COHRE Bulletin Latin America Vol1 No.3 2008 - English

Vol. 1_No 3 September_October 2008

CENTRE ON HOUSING RIGHTS AND EVICTIONS

Bulletin_ on Housing Rights and the Right to the City in Latin America 2008 | #03 PAGE

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Editorial

Constitutional Reform/Ecuador

Urban Settlements/Venezuela

Right to the City/Peru

Towards new legislation in Uruguay

Advances towards and resistance to the right to housing in Latin America

The right to the city in the Constitution of Ecuador

The Urban Land Committees and the land regularisation process

Social resistance by the inhabitants of the historial centre of Lima

The law for territorial regulation in the Oriental Republic of Uruguay

By Sebastian Tedeschi

By Gerardo Pisarello

By Ada Colau

By Silvia de los Rios Bernardini

By Graciela Dede

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Credits and Support

Page 02 Bulletin_ on Housing Rights and the Right to the City in Latin America Vol. 1_No. 3 | September_October 2008

Editorial Advances towards and resistance to the right to housing in Latin America

By Sebastian Tedeschi

Latin America is presently going through a period of legal innovations in the context of more progressive governments. Such advances are reflected in constitutional processes and legislative changes in Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Uruguay and Brazil, all intended to approach, in different ways, the problem of informal settlements. This process is accompanied by broad social mobilisations in which lead roles are being played by urban social movements.

This trend started in Brazil with the promulgation of its new Constitution in 1988 and later with its Statute of the City (2001).

In recent months it was Ecuador's turn to innovate with the inclusion of the right to the city and the right to water and to sanitation, as well as a series of international standards concerning the right to adequate housing, in its new constitutional text. Legal claims from the indigenous movement were also incorporated, such as the recognition of Pacha Mama1 as a legal holder of rights, and the concept of sumak kawsay, meaning “well1 2

being” in the quechua2 language, as an articulator of such rights.

To some extent these advances are also evident in Venezuela, with its Decree 1.666 (2002) and the leading role of the Urban Committees on Land, and in Uruguay with its new Law on Territorial Regulation (2008).

However, the urban social organisations of these countries still believe that such legislative advances have yet to reach completion. The situation could be improved, for instance in Venezuela, if the approved Law Project on Land Ownership Regularisation of Informal Settlements had had a consistent focus on international human rights norms so as not to permit, as still happens, the occurrence of forced evictions.

Nevertheless these innovations represent progress when compared to retrogressive measures, such as those in Peru. In this country the framework of changes over the last decade, such as the elimination of the right to housing in the Constitution or the derogation of the Tenant Law, have left the poor residents of down-

town Lima defenceless before speculative processes in the context of urban renovation.

We must undoubtedly recognise that consecration of the right to the city, a more adequate legal framework of human rights, implementation of more participatory policies in urban planning and land ownership regularisation of informal settlements are meaningful advances. As an ongoing concern we must still address the problems of forced evictions and the persistent criminalisation of “roofless” urban inhabitants. The challenge of developing public policies which effectively implement all these normative advances also remains.

Even if the balance of changes to date is positive, a continuous commitment to ensure that the right to housing and the right to the city are fulfilled, and that the final beneficiaries of housing policies lead such processes, is still required. In this present edition we want to present such trends with all of their intrinsic advances, tensions and obstacles. We would also like to thank all the authors for their vital contributions and reflections.

Pacha Mama is a goddess worshipped by the indigenous peoples of the Andes in South America and it means “Mother Earth”.

Quechua is the language of the Amerindians, more specifically of the indigenous communities of the Region of the Andes in South America.

Constitutional Reform/Ecuador

The Right to the City in the Constitution of Ecuador

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By Gerardo Pisarello *

On 24 July last, in Montecristi, Manabi, a new proposal for the Ecuadorian Constitution was approved. The text, agreed to in the Constitutional Assembly after an arduous debate, will be submitted to a national referendum on 28 September, 2008. If the people ratify the text, this Constitution will be the first in the world to recognise (i) the right to adequate and dignified housing under the explicit heading of the right to the city, and (ii) a secure and healthy habitat.

The new text, which replaces that of the present Constitution (1998), consists of a Preamble, 444 articles, 30 transitory dispositions, a notwithstanding clause and a conclusion. If, in general terms, it can be seen as a proposal clearly intended to offer guarantees, the approach to questions of habitation is especially innovative.

The rights related to housing and habitat are inscribed under a heading that the Constitutional writer calls rights of good living, an expression translated from the quĂŠchua sumak kawsay. Plainly, it means the consecration of the right to a secure and healthy habitat and to adequate and dignified housing and, most interestingly, “to the full enjoyment of the City and of its public areas, under the principle of sustainability, social justice, respect for the different cultures and a

balance between the urban and the rural (article 31)�.

The Montecristi text, echoing the demands of numerous social movements and organisations, is thus a pioneer in terms of constitutional recognition of the right to the city, a right that is related to democratic management of the urban area, to the full exercise of citizenship and to the social and environmental functions of both Property and the City itself (article 31).

Together with these rights, the new text also restates a number of state obligations specific to the question of habitation, for example the duty to improve precarious housing, to offer housing to those without resources, to promote rents at rates that low income workers can pay, and to finance social-interest housing via the public banks and institutions of popular finance (article 375). Added to this, we can mention the recognition of rights in an important urban perspective such as the human right to water and food (articles 12 and 13) and the right to Social Security, not only for those who work in the formal market, but also for those who work from their homes in autonomous or self-support activities (articles 33 and 34).

It is also interesting to point out that all these

rights are exercised based on two principals that are key to the new constitutional initiative: the principal of interculturality and multinationality, and that of environmental sustainability. The habitational rights, effectively, are consecrated under the heading of a State that, in addition to being social and democratic, defines itself as intercultural, multinational and lay (article 1). As a consequence of this definition, the right to the city also relates to the balance between urban and the rural, and to the right to land and to the territories of the different communities, nationalities and peoples which make up the State (Indigenous peoples, Afro-Americans, montubio1) (Articles 36 and 57).

The Ecuadorian text is equally original in its recognition of the nature of Pacha Mama2 as a subject of rights (articles 71-74). This recognition connects the exercise of habitational rights with specific obligations, such as the requirement to prevent environmental damage, to recover degraded natural areas, to promote the use of non-contaminating and low-impact technologies, and to not attaining energy independence at the expense of growing food or of the right of all to water (article 15).

Finally, all these dispositions are supported by a complex and rich system of guarantees

Page 04 Bulletin_ on Housing Rights and the Right Ecuador to the City in Latin America Constitutional Reform Vol. 1_No. 3 | September_October 2008

including full access to the justice system in defense of all rights, without distinction (article 11.3), the recognition of different mechanisms of direct democracy (articles 103107), the priority introduction of participatory budgets (article 100), and the admissibility of the right to resist in the face of actions or omissions, public or private, which might threaten any of the constitutional rights (article 98).

N a t u r a l l y, f u l l a p p l i c a t i o n o f t h e Constitutional text will require the removal of enormous legal and material obstacles that have, in the last few decades, turned Ecuador's cities and countryside into areas characterised by exclusion and injustice. The various ”Yes” campaigns by social movements both for and against the government of Rafael Correa introduce a hopeful note, not only for Ecuador

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The country people who live in the rural zone of the internal coast of Ecuador are known as Montubio.

2 Pacha Mama is a Goddess venerated by the indigenous people of the Andes regions in South America. The name signifies Mother Earth.

* Gerardo Pisarello is vice president of the Observatory for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Observatori DESC) and professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Barcelona. In recent years he has been associated with different social movements for the defense of housing and the City. He has published, among other books and articles on the theme, the book “Moradia para todos, um direito em (de)construção”, Barcelona, 2003 (Housing for all, a right in (de) construction).

Urban Settlements / Venezuela

The Urban Land Committees and the land regularisation process

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By Ada Colau*

Last May, the members of the Observatori DESC of Barcelona attended the National Meeting of the Urban Land Committees, held in Maracaibo, Venezuela. We were invited as observers, together with Latin American social organisations such as the Movimento de Ocupantes e Inquilinos (MOI) and Federación de Tierra y Vivienda (FTV) of Argentina, the Federación Unificadora de Cooperativas de Vivienda por Ayuda Mutua (FUCVAM) from Uruguay and the Secretaría Latinoamericana de la Vivienda Popular (SELVIP).

The situation of the barrios or popular urban settlements With 23,054,210 inhabitants – according to the last INE census – half of the Venezuelan population lives in low income urban settlements called barrios. These are made up of houses built by the residents themselves on land they have illegally occupied and which belongs to third parties – private owners or the State. It is estimated that today some 14.3 million inhabitants live in such settlements, occupying approximately 170,000 hectares.1 In addition to barrio residents living in a

precarious state without the legal right to the land, the barrios are usually located on unstable land, with inadequate or inexistent services for water, health, education and sanitation. In comparison to other city zones, unsurprisingly, there is a higher concentration of unemployment and poverty in the barrios. For decades “the material neglect has been accompanied by symbolic negation: the barrios are not represented in images of the city, do not show up on the maps, are not registered in the census, no one tells their stories and they are not included in inventories of the city's patrimony. The barrios simply do not exist in the rhetoric of the city except as dangers and anomalies.”2

Decree 1666 and the Committees for Urban Land (CTU) To correct this situation, in February 2000, Decree 1666 opened a new chapter in housing policies because it recognised the barrios as an effective part of the city, it initiated a process to regularise the possession of urban land; it promoted the integral rehabilitation of low-income settlements and submitted to public discussion a project for new legislation. In order to develop this process and the

respective legislative consultation, this decree also created the Urban Land Committees (CTU).

This is one of its most interesting aspects, as it permits those benefited by the regularisation and rehabilitation policies – the poor and those previously excluded – to become agents for progress and the execution of the projects. This means that the CTU is now the legal framework that permits an assembly of community residents to participate in the definition of urban layouts, the registration of residents (cadastro); to debate plans and projects; and to validate possession. In this way, not only are the existing communities recognised and their right to legal possession of the land where they live accepted, but everyone involved gains experience in participation, selfmanagement and the democratisation of the city.

Each CTU corresponds to a specific zone which may not exceed 200 families, so that each reflects not only a physical area, but also an established social and communitarian entity. In fact, some 7000 CTU´s now exist at the national level, involving more than 1.5 million families or more than 7.5 inhabitants.

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Venezuela Urban Settlements

Other effects in addition to ownership regularisation

The CTU's activities extend far beyond the basic process of land ownership regularistion, as they are effectively political agents with a global vision of the city – a city in which nobody is excluded.

They also draw up proposals related to housing, such as the democratisation of the land; the creation of new communities

and processes of participative planning.

Furthermore, they work in partnership with other groups such as the “movimiento de pobladores” and the tenants networks – this latter mainly concerned with stopping forced evictions, which are still frequent – and finally, the caretaker's movement.

Another important debate initiated by the CTUs concerns the various forms of land title available. Obtaining a property title

Bulletin_ on Housing Rights and the Right to the City in Latin America Vol. 1_No. 3 | September_October 2008

has always been a priority for low-income communities because the legal title eliminates the danger of forced eviction and makes it possible to obtain formal institutional financing for home or land improvement. But, in addition to the question of security of possession, the CTUs also assist strongly rooted communities who want to maintain their urban and cultural identification with the bairro in which they (and perhaps their ancestors also) were born, lived and died. For this

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Venezuela Urban Settlements

reason, some communities have started to work on systems of collective title for the purpose of assuring the families clear possession of the houses in which they live – the property as a whole is registered in an Association constituted by all the families of the settlement. This Association controls the area and authorises sales or rentals so as to preserve collective interests and resist pressures of indirect eviction due to the real estate market.

Institutional tensions Although the CTUs were created formally

by Presidential Decree 1666, the fact that they are constituted by communities that have existed previously gives them an autonomous character in relation to the institutions. Doubtless, the supporters of the government are many and it is widely recognised that President Chaves is the authority that gave some power to the excluded. However, this support is accompanied by the constant criticique that the “Bolivian process” can only advance if it is the grassroots that are mobilised and make the decisions.

Examples of this support/criticism of the government are that: the CTUs generate too much bureaucracy; some institutions

are corrupt; evictions are arbitrary and often involve the abuse of police power, even when conducted peacefully; and conflicts occur between some institutions in the process of delivery of property titles.3 In this respect, it is worth noting that the CTUs recently united in demanding that the National Executive approve the Ley de Reforma de la Ley Especial de Regularización Integral de la Tenencia de la Tierra de los Asentamientos Urbanos Populares, which they consider essential to accelerating the regularisation process and to creating new instruments such as the Banco de Tierra Urbana (Urban Land Bank).

Up to the time of writing, this proposal for an essential law is still awaiting debate in the National Assembly.

In Europe, the organisations that struggle to implement the right to housing and to the city are following the debate with great interest, particularly as it has been opened not only in Venezuela, but in all of Latin America. In this sense, the recently created Fórum de Debate pelo Direito à Cidade na América Latina (A Forum for debate about the right to the city in Latin America) is an example that could inspire future coordinated actions by the organisations working in the European environment.

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* Ada Colau is a member of the Observatory of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Observatori DESC) of Barcelona, Spain. She also participates in specific collectives in support of citizen mobilisations in various Spanish States for the defense of the right to housing and the city, such as the Taller contra la Violencia Inmobiliaria y Urbanística o VdeVivienda. (A workshop against real estate and urban violence or VdeVivenda)

1 Data provided by the Oficina Técnica Nacional para la Regularización de la Tierra Urbana, 2007.

2 Andrés Antillano, “La lucha por el reconocimiento y la inclusión en los barrios populares: la experiencia de los Comités de Tierras Urbanas”, (The battle for the recognition and inclusion of the low-income barrios; the experiences of the Urban Land Committees), University of Caracas.

3 In the six years since the beginning of the regularisation process, the OTNRTTU claims to have issued 350,000 property titles benefiting some 520,000 families. The Institution itself (OTNRTTU) admits that progress has been slow due to excessive bureaucracy in the registration surveys (levantamentos cadastrales) and in the transference of public lands, as well as the lack of collaboration of many municipalities, and insufficient funding.

Right to the City / Peru

Social resistance by the inhabitants of the historial centre of Lima

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* By Silvia de los Rios Bernardini

Organised inhabitants, particularly the impoverished who live in the historical centre of Lima, (often called the Centralidad de Lima1) maintain their struggle to resist the exclusion and exile typical of “modern real estate” projects that clash with this “heart that ceases not to beat” with its memory, generations and heritage that flows in its veins.

The Centralidad de Lima - which has experienced many changes in its urban history – has the historic centre as its main spatial reference and was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1991. Covering about 900 hectares, it is considered one of the largest historical centres in the world. In spite of this priceless heritage, the Centralidad is today a sad witness to the neglect of the ruling society which, over the years, has allowed the beautiful old houses and mansions to be divided and subdivided into 27,000 residences in which some 126,002 poor workers and tenants live in crowded conditions and without sufficient basic services.

The most recent census found that the Centralidad now houses 43% of the entire population of the Lima Civil District.

Without a doubt, its heritage and architectural symbolism, its cultural memory, its multiple functions (government, management, and housing) have been greatly weakened by the real estate activities of the “preeminently contemporary society” which has as its paradigm the atomisation of the Centralidad. For instance, certain functions that had previously been concentrated in the centre of Lima have been removed to other districts. This has led to the development of the Peruvian capital as a polycentric mega-city that restricts its most ancient areas to commercial activities that generate revenue but produce urban speculation. To all this must be added the expansion of the city limits by the populations excluded from the centre. This has resulted in the death of the centre's history, a city fragmented, and a museum-like historic centre that is a tourist destination without identity.

Social resistance in the Peruvian Capital for the right to centrality This threat of the atomisation of the centre of Lima has generated an atmosphere of tension and social conflict that is fueled, on the one hand, by evictions resulting from the pressure of real estate entrepreneurs and other economic interests clearing spaces for commercial investment, and on the other, by the organised resistance of the inhabitants in defense of the Centralidad of the capital to maintain this space with the identity and culture that are part of the heritage and the right to the city acquired over generations.

These paradigms threatening the urban history of the country show up both in public policies and in legal dispositions, and are used as instruments to weaken the principles of the right to housing. This can be seen, for instance in: (1) the elimination of this right from the present Peruvian Political Constitution (1993 revision); and (2) in the disappearance of the Law of Tenants and its transference to the Civil Code where it acts explosively against tenants in general - but particularly against those who have lived for years in the Lima Centralidad - by denying them the right to mobilise for legal recognition of the “right to residence in their own suburbs”. This was recognised, somewhat weakly, in the D.L. 696 and D.S. 11-95 laws in a frankly privativist context that considers the Centralidad only as potentially profitable real estate and eviction as a mechanism for “social cleansing” of the “impoverished”.

Faced with this situation and finding themselves in a vulnerable position regarding their right to the city, the social resistance movements organised themselves strategically into the Neighbourhood Coordinating Committee for the Urban Renovation, Regularisation and Defense of Tenants and Occupiers of Metropolitan Lima3), which is today the Committee for Promotion of Urban Renovation. The Committee calls for the urban reform of the centre of Lima through a

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Peru Right to the City

process free of forced evictions and also calls for legal recognition that access to housing contributes to dignify the lives of the impoverished by calling for a bill on the “General Law of Urban Renovation”4 and on the “Law that Restores the Right to Housing in the Political Constitution”.

Although governmental reaction to this social pressure is still slight, there are indications that its effects are finally beginning to appear in the national agenda. Some examples of this success are: (i) the institution of the program “Improving my front yard”, which was announced as a subsidy to help residents improve the conditions of their homes; (ii) the promotion of the National and Metropolitan Regularisation Plan; and (iii), the participation of the inhabitants in the negotiation of agreements for ownership regularisation projects.

However, the Historical Centre continues to be threatened by a zoning plan that creates obstacles for residential use of the Centralidad. This is all the more difficult to understand when many other 1

Bulletin_ on Housing Rights and the Right to the City in Latin America Vol. 1_No. 3 | September_October 2008

capital cities are working to protect residential use in order to guarantee centres that are alive – in which urban regeneration is dynamic and is carried out without compulsion and confiscation.

Today, the social struggle in Lima is concentrated on the reinstitution of norms that favour reforms with a human face – that is, those that are implemented without forced evictions and without forced displacements. Also, the legal recognition of the right to housing is being proposed in association with international groups such as SELVIP (Secretaria Latinoamericana de la Vivienda Popular), UNMP (União Nacional de Moradia Popular) in Brazil, MOI (Movimiento de Ocupantes e Inquilinos) in Argentina and FUCVAM (Federación Unificadora de Cooperativas de Vivienda por Ayuda Mutua) in Uruguay. These entities are united in the struggle for the implementation of a Self Management System, of collective ownership and mutual help as an alternative to policies and national actions for access to the city for the impoverished.

The Centralidad of Lima refers to one of the urban phenomena of the city of Lima and has been brought about by events at different moments in its history, as well as by its geographical location or the physical territory. The term refers to the attributes, the qualities and the circumstances which unite a series of functions and activities (civic, political, administrative, commercial, and cultural) in the one urban zone known as the “Urban Centre”, which it shares with the Historical Centre of Lima. On the other hand, this Historical Centre, is the urban space where the phenomena of “urban centrality” includes a variety of functions, concentrating the principal government activities, commerce, etc, together with a considerable number of symbolic components such as the codes of architecture which mark the cultural identity of the inhabitants of Lima.

2 (CIDAP-2004) 3 Social mobilisation which dates from 2000.

4 Popular Organisation, which unites hundreds of grassroots organisations of the Inhabitants of the Historical Centre of Lima (includes some sectors from the District of Lima and the Rimac) such as the Organisation of the Tenants of Public Properties, the Church, and impoverished proprietors who live in tenements.

* SILVIA DE LOS RIOS BERNARDINI is an architect - an Urbanist with a Master's Degree in Urban Renovation from the FAUA-UNI, Lima (Peru). She also has a postgraduate degree in the Management of Integrated Urban Heritage from the CECI in Pernambuco (Brazil) and studies in the Lincoln Institute. Furthermore, she is a university professor in the Master's Degree and Post Graduate sections on Urban Renovation at the FAUA-UNI in Lima (Peru) and a consultant to CIDAP (Centro de Investigación, Documentación and Asesoría Poblacional).

Towards new legislation in Uruguay

The Law for territorial regulation in the Oriental Republic of Uruguay

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* By Graciela Dede

The Law of Territorial Regulation and Sustainable Development, n 18.308 (LOTDS) was approved by the Legislative Assembly in May and signed into law by the government in June 2008. Until then, Uruguay did not have a national law of this nature and relied on certain legal instruments that were applicable only in a sectorial manner and in very specific situations. Also, there was no law for sustainable development that combined the economic and social aspects with the territorial.

Without a doubt, the new law is a great

advance in terms of territorial legislation, but it still requires the formulation of practical enabling regulations.

For many years the existing lack of clear rules for Territorial Regulation in the Oriental Republic of Uruguay permitted and encouraged land occupation in a disorderly, unsustainable and above all, unjust manner – in which habitually the most favoured inhabitants were the most powerful.

With a view to correcting this situation, the LOTDS intends to establish the rules of the game, defining that sustainable development

– as related to land – is a question in which residents should participate. The law stipulates that one must plan the territory and manage it in such a way as to limit arbitrary action by the prevailing power, laying down clear rules and legal certainties, the fulfillment of which should be correctly monitored.

The LOTDS had been awaiting approval for many years and the final version derives inputs from the Brazilian Statute of the City (2001)1 – developing a series of principles as to how land organisation and development should proceed. One of the outstanding

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Uruguay Towards new legislation in Uruguay

elements is a new qualitative concept of space: political, broad and satisfied by a group of ecosystems.

In Article 5, the law defines the motives and principles that are the structure of territorial regulation: co-ordination and cooperation between the public entities; decentralisation and devolution of greater power to the local government departments; reconciliation of economic development with environmental sustainability; equal access for all inhabitants to an adequate quality of life and to the necessary public facilities and services, adequate housing, and above all, the right to have access to information.

Furthermore, important principals are established, such as the just redistribution of responsibilities and benefits in the urbanisation process, so that the increase in real estates values resulting from the land reorganisation by the public authority is shared by all. That is, the profits are equitably and fairly distributed.2 In other words, the real estate and other riches generated by publicly-funded urbanisation must be shared equitability between Property and Inhabitant. Understandable, it is not yet clear how this is redistribution is to be achieved – how the “ideal” is to be converted into the concrete.

In relation to the defense of the right to housing, this law presents certain dualities: while on the one hand it recognises that the Uruguayan Minister of Housing has powers to promote and implement “the right to adequate housing”, it also makes it easy for this same authority to apply sanctions to those who occupy properties illegally.

Therefore, what comes out clearly in the letter and spirit of this new legal framework, with its innovative redistribution of responsibilities, and emphasis on democratic principals for the City, is not yet reflected in the respective enabling instruments necessary for the effective execution of the law. In order words, it remains necessary to regulate the forms and procedures to achieve material results that will effect the lives of Uruguayans in a concrete manner. However, undoubtedly the LOTDS opens a new age in urban life by requiring that Master Development Plans be drawn up for cities and specifying that these plans must be discussed openly and approved in public hearings.

In this sense, questions remain which will only be answered in the future: How will the weakened municipalities with their small infrastructures execute their new responsibilities? How will this open up legitimate and effective channels of citizen

Bulletin_ on Housing Rights and the Right to the City in Latin America Vol. 1_No. 3 | September_October 2008

participation? How can one create and encourage a culture of responsible information about the City that includes everyone? And above all, how is the equitable division between responsibilities and benefits cited above to be implemented.

* Graciela Dede is an architect with postgraduate specialisation in Public Policies and Human Rights particularly the Right to Housing. She worked at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in the Special Prodecures Branch. Since 1997, she has worked in civil society organisations. At present, she assists various institutions as a consultant and is a part of the Uruguayan Chapter of PIDHDD (Inter American Platform on Human Rights, Democracy and Development) 1

The Statute of the City presents mechanisms, instruments and principles for the implementation of the social function of property and the democratic management of cities 2 Experts on the theme call this phenomena the recuperation of the urban added value: starting from the proposition that a city is constructed collectively and that the value of the land on which it is built is nutured and favoured by municipal regulations. Applying to the land the Marxist concept of added value, the article states that part of the added value, or of the additions to land prices produced by urban actions which regulate land usage, must be returned to the municipality.

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CENTRE ON HOUSING RIGHTS AND EVICTIONS

COHRE – the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions – is an independent nongovernmental organisation acting internationally to promote and protect the right to adequate housing for everyone, everywhere. Since 1994, the organisation has promoted the search for, and the implementation of, solutions to problems such as the lack of housing and inadequate housing conditions. For this purpose, COHRE supports entities that work with human rights and itself acts with various intergovernmental departments in its registered consultative

status with the United Nations (UN) and the Organisation of American States (OAS). COHRE also holds observer status with the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights.

regional programmes. These latter are divided into: the Africa Programme (COHRE-CA), the Asia and the Pacific Programme (COHRE-CAPP), Europe (with special projects), and the COHRE Americas Programme (COHRE-CAP).

setlements. CAP also carries out activities at the national and international level, including fact-finding missions, litigation, monitoring and the promotion of campaigns against the practice of forced evictions.

To implement its actions, COHRE is organised by thematic programmes (the Right to Water Programme, the Litigation Programme, the Women and Housing Rights Programme, the Housing and Property Restitution Programme and the Global Forced Evictions Programme) as well as

Since 2002 the COHRE Americas Programme has been working in defense of the right to adequate housing in the region through capacity building programmes, legal assistance and promoting the right to land of minority groups and low income communities in informal

The COHRE Americas Programme organises these and other activities in certain target countries where it works jointly with local entities. The countries where these activities are being conducted currently are Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico and Honduras.

Translation into English Emily Walsh

Photographs Cover / Venezuela / Caracas / Barrio 5 de Julio / Observatori DESC Page 2 and 4 / Ecuador / www.sxc.hu Page 6/ Group of Urban Land Committees / Observatori DESC Page 10 / Uruguay / City of Montevideo / GLOT

The COHRE team – COHRE Americas Programme – CAP Claudia Acosta, Gilsely Barreto, Carolina Fainstein (Right to Water Programme), Fernanda Levenzon (Right to Water Programme), Daniel Manrique, Karla Moroso, Cristiano Muller, Soledad Pujó, Victoria Ricciardi (Women and Housing Rights Programme), Robinson Sanchez Tamayo, Lucas Laitano Valente, Adriano Villeroy.

This publication is supported by:

Bulletin_ on Housing Rights and the Right to the City in Latin America Vol. 1 – No. 2 – August/September 2008

Editor Sebastián Tedeschi (Coordinator of the COHRE Americas Programme)

English Editing Deanna Fowler Graphic design GLOT (www.glot.com.uy) Layout Karla Moroso

Coordination and production Soledad Domínguez (Communications Officer - COHRE Americas Programme -)

This Bulletin is produced and published every two months by: COHRE – Americas Programme – CAP Rua Jerônimo Coelho, 102/31 Porto Alegre, RS - Brasil Te: + 55 51 3212-1904 E-mail: cohreamericas@cohre.org