EnPAx Icon Sulh for the Soil: Integrating Islamic Peacemaking and Environmental Justice in Family Dispute Resolution (A Path to Ottawa Event)

Mar 23, 2026 | Sulha Solutions
online
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How can culturally grounded conciliation resolve land disputes that have lasted not just decades—but generations? In this discussion, Ibrahim Hussain FCIArb, an award-winning Imam and CIArb-accredited international mediator, will draw on practitioner experience from Sulha-based conciliation efforts involving British and Canadian expatriate families entangled in ancestral land disputes in Punjab, Pakistan. These conflicts—often rooted in unresolved inheritance divisions, prolonged absentee ownership, and fractured family relationships—have fueled litigation, mistrust, and exploitative land practices for decades.

Participants will gain a rare practitioner’s perspective on:

  • How Islamic peacemaking (Sulh) is applied across borders, legal systems, and 
    generation
  • The dynamics between overseas family members and local relatives when land has been 
    contested for years—or even since Partition
  • How structured conciliation can address power imbalances, restore dignity, and prevent 
    cycles of retaliation and land grabbing

The session will also examine how recent provincial governance interventions in Punjab have created conditions that allow justice-oriented conciliation, lawful land restoration, and peacebuilding mechanisms to function more effectively offering mediators and policymakers important lessons on the relationship between state accountability and community-based dispute resolution.

This is a practical, grounded, and timely conversation for mediators, lawyers, policymakers, community leaders, and academics seeking tools that move beyond litigation toward justice, peace, and sustainable land stewardship.

Session Overview
This workshop moves beyond theory into the real-world practice of Sulha conciliation in complex, multi-jurisdictional land disputes.
Drawing on active and concluded matters involving British and Canadian expatriate families with ancestral holdings in Punjab, Ibrahim Hussain FCIArb, will deconstruct the Islamic principle of Sulh (conciliation) and translate it into an actionable framework for resolving disputes where:

  • Land conflicts have persisted for generations, often unresolved through courts
  • Families are divided across borders, legal cultures, and power structures
  • Absentee ownership has enabled coercion, occupation, or unlawful transfer of land
  • Emotional, spiritual, and identity-based harms are as significant as financial loss

Speakers

  • Ibrahim Hussain will open and moderate. Ibrahim Hussain FCIArb is the founder of Sulha Solutions, where he integrates global dispute resolution expertise with principled faith leadership. His pioneering work includes establishing the first global mediation credential for faith leaders and authoring a widely adopted text on ethical Muslim dispute resolution.
  • Wasif Majeed will join as a discussant. Wasif is a Pakistani advocate and Partner at Lexium Law with an LL.M. from the University of London. He serves as an expert arbitrator for the Pakistan Stock Exchange, an accredited mediator for the Lahore Chamber of Commerce, a visiting faculty member at Government College University, Lahore, and a startup mentor at the National Incubation Center.
  • Ruth Meinzen-Dick will also join as a discussant. She is a Research Fellow Emeritus at International Food Policy Research Institute. Her transdisciplinary research focuses on how institutions affect how people manage natural resources, including land and water policy, property rights, collective action and other governance arrangements, drawing on fieldwork in India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Tanzania, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.
  • Elizabeth B. Hessami, J.D., LL.M (Environmental Law), will join as the session host. She is a Faculty Lecturer for The Johns Hopkins University, specializing in Central Asia, environmental security, and international environmental law and policy. She serves as a Co-Chair of the Law Interest Group for the Environmental Peacebuilding Association.

Please join us for this Path to Ottawa Event! The event is scheduled for March 23, 2026, at 11 am EST. Please register at this link.