COHRE Training Presentation - Housing Rights for Everyone Everywhere

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

Housing Rights for Everyone Everywhere

www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

Everyone has the RIGHT to live somewhere in security, peace and dignity, irrespective of their income or access to economic resources

www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

Everyone has a right to ADEQUATE HOUSING

www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

Adequate Housing means: • Legal tenure is secure • Services, materials, facilities and infrastructure are available

www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

Adequate Housing is: • Affordable • Habitable - protects against the elements and disease • Accessible to everyone, including disadvantaged groups • Located near facilities and in safe environment • Culturally Adequate

www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

Vulnerable groups with specific housing rights needs include: • • • • • •

Women Children The elderly The poor Occupied populations Refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced people

www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

The global scale of denial of Housing Rights: • 100 million people homeless every night • 2 billion people inadequately housed

www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

Housing rights denial: • No country has fulfilled housing rights for everyone • Every country has housing problems • No country is free from housing rights obligations

www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

Violations of economic, social and cultural rights are worldwide and massive, and are occurring in every society, affluent and developing‌. It is imperative that these violations be addressed more effectively than they have been in the past, and treated with the same sense of urgency as the international community has devoted to violations of civil and political rights. Governments and other responsible parties must be held fully accountable.

Excerpt from the Chiang Mai Statement on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

Housing Rights:

• • • • •

Are classified as Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESC rights) Can be realised progressively Apply to everyone, without discrimination Create obligations for governments and non-state actors Can be ruled on by the courts

www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

The right to adequate housing is one of the most developed ESC rights in terms of content and jurisprudence.

The United Nations has devoted more attention to this right than to any other ESC right.

www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

Sources of law on Housing Rights Article 25(1) 0f the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

Article 11 (1) of the International Covenant on ESC Rights (1966) The State parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and for his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions. The States Parties will take appropriate steps to ensure the realization of this right, recognizing to this effect the essential importance of international co-operation based on free consent.

www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) is responsible for monitoring State party compliance with the Covenant. The CESCR has interpreted Article 11(1) of the Covenant in detail in • General Comment No. 4 on the right to adequate housing (1991) and • General Comment No. 7 on forced evictions (1997) www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

Other sources of international housing rights law

•

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD)

•

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)

•

Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)

www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

More sources of international housing rights law

•

Convention Related to the Status of Refugees (1951)

•

International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (1990)

•

International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (1973)

•

International Labour Organization Convention No. 117

•

Concerning Social Policy (Basic Aims and Standards) (1962)

•

Declaration on the Right to Development (1986), adopted by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 41/128 www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

At the national level….

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Constitutional law National laws Housing acts Rent and rent restriction legislation Specific housing rights legislation including homeless person acts Landlord-tenant law Urban reform laws Security of tenure legislation Civil and criminal codes Land use, zoning and agrarian laws Planning laws and regulations Building codes and standards Laws relating to inheritance rights for women Land acquisition and expropriation acts Non-discrimination Equality laws Development laws Environmental standards www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

States are obliged to…

•

respect (not interfere with the enjoyment of housing rights)

•

protect (prevent violations by third parties)

•

fulfil (take appropriate legislative, administrative, budgetary and judicial measures to realize housing rights)

www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

For each of these obligations the state is obliged to…

•

take actions to realize the enjoyment of housing rights (The obligation of conduct)

•

achieve specific targets to satisfy a detailed substantive standard (The obligation of result)

•

take action as soon as it becomes a state party

www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

Violations of housing rights

•

Acts of Commission and Omission

•

Deliberately Retrogressive Measure

•

The Decency Threshold

•

Minimum Core Entitlements

www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

Any judge can rule on these aspects of housing rights • • • • • • • • • • •

Forced evictions and demolition Security of tenure Non-discrimination and equality of access Housing affordability Landlord-tenant relations Access to services Property rights The substantive right to accommodation The right to counsel and legal aid The right to participation The right to habitable housing

www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

Forced Evictions “The permanent or temporary removal against their will of individuals, families, and/or communities from the homes and/or land which they occupy, without the provision of, and access to, appropriate forms of legal or other protection. The prohibition on forced evictions does not, however, apply to evictions carried out by force in accordance with the law and in conformity with the provisions of the International Human Rights Covenants.”

General Comment No. 7 on the Right to Adequate Housing ( 1997) www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

Evictions: States must…

•

Ensure that all feasible alternatives are explored in consultation with the affected persons, with a view to avoiding, or at least minimizing, the need to use force

•

Provide legal remedies or procedures to those who are affected by eviction orders

•

Ensure that all the individuals concerned have a right to adequate compensation for any property that is affected

www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

Procedural protections which should be applied in relation to forced evictions An opportunity for genuine consultation with those affected Adequate and reasonable notice for all affected persons prior to the scheduled date of eviction Information on the proposed evictions, and, where applicable, on the alternative purpose for which the land or housing is to be used, to be made available in reasonable time to all those affected

www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

More procedural protections for evictions

•

Government officials or their representatives to be present during an eviction

•

All persons carrying out the eviction to be properly identified

•

Evictions not to take place in particularly bad weather or at night unless the affected persons consent otherwise

• •

Provision of legal remedies Provision, where possible, of legal aid to persons who are in need of it to seek redress from the courts www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

Evictions should not result in individuals becoming homeless or vulnerable to the violation of other human rights. Where those affected are unable to provide for themselves, the State Party must take all appropriate measures, to the maximum of its available resources, to ensure that adequate alternative housing, resettlement or access to productive land, as the case may be, is available.

www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

Monitoring housing rights “Effective monitoring of the situation with respect to housing is another obligation of immediate effect. For a state party to satisfy its obligations under article 11 (1) it must determine, inter alia, that it has taken whatever steps are necessary, either alone or on the basis of international cooperation, to ascertain the full extent of homelessness and inadequate housing within its jurisdiction.”

Gen Com 4 (1991) www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

Central principles of housing rights monitoring

• • • • •

Impartiality Independence Accuracy Applying human rights standards Utilization of the broadest range of sources

www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

Housing rights strategies that work at the United Nations

• • • • • • • •

Providing information Lobbying Creative use of law and procedures Speeches Resolutions Creating new standards and new procedures Complaint procedures Sending communications to thematic and country rapporteurs and special representatives

www.cohre.org

Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions – Housing Rights for Everyone, Everywhere

Other strategies

•

Advocating for new legislation

•

Repealing bad laws

•

Successful strategies for resisting eviction

•

Political Initiatives

•

Campaigns

•

Human rights education www.cohre.org