority statements to the handbook rather than to the Principles themselves. CORRECTED 17 AUGUST 2026, ON THE v8 DIFF REVIEW AT B3. This row originally recorded SHA-256 c55c4e45623069cc1265176fdf005b958e69b939e558ae7f86c8ee1ff720fad6, which is the hash of the 83,914-byte Official Document System 'document does not exist' stub, paired with the correct 58,775 byte count of the real document. It was transcribed from the earlier archive run instead of being recomputed from the file at the path in this row, so the integrity control on the one retrieval this pass rests on pointed at the stub the row warns about in capitals one field along. The hash above is recomputed from research/retrieved/un-ods-e-cn4-sub2-2005-17.pdf. EVERY OTHER FIELD OF THIS ROW WAS RE-READ ON 17 AUGUST 2026, per the rule that correcting one column means re-reading them all, AND ONE OF THEM WAS ALSO WRONG. This row stated that Principle 17.1 'verifies at the instrument as printed' in the chapter. IT DOES NOT. The instrument uses 'should' for the protection limb and 'shall' for the due-process limb, and the chapter carried a single 'should' across both, which understates the standard's force. Corrected in the prose at v9 under B6. The remaining fields hold: the symbol, the date of 28 June 2005, the fifteen pages, the routes table, and the quoted texts of 15.7, 21.1, 21.2 and 2.1.