Cyprus Property Dispute through the Glance of Immovable Property Commission

The ‘property dispute’ of the Cyprus issue is just one of many layers of the problem. Not only, is it related to the fundamental rights of around 210,000 internally displaced people of the island, but it will also be a focal parameter to economic and social ends in the event of reuni?cation. After presenting a brief historical overview of the problem and the two of?cial positions of both Turkish and Greek sides - the achievement of ‘bizonality’ and the restoration of ‘human rights-, this article seeks to elaborate these two specific positions with a special focus of the cases of Loizidou v. Turkey and Xenides-Arestis v.Turkey in European Court of Human Rights which put the Immovable Property Commission in the focus for the restoration of property claims of displaced people throughout the island. The article argues that the exhaustion of domestic remedies through the Immovable Property Commission could give a new impetus on the negotiation table to the property issue against all odds. Besides this new institutional structure given by the Immovable Property Commission could set a new venue for solving the dispute which has been always in a deadlock for so many years with both parties and with their unarguable positions.

Keywords

Cyprus, Property Rights, European Court of Human Rights, Immovable Property Commission, Internally D