The previous six chapters have provided a broad overview of the many complex interrelationships between conflict and HLP rights. The book has outlined both the theoretical and legal basis for the new emphasis on HLP issues by the international human rights and humanitarian communities. In many instances, this gradual strengthening in the understanding of how HLP issues are intricately linked to the cause, consequence, and cure for conflict has led to real improvements in the enjoyment of HLP rights by those affected by conflict.

The slow but consistent merging of international human rights and humanitarian perspectives on the centrality of HLP issues has meant that although HLP abuses continue on far too large a scale, the laws, systems, and institutions now in place have significantly solidified the global appreciation of the need to prevent HLP abuses and to remedy them whenever possible. The HLP progress witnessed during the past two decades in Bosnia, Kosovo, Tajikistan, South Africa, and elsewhere, even if far from perfect or comprehensive, is indicative of the fact that the international community in many ways now finds itself on the cusp of a new era, where HLP rights are treated with the seriousness and urgency that the laws recognizing them have always intended.

The next decades will need to build on the significant progress that has been made since the early 1990s and will be presented with HLP challenges that will require far greater attention, political will, and resources than have often been given to these concerns in conflicts of the recent past.