Syria

Legal and administrative framework

Syria has a highly developed land-related legal framework that has evolved from the Ottoman period to present day. A rich and rapidly expanding set of laws, decrees and resolutions – currently totalling approximately 160 – complement each other to regulate the land sector [19]. 

Numerous ministries and specialized agencies execute the various land administration functions under the coordination of the Council of Ministers. The effectiveness of dedicated institutions, however, is constrained by unclear institutional mandates, lack of coordination and inadequate human and financial resources. Syria’s cadastre, its land and property registration system, is incomplete and not regularly updated, which means many land transactions and other developments related to land are not formally registered or are fragmented across different co-existing registration and management systems.  

Since the start of the conflict in 2011, the gap between needed and available resources has widened, severely limiting the ability of the land administration system to provide adequate services to the Syrian people. Numerous laws and legislative decrees dealing with housing, land and property (HLP) issues have also been enacted or amended during the war, aiming to validate the sovereignty of the state. These laws and decrees deal with new land and HLP challenges that have emerged during the conflict, including displacement and facilitating reconstruction and redevelopment of destroyed neighborhoods. Some of these laws have been condemned by the international community for failing to comply with international standards, and for weakening the housing land and property rights of displaced people and informal settlement communities. Syria’s current Constitution was also adopted during the war in 2012, replacing its predecessor which had been in force since 1973.  In 2022 a comprehensive Analysis of Syrian Urban Law [8] was developed by UN-Habitat, providing detailed information and an analysis of specific legal instruments. 

The conflict has also fragmented the country between areas controlled by the central government and those controlled by other actors. Such fragmentation has implications for the way pre-2011 laws are applied in different parts of Syria and for the enactment of new laws by the various de facto governments.

Articles 14 through 17 of the Constitution of the Syrian Arab Republic deal with housing, land and property rights [9]. According to Article 14, all natural resources are owned by the state, which “shall invest and oversee their management for the benefit of all people.” Article 15 protects collective and individual private ownership, and prohibits expropriation except by decree for the public interest, by law for necessities of war or disaster, or by court ruling, with compensation equivalent to the real value of the property. Article 16 stipulates that limits to agricultural ownership and investment are to be set by law to protect farmers and labourers from exploitation and ensure increased production. Inheritance rights are maintained in accordance with the law, according to Article 17, which for Muslims, and thus the majority of Syrians, means inheritance is governed by Sharia law according to Legislative Decree 76/2010 [10]. 

Some important and recent land-related laws to take note of include the following:

• Law 20/2015 replaced the previous residential rental laws, particularly Law 111/1952 whereby landlords could not evict a tenant without a court ruling verifying that the tenant had another house. Under the new law, rental agreements are subject to the pacta sunt servanda principle according to which the dwelling should be handed over at the end of the contractually agreed period. 

• Law 33/2008 eliminates the commonality of property inside and outside the master plans and aims to give each owner or occupant in the built-up areas a title deed for their property. This can be useful for registering informal houses.

• Real Estate Documents Law 33 /2017 addresses damage and loss of land registry documents, and the issuance of alternative documents that enjoy the same evidentiary power as the lost or damaged originals.

• Digital Real Estate Gazette Law 12/2016 gives the digital copy of property records the same evidentiary                  power as the paper originals.

• Forestry Law 39/2023 seeks enhanced protection and sustainable management of forests in Syria in collaboration with the local community, including penalties to those who deliberately start wildfires.

• Urban Planning Law 23/2015 regulates the implementation of master plans and is intended to stop the development of informal settlements and to formally expand urban development.

• Urban Renewal Law 10/2018 allows the government to establish new zoned areas for redevelopment by decree, converting a proprietor’s land ownership into shares in a new development [11]. Critics of this law have flagged that, given the large-scale displacement during the war, loss of documentation and inability to physically return to make property claims, there is the risk that many will be dispossessed of their land due to re-zoning. 

• Endowment “Awqaf” Law 31/2018 enhances the authority of the Ministry of Religious Endowments as it relates to real estate ownership. 

• Property Disposition Law 26/2013 dictates when and if owners of land that is subject to redevelopment are allowed to sell their property [11].  

• Financial Law of Administrative Units 37/2021 regulates the collection of fees and taxes, including collection methods, and bases some real estate fees on current property values [20].

Land tenure

There is a wide range of formal and informal land rights in Syria. Formal land rights have primarily evolved from the Ottoman legal tradition. 

Registered land ownership

Registered land ownership rights are considered the most secure form of land rights in Syria. These rights can be held individually or by groups. Ownership rights are registered either in the official land and property registry or in temporary registries. Official land and property records are considered to have the highest level of strength and are evidenced by a tapoo (also commonly known as “the green tapoo”), which is a document confirming the right of ownership to land. Roughly three quarters of land is Syria is registered in the General Directorate of Cadastral Affairs, which operates in all 14 governorates. 

The cadastral system, however, is paper-based and not very efficient. Creating, altering and transferring property rights is a lengthy and complex process requiring multiple steps and documentation, and is further complicated by corruption. Information held in the cadastre is also not linked or interoperable with other sources of spatial data such as land use plans or natural resource maps. 

Temporary registries are meant to secure tenure rights for properties that have building permits but are still under construction, which must be recorded in the official registry after the building is complete. However, due to the complexities of the transfer process, these registries, while officially temporary in nature, have become de facto permanent parallel registration systems.

Prior to the conflict, Syria’s land and property registration system was known for its high level of precision and complexity which provided a good level of protection and was held in high regard by both Syrian authorities and the population. However, over the years, this precision and complexity has also made the system rigid and administratively cumbersome to maintain and update. Significant differences exist between information contained in the land registry and the reality on the ground. 

Financial departments also host registries with accurate descriptions of properties for tax purposes. The two registries (land and financial) have different and sometimes contradictory descriptions of the same property. The taxation registry, rather than the land registry, better reflects the reality on the ground, and in informal areas is considered the more authentic for verification purposes.

The Ministry of Agriculture keeps its own registration system of agrarian land lots. This resulted from the agrarian reform policy launched in 1958 that aimed to redistribute properties of feudal landlords and state lands to landless peasants.

Because of such complexities, official land records alone are not enough to fully protect land rights, which leads people to seek out various alternative or supplementary forms of evidence to strengthen their land tenure security. Commonly used alternative forms of verification include judicial rulings, irrevocable power of attorney and tax records. These overlapping and contradicting registries and forms of evidence burden the land administration system. The issue is analysed in more detail in the Guidance Note on Fit for Purpose Land Administration for Syria [12] prepared by UN-Habitat, which provides a set of recommendations on how to progressively address these challenges. 

Land use rights

Long-term land use rights on state land are considered very secure. Holders of these rights are not landowners, but rather land users with specific conditions and obligations. Long-term land rights include: usufruct rights on privately owned land (proven through a summary of records held in the registry); group use rights over protected easement lands (registered in the property registry); commercial rent (proven through a document released by the finance department which includes the name of taxpayer); rent to public entities subject to obligatory renewal; land tenure through agricultural cooperative associations (proven through an official document issued by Ministry of Agriculture); usufruct rights on state lands (proven through a summary of records held in the registry); and land tenure for housing purposes for Palestinian refugees.

Short-term land use rights are temporary rights that can be acquired and registered through rental contracts between the owner and the tenant. These include residential rentals registered in the municipalities to which the property belongs (these contracts end if the building collapses or it is destroyed) and rental contracts for agricultural lands (rarely used since the tenant has the right to claim 20-40 per cent of the land at the end of the agreement). 

Informality

Land tenure rights are often not registered due to administrative or legal barriers or because the properties are in informal areas. The main types of unregistered land rights include: consensual sale agreements stipulated between the seller and the buyer with the presence of witnesses and not registered with any government agency; court rulings – used for the purchase of a construction site that violates land use plans or is located in a zone where construction is prohibited; and, utility bills – some informal settlements are built on land belonging to another individual or group or on public or state-owned lands that are provided with services such as drinking water, electricity, telephone and sanitation, in which case bills for these services can prove possession. The strengths of such rights and forms of evidence greatly vary according to location and political factors. While unregistered land rights in informal settlements were, for example, considered relatively secure before the conflict, those rights have been significantly weakened in the last decade as informal settlements have experienced much more damage and displacement than formal neighborhoods [21].

Forms of evidence

There are many forms of evidence used to support land and property rights in Syria. The most common have been listed above, but there are three additional common forms of evidence in Syria that should be noted: ownership by judicial ruling, ownership by irrevocable power of attorney and tax records issued by finance departments. Ownership by judicial ruling derives from when the new owner (or the buyer) files a case against the old owner (the seller) to confirm the sale agreement or to assert other real rights. Ownership by irrevocable power of attorney occurs when the principal delegates a second party the full set of rights to the property, relinquishing the power to practice his/her rights to the property or revoke the rights of the delegated party without the consent of that party. This way the second party, who becomes the new owner in practice, has the right to transfer the rights he acquired to a third party in the same way (and so forth). Registered in the notary office, these chains of delegations are legal but not registered in the cadastre and the freehold right remains in the name of the principle. These alternative forms of evidence have been widely used as substitution for, or in support of, sale agreements in registered ownerships or informal settlements.

Key challenges

No consolidated data is available, but estimates indicate that at least half of the Syrian population is tenure insecure, a number that reflects the mass displacement caused by the war, damage and destruction of the housing stock, fragmentation of the state under different groups, and pre-existing dysfunctionalities and widespread corruption in the land sector. In government-controlled areas, forced evictions are linked primarily to new urban redevelopments, expropriation processes and land disputes, while in areas still affected by the conflict evictions and displacements are caused by politically, ethnically or religiously motivated violence and insecurity.

There are several key challenges in providing land tenure security and registering land rights in Syria: 

• There is a lack of human and logistical capacity of the decentralized land surveying services outside the main cities;

• Completion of cadastral maps is slow, even in areas where demarcation and census work has been completed; 

• Land registration regulations prohibit the subdivision, consolidation and sale of land unless holders of 75 per cent of the shares are present in person or through their legal agents. This has becomes a serious challenge in the context of the conflict for many of the displaced and migrants; 

• Agrarian reform has stalled; 

• Disputes between landowners and laborers have increased in rural areas; 

• Farmers tend not to lease their land over fear of losing it (resulting in large swaths of fertile land that is not in production); and

• Dysfunctionalities in the housing rental market add to the shortage of affordable housing that existed even before the crisis and will likely remain a prominent issue in the years to come. 

Women’s land rights

Women’s land rights in Syria have failed to draw the attention they deserve. The laws that define access to land and property’s ownership do not differentiate between men and women, except inheritance laws for mulk lands where Islamic inheritance principles apply. However, a household survey recently undertaken by UN-Habitat in Syrian refugee communities living in Lebanon (unpublished) revealed that very few women have property titles in their name, and they are often compelled – either through social pressure or intimidation and violence – to renounce their (inferior) inheritance shares in favour of their male relatives. Other research supports the same findings. Very few women are willing to take up court cases against their family members to claim their inheritance rights as this would damage their family relationships and deprive them of the family support that serves as one of the few safety nets available to Syrian women. An additional barrier preventing many women, and particularly displaced women, from inheriting is the lack of civil documentation that can support inheritance practices, particularly marriage and death certificates of their spouses. Women’s lesser participation in the formal labor market also constrains their access to credit and their ability to purchase properties. 

Land use

The concept of land use planning was not used in Syria until the creation of the Regional Planning Commission in 2010, established through Law 26/2010 which was the first national instrument to set goals related to regional development and balanced spatial development. Planning practices in Syria focus on master planning of cities and villages, while land use planning outside urban areas has been limited to defining rules and restrictions on uses of lands and designating protected lands and buffer zones where development is prohibited by the ministries concerned. 

There is no complete and accessible or digital land information system that maintains records of land use and natural resources. At the national level, land use planning capacity is largely inadequate and outdated. Regional land use plans only exist in some areas, and those are often not enforced and rarely updated. 

Rapidly growing urban centres tend to have adequate and updated urban plans and their level of enforcement is significantly higher than for other areas. Municipalities develop urban planning proposals for their own urban centres, and the relevant central ministry then reviews and approves the proposals after consultation with the municipality. Despite the functioning urban planning mechanism, the challenge of informal settlements has not been adequately addressed through urban law and policy issued prior to the conflict.

Agricultural land use is less regulated and less often enforced than urban land use. Some land use regulations related to environmental protection exist, but again are not sufficient and not well enforced. Protected areas and buffer zones are among the main agricultural and environmental land use directives. These areas are designated to protect important and strategic installations, natural resources (especially water) and to restrict development activities and urban expansion. 

The main challenges of Syria’s current land use system include lack of respect for the character of urban communities, including size, classification, capacity, social and economic characteristics; low quality of land use plans, especially due the lack of feasibility studies and vision for development opportunities; lack of planning outside urban areas; and lack of legal or technical distinction between urban and rural planning. 

Land development

Land development in Syria takes place primarily through the implementation of masterplans, by issuing building permits, monitoring building activities and implementing public infrastructure and facilities. Masterplans are implemented either through land partitioning by the municipality (land readjustment) or partitioning by the owner, whereby landowners are invited to initiate a process of subdividing their lands. The latter methodology is applied to all municipalities except 13 of the provincial capitals (Rural Damascus is excluded).

The property development process is considered quite difficult due to bureaucratic constraints and limited instruments for the public to acquire land for public use. Land readjustment interventions are years long and for this reason have limited implementation, while expropriation is largely seen as unfair to the communities affected. The inefficient urban land development system is considered one of the main causes of the proliferation informal settlements in Syria, as land supply has failed to cope with the increased demand to housing. Some statistics estimate that 40 per cent of the population lived in informal settlements before 2011.

The General Establishment for Housing (GEH) is responsible for government housing programmes and developing residential suburbs. It develops master plans for these purposes on land that has been acquired through expropriation or state lands purchased at nominal prices. The four main housing programmes that the GEH is responsible for are labour housing for public sector workers, employee housing for those working for ministries and public agencies, youth housing and savings housing which require citizens to commit to purchasing and paying off newly announced housing within a specific timeframe.

Land development is still largely limited to the implementation of master plans, while lands outside the master plans remain subject to uncoordinated thematic permits comprising industrial, commercial, housing, services, recreational and other investment projects falling under different authorities and subject to separated permitting criteria. Land located outside the boundaries of master plans is usually classified as agricultural land because agriculture has historically been the main activity in these areas. The absence of planning for rural lands, however, has resulted in uncoordinated and inefficient development of these areas as different ministries act in isolation from others’ guidelines. 

Land value

Syria’s land and property taxation system in both urban and rural areas is based on the nominal value of properties, which ranges from 50 to 75 per cent of the market value. Professional valuers have recently been officially recognized as a category of professionals. While these valuers are trained and registered, their services are out of reach for many and they primarily serve the banking sector and insurance companies.

The Ministry of Finance oversees the keeping of land taxation registries at the governorate and district levels. These registries cover lands, built up and undeveloped properties, and include a detailed description of physical characteristics, actual use and estimated value calculated based on criteria and principles set by laws and subsequent implementation instructions. Land taxation records are used for taxation purposes only and do not substitute the land registries, except in cases of registration of commercial use rights for the premises. While all properties, informal and unregistered properties included, are taxed in principle, the rate of tax collection is considered very low, although no consolidated data on this is available. Land and property taxes collected belong to the central government and only a small portion of this amount goes back to local administrations.

Real Estate Sales Tax Law 15/2021 imposes a sales tax on the actual market value of a property, according to valuation commissioned by the Ministry of Finance. Properties are taxed at rates of one per cent on sales of residential properties and lands outside of zoned areas, two per cent on sales of lands in zoned areas and three per cent on sales of non-residential properties. Leased residential and non-residential properties are subject to a tax of five per cent and 10 per cent, respectively, of the annual rent. Real Estate Fees Law 17/2021 determines the fees payable for the registration of real estate transactions, based on official valuations. The law stipulates a five per cent stamp duty and an additional 10 per cent local administration fee on the amount of the real estate transaction fee [11].

Land expropriation for public purposes is regulated by Expropriation Law No. 20/1983. The value of land subject to expropriation is based on its value just before the issuance of the expropriation decree, and disregards increases in value caused by the expropriation proposal or speculation. Expropriation appraisal considers the value of land and the presence of buildings or other constructions, crops, trees and fruits, with other rights compensated as well. 

Land dispute resolution

Land-related conflicts can arise from ownership or use rights, boundary issues, development rights and they can cause evictions and displacement, if not adequately addressed. These issues have been exacerbated by the current conflict.

Syria has a dual judicial system with separate religious (Sharia) courts and secular courts, which hear civil and criminal matters. Sharia courts perform important functions related to land management, particularly in determining inheritance shares in accordance with Islamic Law and issuing inheritance documents. 

The existing civil court system is considered well-structured and mostly designed to resolve conflicts and disputes over individuals’ land rights and parcel boundaries. While legal avenues are for the most part financially accessible, as official fees are not too expensive, courts are slow due to the limited number of digitalized records and the huge backlog of cases. Most people are also not sufficiently aware of the procedures to access the legal system. 

The current judiciary system does not have the capacity to deal with the very large number of disputes expected to arise from the waves of mass displacement caused by the war. It also suffers from a lack of trust among the displaced Syrian population who are not confident it will help them recover their properties or obtain compensation. Syria’s land dispute resolution mechanism has also been found to be most affected by discrimination on the basis of political, religious and ethnic affiliation. Alternative dispute resolution systems and transitional justice mechanisms will be required to resolve disputes related to issues such as secondary occupation, fraudulent sales, forgery of land-related documentation, forced evictions and compensation. 

Spatial data infrastructure

Cadastral maps are part of Syria’s land registration system and can be used for determining land boundaries in case of disputes. They are generally created based on aerial imagery where physical boundaries are visible enough to demarcate boundaries. Even though most lands in Syria have undergone demarcation and census, cadastral maps of about half of these lands are still in draft form as their topometric computations have not been completed. The quality of the maps varies according to the expertise of the surveyors and is further impacted by outdated technical methods and complicated bureaucratic structure. 

Although access to land information in Syria should be public, cadastral maps and topographic maps are still subject to administrative restrictions and approvals. Land use information must be retrieved from various entities and there is no single authority to supervise and monitor the land information sector. Online resources are very limited and only a few maps and charts can be used for published scientific research and reports. Obtaining technical and legal information about land parcels is made complicated by the multiple institutions dedicated to producing information and by the lack of a shared platform. 

Impact of the crisis on the land administration system

Since 2011 the conflict in Syria has had a significant impact on the ability of the land administration system to deliver services to the Syrian population, leading to an almost complete cessation of activities. 

Governmental programs have stopped or slowed down, while private sector investments came to a standstill in most governorates. All master planning and land development activities stopped, with the exception of a few select cities such as Damascus, Hama, Latakia, Tartous and Al-Sweida where security conditions are relatively better. Real estate investment witnessed a full stagnation, and infrastructure building and maintenance declined. With shrinking government revenues and limited human resources caused by migration and displacement, development projects were put on hold as the government focused on other priorities. The informal housing sector, however, continued to grow on lands that were not set aside for housing in the masterplan, absorbing the majority of the housing needs of the population. 

Meanwhile, the war allowed the government to put some reforms into effect, including the modernization of some government entities. However, some of the General Directorate of Cadastral Affairs (GDCA) documents (e.g., property records, contracts, cadastral maps) were damaged or lost, while buildings and equipment belonging to different land registration authorities were damaged to varying degrees. GDCA took advantage of the post-2011 reforms to accelerate its efforts to archive its large stocks of documents and launched a project to computerize the land registry. 

The war has caused an almost complete suspension of urban and regional planning projects. The pre-2011 national framework for regional planning has become obsolete, and a comprehensive review exercise is now needed. High inflation rates, caused by the devaluation of the national currency, has made land and housing unaffordable to most. 

The process for updating land valuation methodology also stalled, and revenues collected through land administration fees declined due to the reduction of property transactions and contracts registered. 

The crisis years have seen an active evolution of the regulatory and legislative frameworks, particularly regarding land and property registration and transfer, reconstruction of damaged or lost property registers and the creation of development zones in Damascus. Some of these interventions have attracted the condemnation of international actors, on grounds of discrimination against displaced people. 

Housing, Land and Property Rights of displaced people

The Syrian refugee crisis remains the largest ongoing refugee and displacement crisis in the world with 7.1 million IDPs [2] and 5.1 million refugees [3] by the end of 2023, hosted primarily in the surrounding countries of Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. The earthquake of February 2023 affected 8.8 million people [4] adding to the multiple waves of displacement. Widespread violations of housing, land and property rights have been reported among the displaced population, including destruction and severe damage of houses, businesses, lands and agricultural infrastructure, contamination from explosives, unauthorized secondary occupations and fraudulent sales of properties belonging to people who fled and destruction and loss of tenure documents and civil documentation.  

Property transactions are increasingly conducted informally, with a noticeable decline in the number of registered property contracts. In an attempt to curb this trend, new administrative restrictions were imposed on property transactions, lease contracts and powers of attorney related to property (e.g., preapprovals, paying electricity bills), with little result. 

Despite the current challenges inside Syria, the Eighth Regional Survey on Syrian Refugees’ Perceptions and Intentions on Return to Syria conducted in 2023 by UNHCR [15] among Syrian refugees living in Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt reported that the majority Syrian refugees (56.1 per cent of respondents) still hope to return one day. However, intentions to return in the short-term continue to decrease for all countries: only 1.1 per cent of Syrian refugees surveyed expressed an intention to return in the next twelve months, compared to 1.7 per cent in 2022 and 2.4 per cent in 2021. The biggest change in intentions compared to last year’s survey were recorded in Jordan and Iraq. The worsening conditions in North-East Syria, where most of the refugees residing in Iraq originate from, are likely to be a primary factor. 

In the same survey, 29 percent of Syrian refugees expressed a hope to return in the next five years: the percentage was highest in Egypt (50 per cent), followed by Jordan (36 per cent), Lebanon (26 per cent), and Iraq (12 per cent) [15]. Respondents across the region indicated that the main issues affecting their decision to return relate safety and security (including active conflict, lack of law and order, military service and the presence of armed actors), livelihood and work opportunities, concerns over housing and property and the availability of basic services [16]. Legal obstacles and challenges in claiming housing, land and property, and access to civil status documentation were also reported as key issues [17].

In line with the results of the surveys conducted by UNHCR, the focus group discussions conducted by UN-Habitat in December 2020 indicated that Syrian refugees in Lebanon are very concerned with their housing, land and property rights in Syria. Such concerns arise from the loss of HLP and civil documentation, multiple forms of secondary property occupation, lack of trustworthy and efficient mechanisms to recover and protect their HLP rights in their areas of origin, new urban development projects taking place in Syria and recent Syrian legislation hindering their HLP rights [18].

HLP issues are increasingly prominent in the humanitarian response in Syria, although effective and durable solutions at scale are yet to be developed. HLP issues have a direct impact on the affected Syrian population as well as the immediate operational work of humanitarian and recovery actors. Addressing HLP rights issues in conflict-affected contexts is therefore essential on many levels and across all phases of the conflict cycle. It is crucial for the survival and the normalisation of the lives of people affected by conflict and displaced within or outside their country. It touches upon protection from violence, safety and security as a pre-condition for return, health and livelihoods. It is also essential for the realisation of a broader and interconnected set of human rights. Further, the protection of HLP rights is crucial for social reconciliation, economic recovery and to address the inequalities exacerbated during the conflict. 

To address these challenges, since 2020, UN-Habitat and the Global Land Tool Network have been working in Lebanon and Iraq to improve the land tenure security and safeguard the housing, land and property rights of Syrian refugees. 

References

[1] The World Bank (2020). Data: Syrian Arab Republic.

[2] OCHA (2022). Syrian Arab Republic: 2023 Humanitarian Needs Overview.

[3] UNHCR (2023). Syria Situation Overview.

[4] OCHA (2023). Syrian Arab Republic: Earthquakes Syria situational updates - As of 8 March 2023.

[5] OCHA (2023). Humanitarian Response Plan 2023.

[6] FAOSTAT (2023). Syrian Arab Republic.

[7] UN-Habitat (2022). Land Administration System in Syria: Analysis and Recommendations.

[8] UN-Habitat (2022). Analysis of Syrian Urban Law. 

[9] Constitution of the Syrian Arab Republic (2012). Constitute Project.

[10] A Comprehensive Insight into Syrian Family Law (2019). Syrian Law Journal. 

[11] Syrian Law: Recent Legislation (2024). Syrian Law Journal. 

[12] UN-Habitat/GLTN. Guidance Note on Fit for Purpose Land Administration for Syria 

[13] Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (2023). Gendered Impact of the Conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic on Women and Girls. 

[14] UNDP Syria (2023). Women Inheritance Rights in Syria: Barriers Mapping Report. 

[15] UNHCR (2023). Eight Regional Survey on Syrian Refugees’ Perceptions and Intentions on Return to Syria.

[16] UNHCR (2022). Seventh Regional Survey on Syrian Refugees’ Perceptions and Intentions on Return to Syria.

[17] UNDP/UNHCR and 3RP (2019). Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan in Response to the Syria Crisis: Regional Strategic Overview 2019/2020.

[18] UN-Habitat/GLTN (unpublished). Promoting and Protecting Housing, Land and Property Rights of Syrian Refugees Living in Lebanon: Towards an Integrated Response.

[19] UN-Habitat. UrbanLex: the Urban Law Database.

[20] The Syria Report (2022). Explained: Executive Instructions of the Financial Law of Administrative Units.

[21] UN-Habitat (2023). HLP Rights and Security of Tenure in Informal Settlements: Legal thematic paper.