ABOUT
Scott Leckie
Scott A. Leckie is an international human rights lawyer and Director and Founder of Displacement Solutions (www.displacementsolutions.org), a global not-for-profit NGO dedicated to resolving displacement generated by global warming and climate change.
He also founded Oneness World Foundation (www.onenessworld.org), a research think tank exploring questions of world-centric political evolution and new forms of global governance and world citizenship. He hosts the podcast Jointly Venturing - Let's Talk World Citizenship and manages the One House, One Family initiative, a project in Bangladesh building homes for climate displaced families.
His interventions have helped to protect hundreds of thousands of people against planned forced evictions in popular communities in the Dominican Republic, Panama, Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, Zambia and elsewhere, restore the HLP restitution rights to tens of thousands of refugees and IDPs in Kosovo, Georgia, Timor Leste, Myanmar, Albania and beyond, led to the recognition of the HLP rights of communities threatened with displacement due to climate change, generated the creation of numerous new UN institutions, standards and Special Rapporteurs and assisted in the fundamentally reshaping and strengthening of HLP rights under human rights law.
He has established several international human rights organizations and institutions and worked in more than 80 countries. He regularly advises a number of United Nations agencies on housing, land and property rights issues and in his capacity as a leading international expert on these matters has officially advised the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), Overseas Development Institute (ODI), International Finance Corporation (IFC), the International Federation of Red Cross Red Crescent Societies (IFRC),
the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), UN Habitat, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), United Nations Operational Project Services (UNOPS), UN Transitional Authority in East Timor (UNTAET), UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), the World Bank, and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
He conceived of and was the driving force behind more than 100 international human rights legal and other normative standards, including UN resolutions, guiding principles, general comments, judicial decisions and others - most recently the Peninsula Principles on Climate Displacement Within States.
Scott has written 23 books and over 250 academic articles and reports on issues including land solutions for climate displacement, housing rights, economic, social and cultural rights, forced evictions, the right to housing and property restitution for refugees and internally displaced persons and other human rights themes.
He has taught and designed several human rights courses in various top-100 universities and law schools around the world, including the world’s first law school course on climate change and displacement which he has taught at the College of Law of the Australian National University, University of Melbourne Law School, Monash Law and Mahidol University.
He is a world citizen, grows 50+ varietals of vegetables and herbs, plants at least ten trees a year, travels somewhere monthly, cooks daily, and is known for his odd beach attire. He loves, lives on and is entirely dependent upon planet Earth - just like you.
ORGANISATIONS
Scott’s interventions have helped to protect hundreds of thousands of people against planned forced evictions, and helped restore the HLP restitution rights to tens of thousands of refugees and internally displaced persons.
EDUCATION AND TEACHING
He has lectured widely on various human rights issues, carried out human rights training programmes and given keynote speeches to conferences in all regions of the world. He conceived of, designed and has taught regular law school courses on Climate Change and Displacement at:
He has also given full law school courses on economic, social and cultural rights and lectures on various human rights issues at various Universities including American University Law School (Washington DC, USA), Columbia University Law School (New York, USA), Erasmus University (Rotterdam, Netherlands), Mahidol University (Bangkok, Thailand), New York University Law School (New York), University of Malta (Valletta), University of Oslo Law School (Oslo, Norway), University of Osaka (Osaka, Japan), University of Sao Paulo (Sao Paulo, Brazil), University of Tulsa Law School (taught in Geneva, Switzerland), Yale Law School (New Haven, USA) and many others.
LEGAL & POLICY ADVICE
Since 1990, Scott Leckie has worked in expert and high-level advisory capacities with many United Nations and other international agencies, including in order of engagement most recent listed first:
-
International Federation of Red Cross Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)
-
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
-
UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)
In addition, Scott has worked with and advised hundreds of grassroots slum dweller associations, popular movements and non-governmental organisations in Asia, Africa, Australasia, Latin America, North America and Europe.
He has worked closely with several UN special rapporteurs for whom he provided research and drafting assistance, including the UN Special Rapporteur on Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and IDPs (2002-2005), UN Special Rapporteur on Income Distribution and Human Rights (1996-1999), UN Special Rapporteur on Housing Rights (1992-1995) and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Realization of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1990-1992).
He has also worked with the Centre for Human Settlements of the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada), the Panos Institute (London, UK), the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)(London, UK), and the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM)(Utrecht, Netherlands). From 1989-1999 he acted as Counsel and United Nations Representative for Habitat International Coalition.
PHILANTHROPY & VOLUNTEERING
AWARDS
In 2015, Displacement Solutions, an organisation founded and directed by Scott, was nominated for and received the Certificate of Merit of the Sasakawa Awards for its path-breaking work on climate displacement.
In 2002 during his tenure as Executive Director of COHRE, the organization was awarded the UN Habitat Scroll of Honour Award in recognition of its groundbreaking work on housing rights and eviction issues throughout the world.
In 2004, he initiated the annual COHRE Housing Rights Awards, and advised the Bodyshop on their annual human rights award.
Over his career, he has facilitated the awarding of major grants from numerous donor agencies including the Governments of Canada, Finland, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, as well as major foundations including the Ford Foundation, Fondation Hoffmann, Misereor and many others.