COHRE When Push Comes to Shove HIC 1995

When push comes to shove

W hen Push Comes to Shove Forced Evictions and Human Rights

Scott Leckie

Scott Leckie Habitat International Coalition

When Push Comes to Shove Forced Evictions and Human Rights

Scott Leckie Habitat International Coalition

First published 1995 by Habitat International Coalition Copyright © 1995 by Scott Leckie All rights reserved Copies of this book can be obtained directly from either HIC or COHRE for US $ 10.00 from the following addresses: HIC Cordobanes no. 24 Col. San José Insurgentes Mexico DF 03900 Mexico Tel: 52.5.6516807 Fax: 52.5.5935194

Design: S & I: Anja Pleit, Utrecht, The Netherlands Printer: Primavera: Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Cover photos: Gaza (1993) © Sijmen Hendriks

COHRE Postbus 15100 3501 BC Utrecht The Netherlands Tel: 31.30.731976 Fax: 31.30.721453

Contents Preface 1. Introduction 1.1 1.2

Defining and Classifying ‘Forced Evictions’ Examples of Planned and/or Possible Forced Evictions

2. Modalities of the Eviction Process 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6

The Rule of Law and Forced Evictions Evictors Evictees Common Rationale for Forced Evictions The Human Cost of Forced Evictions Are There Reasonable Grounds for Forced Evictions?

3. Human Rights Law and Forced Evictions 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7

Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Housing Rights Provisions Regional Systems of Human Rights Forced Evictions and Humanitarian Law The Housing Rights Obligations of States Third Party Liability and Forced Evictions The Enforcement and Implementation of Housing Rights Under International Human Rights Law

4. Perspectives on the Illegality of Forced Evictions 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6

The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights The UN Commission on Human Rights The UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities The European Commission and Court on Human Rights The UN Commission on Human Settlements Are Forced Evictions a Violation of Human Rights?

5 7 11 13

19 21 24 26 27 29 31

33 37 39 45 49 51 54 57

61 61 65 66 67 69 71

5. Deterrents to Forced Evictions 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7

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Taking Housing Rights Seriously Legislative Protection Against Forced Evictions Universal Security of Tenure Popular Responses to Threats of Eviction Land Sharing Relocation Guidelines Invoking International Legal Remedies

73 76 77 79 81 82 84

6. International Measures for Eviction Avoidance

85

6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8

Model Eviction Prevention Legislation An International Convention on Housing Rights Eviction Impact Statements Codes of Conduct UN Guidelines on Planning International Events UN Special Rapporteur on Forced Evictions Guaranteed Compensation for Victims of Eviction International Monitoring and Fact-Finding

7. Conclusions

8. Annexes Annex 1: Annex 2: Annex 3: Annex 4: Annex 5:

85 88 89 91 93 94 95 97 99

103 Sources of Housing Rights in International Law Examples of Recent Mass Forced Evictions UN Commission on Human Rights Resolution 1993/77 Selected Literature on Forced Evictions Useful Contacts

103 117 120 122 136

Preface "The dwellers are summarily ejected and are expected to shift for themselves. They are paid a paltry vacating expense which carried them nowhere. Their occupation is gone. They have to build their cottages and search for their livelihood".

M.K. Gandhi

To be persistently threatened or actually victimized by the act of forced eviction from one’s home or land must surely be one of the most supreme injustices any individual, family, household or community can face. The perpetual insecurity of people intimidated by this practice, coupled with the frequent use of physical violence during the carrying out of this act, begin to reveal the personal and collective trauma invariably bestowed upon those faced with the prospect of forced eviction.

As the disaster of ‘ethnic cleansing’ and other displacement in the former Yugoslavia, the bulldozing of 500,000 urban poor in the Sudan, the decimation of 1,500 Kurdish villages in southeastern Turkey, the mass eviction of over a million persons in China to build the world’s largest dam, the forced uprooting of over 100,000 dwellers from the barrios of the Dominican Republic, the forced displacement of tens of thousands tribal people from the Narmada Valley in India and numerous other cases of forced eviction so aptly reveal, this painful global phenomenon has neither decreased in scale nor in its callous and inhumane ruthlessness.

Forced evictions tend to involve competing socio-economic interests between the evictor and the evicted, invariably designed to benefit the most powerful group; eg. those supporting the eviction in question. Tolerated in most societies and officially encouraged in many, forced evictions dismantle what people have built up over month’s, years and sometimes decades, and destroy the livelihood, culture, community, families and homes of millions of people throughout the world every year. Far from creating solutions to housing crises, forced evictions destroy the dwellings and human settlements people call home, and could be perhaps more appropriately be labelled as a ‘de-housing’ policy rather than as anything even remotely resembling a constructive, human-oriented response to the ongoing global housing crisis.

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While the forced removal of persons and groups from their homes against their will raises a lengthy series of human, social, economic and political considerations, this report will examine the practice primarily through the lens of international human rights law. Only recently has this legal domain begun to directly address forced evictions set within a human rights framework. As the following analysis will amply disclose, international human rights law has evolved an increasingly solid approach towards forced evictions; repeatedly equating the practice with ‘gross violations of human rights’.

While premised squarely upon the position taken on forced evictions under human rights law, this report has not been written in an overly legalistic manner and the legal issues addressed have been elaborated in an uncomplicated and accessible manner.

The preparation of this study originally began several years ago, in connection with the provision of a grant by the Netherlands Ministry of Housing, Planning and Environment (VROM), for which the author is grateful. The very extensive developments which have taken place during the past several years on the relationship between international law and forced evictions has made it imperative to fully revise earlier drafts of this document. In its present form, the report is current as of January 1995.

Scott Leckie Utrecht, 10 January 1995

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1

Introduction

On 10 March 1993 the United Nations Commission on Human Rights unanimously adopted resolution 1993/77 labelling forced evictions, wherever they may occur, as “a gross violation of human rights, in particular the right to adequate housing”.1 This momentous text also urged all governments to eliminate the practice of forced eviction and to confer legal security of tenure to all persons currently threatened with forced eviction.2 Although for the most part unnoticed by the world’s press, this timely and precedent-setting resolution enshrined what is an invariably obvious fact to the many tens of millions of persons who have faced this violation of human rights since the founding of the UN in 1945. While time will reveal how serious governments and other forces supporting the phenomenon of forced evictions take this and the many subsequent decisions embodying similar perspectives, the recognition that forced evictions constitute a practice inconsistent with human rights can no longer be ignored.

It goes without saying, however, that UN resolutions alone have rarely acted as powerful enough legal tools to alter the behaviour of governments. Consequently, illegal and unjust forced evictions continue to be carried out on a very large scale, affecting millions of persons annually, and are treated by many governments as routine and inevitable.

The traditional hesitance of most national and local governments, the UN Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat), various international institutions, and other relevant actors to acknowledge the magnitude and human dimensions of forced evictions is an indication of the types of strides required for forced evictions to actually become relegated to the history books.

As the analysis below will demonstrate, the worldwide eviction dynamic is anything but a past occurrence. Rather, this practice remains not only an almost habitual aspect of the so-called forces of ‘development’ in both urban and rural settings, but by any measurement exists disturbingly as a growing phenomenon; affecting increasing numbers of people and communities with each passing year.3 The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), for instance, estimated in August 1994 that a minimum of 5.4 million persons in 26 countries are currently threatened with

1 For the full text of resolution 1993/77 in English, Spanish, French and Arabic, see: COHRE (June 1993) Sources #3: Forced Evictions and Human Rights: A Manual for Action, Utrecht, pp. 7-8.

2 Operative paras. 2 and 3 of Resolution 1993/77.

3 Substantiating this view, Hardoy and Satterthwaite have argued that: “If present trends continue, we can expect to find tens of millions more households living in squatter settlements or in very poor quality and overcrowded rental accommodation owned by highly exploitive landlords. Tens of millions more households will be forcibly evicted from their homes”. Hardoy and Satterthwaite (1989) Squatter Citizen: Life in the Urban Third World, Earthscan, London.

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pending or planned forced eviction from their homes on the basis of existing governmental plans.4 The actual number of persons now imperiled by the possibility of forced eviction is, of course, substantially higher when all factors and dimensions of the eviction dynamic are taken into account.

An internal review of involuntary resettlement carried out by the World Bank in 1993 revealed the Bank’s current involvement in projects which are involuntarily displacing over two million persons, with a further 600,000 persons to be displaced “in the project pipeline”.5 Indeed, the World Bank has borne much of the brunt of international criticism because of its long standing and open support for involuntary resettlement within many of the projects it finances, despite the existence of its Operational Directive 4.30, ostensibly adopted to smooth the rougher edges of the eviction processes which are inherent in so many of this institution’s dam and development projects.6 The rapid growth of Third World cities, whereby more than two billion persons will be resident in urban centres by the year 2000, entirely ineffectual housing policies accompanied by land scarcity and corresponding increases in land prices, the influence of the real estate sector within urban planning processes and other factors are some of the key features in the creation of conditions leading to eviction. Additionally, urban renovation programmes, development projects (whether rural or urban), the convening of international events and other factors contribute to the likelihood of evictions taking place.

At the same time, as governments undertake often ill-planned massive development projects in rural areas, and are simultaneously forced to cope with measures of structural adjustment and other economic difficulties, in the absence of appropriate measures, an increase in rural displacement will likely occur as governments more thoroughly exploit natural resources found in the rural sector.7 There is nothing inherently predetermined about forced evictions accompanying the development process, though this act is commonly justified as ‘the price to be paid for progress’. Likewise, it should be manifest that forcibly uprooting persons, families or communities from their homes—often arbitrarily, with neither warning nor compensation and completing the process by demolishing the evicted houses—is a act of inhumanity, injustice and more often than not, violence. Indeed it is no accident that in human rights terms, this practice has received highly disfavourable coverage. Relocation or resettlement strategies designed to mitigate the negative consequences of eviction, while perhaps noblymotivated efforts, rarely lead to improvements in the livelihood of evicted persons and communities. In effect, forced evictions represent one of the clearest manifestations of disregard for the rights of the poor, who suffer disproportionately from this practice.8 4 COHRE (1994) Forced Evictions: Violations of Human Rights, COHRE, Utrecht.

5 World Bank (1994) Resettlement and Development: The Bankwide Review of Projects Involving Involuntary Resettlement 1986-1993, Washington DC. This publication also asserts that over 10 million people are displaced throughout the world each year.

6 Operational Directive 4.30, Involuntary Resettlement, June 29 1990.

7 See, for instance: Jeremy Seabrook (1993) Victims of Development: Resistance and Alternatives, Verso, London.

8 See, for instance: Davidson, Rodell and Zaaijer (1993) Relocation and Resettlement Manual, Institute for Housing Studies, Rotterdam; Guggenheim, Scott (March 1994) Involuntary Resettlement: An Annotated Reference Bibliography for Development Research, Environment Department, World Bank and Scott Leckie (1992) “Relocation Strategies: Mitigating Human Suffering or Justifying It?” (Paper presented at ‘Expert Meeting on Urban Relocation: Policy and Practice’, Rotterdam, 12-15 February).

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There can be no doubting that the forced removal of people from their homes is a serious offense, and consequently there appears to be an emerging global consensus about the necessity of avoiding forced evictions whenever possible. In addition to the frequent equation by human rights organs of forced evictions with gross violations of human rights, the UN Centre on Human Settlements (Habitat) has increased its attention to the practice of forced evictions in recent years, concluding that “too often relocations appear to have caused unnecessary suffering for the people involved”.9 Moreover the UN’s Global Strategy for Shelter to the Year 2000 (GSS) states that “[t]he right to adequate shelter is recognized universally and constitutes the basis for national obligations to meet shelter needs. All citizens of all states, poor as they may be, have a right to expect their Governments to be concerned about their shelter needs, and to accept a fundamental obligation to protect and improve houses and neighbourhoods, rather than damage or destroy them”.

UNCHS (Habitat) has also supported the preparation of a Manual on Relocation and Resettlement, published by the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS).10 Relocation guidelines included in this study assert: a Relocation should be avoided where possible and minimized when not avoidable; b When relocation is unavoidable, a relocation/ resettlement plan should be prepared and implemented which allocates sufficient resources to ensure that those affected are fairly compensated and rehabilitated. They should benefit from the development process on a sustainable basis. At a minimum, they should be no worse off than before relocation; c There should be full participation in the planning and management process by the main parties involved, in particular the communities affected; d The parties benefitting from the development causing the relocation should pay the full costs of the relocation process including the socio-economic rehabilitation of the relocatees to at least their former level.11 Official guidelines of this nature have been adopted by both the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank.12 Likewise, Agenda 21 adopted during the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), states, inter alia:

9 10 11 12

UNCHS (Habitat), (1991) Evaluation of Relocation Experience, UNCHS, Nairobi, p. v.

Supra note 8. id.

See: OECD (1991) Guidelines for Aid Agencies on Involuntary Displacement and Resettlement in Development Projects, Development Assistance Committee, Paris and The World Bank, (1990) Operational Directive 4.30 on Involuntary Resettlement (29 June). Other examples of this sort of initiative include: Asian Development Bank (1991) Guidelines for Social Analysis of Development Projects, ADB, Manila and Burbridge, Norgaard and Hartshorn (1988) Environmental Guidelines for Resettlement Projects in the Humid Tropics, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Energy Paper No. 9, Rome.

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Kenyan mothers forced to cook in the open following the demolition of their homes in Muoroto, Nairobi, Kenya.

All countries should adopt and/or strengthen national shelter strategies, with targets based, as appropriate, on the principles and recommendations contained in the Global Strategy for Shelter to the Year 2000. People should be protected by law against unfair eviction from their homes or land. (Chapter 7.9(b)).13 While development agencies and others may approach the eviction dynamic from distinctly limited perspectives, other issues perhaps more central to this practice require expanded coverage. One element of the international debate concerning evictions which has yet to receive the attention it clearly deserves, deals with the international legal issues surrounding this practice. How does international law, and more specifically human rights law approach this practice? Does the law taken as a whole condone evictions or condemn them? Other than the UN resolution noted above, do other sources of international law offer protection to people against being forcibly evicted from their homes? If there are indeed such laws, do they mean anything in practical terms or are they mere rhetorical statements of intent? And are the rules of liability in the eviction process such that evictors can be held legally responsible for their actions and judicially reprimanded?

These and many other questions need to be asked, for the answers provided can offer insight into those areas where new energy and emphasis are required in order to erode the existing acceptability still given to this practice—by strengthening legal protection and, where necessary, instigating new legal processes which seek to replace the reality of forced evictions with the still denied authenticity of housing rights.

13 In a similar manner, a unanimous resolution adopted by the European Parliament insists that: “[t]he right to a home should be guaranteed by legislation, that Member States should recognize it as a fundamental right and that no person or family should be evicted without being rehoused”. (Res. on “Shelter for the Homeless in the European Community”, European Parliament Resolution No. C 190/39 of 16 June 1987).

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1.1 Defining and Classifying ‘Forced Evictions’ The term ‘forced eviction’ is frequently associated with a range of related expressions such as: forced removals; resettlement; relocation; dislocation; expulsion; displacement; slum clearance; redevelopment; demolition; ethnic cleansing, expropriation; compulsory purchase; eradication; and population transfer. Despite this abundance of terms, some of which are effectively synonymous with forced evictions, this study will use the term ‘forced evictions’ (as does the United Nations) to describe the practice of the involuntary removal of people from their homes and the subsequent human rights violations stemming therefrom.

The phrase ‘forced eviction’ thus describes both the act and result of involuntarily removing a person or group from their homes. Terms such as relocation, resettlement and redevelopment each infer a neutral or even positive aspect of this process, implying that affected groups are actively ‘relocated’, ‘resettled’ or ‘developed’ to ostensibly improved housing conditions. These terms, while effectively ignoring the coercive aspect of evictions and thus implicitly accepting eviction as an inevitable by-product of economic growth and development, can assist in cloaking this act in a shroud of acceptability. Decades of practice have amply shown, however, that most relocation or resettlement programmes have left evictees in a worsened overall condition than they had prior to the eviction, and consequently that forced evictions do not improve peoples lives.14 Terms such as removal, dislocation, expulsion, displacement, slum clearance, demolitions and eradication more closely embody the finality of the eviction process. These terms 14 See the following publications on this point: Alvarez, C. and Billorey, C. (1987) “Damming the Narmada: The Politics Behind the Destruction” in The Ecologist, Vol. 17, No. 2/3, pp. 62-74; Bartolome, L. (1984) “Forced Resettlement and the Survival Systems of the Urban Poor” in Ethnology, vol. 23(3), pp. 177-192; Cook, C.C. and Aleki, Mukendi (1992) Involuntary Resettlement in Bank-Financed Projects: Lessons from Sub-Saharan Africa, World Bank, Washington DC; Committee for the Right to Housing (CRH) (1988) Development Displacement: A Study of the Majaswadi Village Community, Jogeshwari, Bombay, Published for CRH by YUVA, Bombay; Cultural Survival (1988) “Resettlement and Relocation, Parts I & II” in Cultural Survival Quarterly vol. 12, no. 3/4, pp. 2-40; Cummings, Peter A. (1990) Dam the Rivers, Damn the People, Earthscan Publications Ltd., London; Drucker, C. (1984) “Dam the Chico: Hydro Development and Tribal Resistance in the Philippines” in The Social and Environmental Effects of Large Dams (Goldsmith and Hildyard, eds.); Fernandes, W. (1992) Displacement as a Process of Marginalization, Electrobras, Florianopolis, Brazil; Goldsmith, E. and Hildyard, N., eds. (1984) The Social and Environmental Effects of Large Dams, Wadebridge Ecological Centre, Camelford, UK; Guggenheim, S. (1990) “Development and the Dynamics of Displacement” in Rehabilitation of People Displaced by Development Projects, T.C. Shah Aloysious Fernandes, Bangalore; International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (1986) “Dams in Central India Threaten Over One Million Adivasi” in IWGIA Newsletter, No. 46, July, pp. 68-77; Le Moigne, Rangeley and Mermel (1991) “Dam Planning, People and the Environment: World Bank Policies and Practices” in Transactions of the International Commission on Large Dams, vol. 1, pp. 617-634; Morse, Bradford and Berger, Thomas (1992) Sardar Sarovar: A Report of the Independent Review, Resources Futures International, Ottawa; Panos Institute (1993) Forced to Move: Large Development Projects and Forced Resettlement, Panos, London; Partridge, William (1989) “Involuntary Resettlement in Development Projects” in Journal of Refugee Studies vol. 2(3), pp. 373-384; Paul, James C.N. “International Development Agencies, Human Rights and Humane Development Projects” in Denver Journal of International Law and Policy, vol. 17, No. 1, 1989, pp. 67-120; Robinson, S. (1991) “The Politics of Resettlement: Dams and Campesino Resistance to State Encroachment” in Mexico’s Second Revolution? (Howard & Ross, eds.), Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, pp. 113-124; Ryder, Grainne (1991) Damming the Three Gorges: What Dam Builders Don’t Want You to Know, Probe International, Toronto; Schechla, Joe (1993) The Price of Development: Housing, Environment and People in India’s Narmada Valley, HIC Housing Rights Subcommittee and Habitat and Environment Working Group; and Vaswani, Kalpana (1992) “Rehabilitation Laws and Policies: A Critical Look” in Big Dams, Displaced People: Rivers of Sorrow Rivers of Change (Ganguly Thukral, Enakshi, eds.), Sage Publications, New Delhi, Newbury Park and London.

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lack the implication that alternative forms of accommodation, land or settlements are provided during the post-eviction phase. Utilizing the expression ‘forced evictions’ allows these terms to be consolidated, for they often relate to effectively the same phenomenon.

Forced evictions invariably involve a course of events resulting in the forced abandonment of housing due to causes contrary to the will of the affected parties.

This term also enables a coverage of all dimensions and manifestations of each of the other terms, to the extent that those evicted have their possibilities of dwelling in a particular place forcibly recalled. The use of the expression ‘forced evictions’ by international human rights bodies, the United Nations and other institutions in describing this process constitutes another rationale for utilizing this term. Though other manifestations of the involuntary movement of people are also currently being addressed by UN human rights bodies, such as ‘population transfer’ and ‘internal displacement’, these represent policies and practices distinct from forced evictions, though in many cases overlap does occur.15 Forced evictions are sometimes mistakenly viewed as constituting an issue exclusively concerned with rights to property. A standard legal dictionary defines eviction as “the withdrawal of property, through a legal procedure, because someone has a greater right to the property in question”. However, as will be seen below, ‘possession’ may be a more apt term than ‘property’; ‘force’ or ‘coercion’ more consistent in terms of describing the reality of forced evictions than the phrase ‘legal procedures’; and ‘relative economic or political power’ more appropriate than legal ‘right’. All things considered, this report will be based on the following definition of forced evictions: The withdrawal—by governmental or other actors—of the effective possibilities of persons and communities dwelling or working in a certain location, involving coercion or violence towards the removed persons and the subsequent acquisition of these use-possibilities by more powerful persons or groups.

15 ‘Population transfer’ generally refers to the coerced movement of particular ethnic groups either out of a given territory by an occupying country (eg. ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia) or the transfer by an Occupying Power of their own nationals into an occupied territory (eg. The transfer of Chinese nationals into occupied Tibet). On population transfer, see: Christa Meindersma (1994) “Legal issues Surrounding Population Transfers in Conflict Situations” in Netherlands International Law Review, pp. 31-83. The term ‘internally displaced’ makes reference to persons who are effectively refugees within the borders of their own country who have been forced to flee their homes as a result of violent internal conflict, as distinct from internationally recognized refugees found outside of their country of origin. At present some 25 million persons are internally displaced persons (eg. Former Yugoslavia, Sudan, Somalia, El Salvador, Cambodia, etc.). On internal displacement, see: Francis M. Deng (1993) Protecting the Dispossessed: A Challenge for the International Community, The Brookings Institution, Washington DC.

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1.2 Examples of Planned and/or Possible Forced Evictions The practice of forced eviction continues to be carried out, almost always with impunity, throughout the international community. The contents of annex two below, indicate indeed how widespread the act of forced evictions actually is, and the unfortunate fact that every year many millions of people are compelled by powerful economic, political and other forces to abandon their homes and lands involuntarily.

Although this report will focus on an examination of the international legal and human rights issues arising in the event of forced evictions—as opposed to examining the sociological, anthropological, political, developmental or procedural aspects of the practice— it will be useful to briefly outline a variety of possible and/or planned mass forced evictions with a view to revealing the sheer and unfortunately large-scale of the practice in 1995. It is interesting to note in this regard that forced evictions are almost always announced before they are carried out (whether or not they are legal or illegal), and consequently preventative measures designed to avoid these acts are frequently possible.

Argentina: According to a detailed report by the Movimiento de Ocupantes e Inquilinos de Capital Federal (MOI), more than 100,000 residents of Buenos Aires are threatened to varying degrees with possible eviction.16 Those living in ‘Villas Miserias’, rooming houses (‘los falsos hoteles’), occupants of private and state dwellings and squatters are most under threat of forced eviction. In another case, more than 3,000 persons residing in settlements under the process of legalization are threatened with eviction from their land which is set to be expropriated for the construction of the AU3 Highway in Buenos Aires. While an additional 10,000 persons are threatened with eviction in the area known as Villa 31 de Retiro, also in Buenos Aires.

Austria: A new anti-immigration law adopted in Austria on 1 July 1993 (only days after the conclusion of the World Conference on Human Rights, held in Vienna), requires immigrants to have accommodation measuring 10 sq m. per person if they are to qualify for a residence permit. Those who do not have the space have been put on notice that they can be summarily deported. At present, some 103,000 foreigners do not possess the required living space, yet neither do 73,000 native Austrians.17 Brazil: More than 25,000 persons in 56 communities in Barra da Tijuca, a mangrove ecosystem in Rio de Janeiro have undergone periodic evictions for several years, and at present the entire area is threatened with eviction. In their struggle for security of tenure, more than a dozen community leaders in the area have been killed since 1989. The planned eviction of Barra da Tijuca has been widely condemned by the international human rights and housing movements, and yet, the Brazilian government remains committed to clearing the area to accede to the demands of real estate speculators who will go to any length to obtain the lands.

16 Movimiento de Ocupantes e Inquilinos de Capital Federal, Desalojos en Capital Federal: la Trama de la Expulsion (May 1994), Buenos Aires.

17 The Independent (14 August 1993).

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China: The recently approved Three Gorges Dam project on China’s Yangtze River will forcibly displace up to 1,300,000 people from parts of 100 towns and more than 800 villages.18 The forced removals of those affected by the world’s biggest construction project began in late 1993.19 As a result of another dam project, according to the International Rivers Network the Xiao Langdi dam proposed for the Yellow River will displace up to 190,000 persons, most of whom are likely to be left without any means of livelihood.

Displaced farmers will receive only half the land they presently hold, will be charged for irrigation water and have received no guarantees that their new land will be as fertile as the old. It goes almost without saying, that in China resettled families have no right to pursue legal remedies against planned forced eviction or how they will live after displacement.

The World Bank is seeking to provide funding of nearly US$ 800 million for the construction of the dam, making it one of the largest single project loan packages ever financed by the Bank.20 Forced evictions are also increasingly common within China’s rapidly growing urban centres. According to a December 1993 report in the Asian Wall Street Journal, “hundreds of thousands” of residents of Shanghai will be evicted and relocated to the urban periphery as a result of a multi-billion dollar urban renovation programme. Two dissidents who organized resident resistance to evictions in the city of Xian in late 1993 were later arrested in Beijing for these activities. Opposition to such evictions are widespread throughout China.21 Dominican Republic: In early 1993, the government of the Dominican Republic announced plans to evict 33,000 families (+/-165,000 persons) from their homes in Santo Domingo. The following communities are currently under threat in the capital city: La Cienega-los Guandules (12,000 families), la Cuarenta (800), Simón Bolivar y Las Cañitas (1,995), Faro a Colón (2,000), Guachupita (300), La Zurza (700) and Zona Colonial (100). Three Presidential Decrees have been issued in the Dominican Republic ordering these evictions to be carried out. Most notable are decrees 358-91, 359-91 and 76-94.22 Hong Kong: The Metropolitan Plan 2000, announced in 1991 by the government of Hong Kong has had and will continue to have a highly negative impact on the housing rights of Hong Kong’s lower income communities. According to a detailed report Evictions in Hong Kong, issued by the Hong Kong-based Society for Community Organisation (SOCO), more than one million people are being or are threatened to be evicted under

18 See: “Yangtze Exodus Begins” in Panoscope, No. 37, October 1993, pp. 2-4.

19 Damming the Three Gorges: What Dam Builders Don’t Want You to Know—A Critique of the Three Gorges Water Control Project Feasibility Study (1993, second edition) (Margaret Barber and Gráinne Ryder, eds.), Probe International, Earthscan Publications Ltd., London. See also: Dai Qing (1989) Yangtze! Yangtze! (Patricia Adams and John Thilbodeau, eds.), Probe International, Earthscan Publications Ltd., London and Toronto and Patricia Adams “Planning for Disaster: China’s Three Gorges Dam” in Multinational Monitor (September 1993), pp. 16-20. China is the World Bank’s largest borrower, and the Bank’s current portfolio contains 33 projects in China resulting in the displacement of 470,000 people. A World Bank review, entitled China Involuntary Resettlement (Report No. 11641-CHA), dated June 8, 1993, admits that for 11 out of 36 projects that it funded in China between 1982 and 1992, the Bank is wholly unaware how many people the projects displaced.

20 International Rivers Network (1993) Campaign Fact Sheet: Xiao Langdi Dam, China’s Yellow River, Berkeley.

21 Joseph Kahn, “In China’s Cities, Growth Takes Its Toll: Residents are Forcibly Moved to Outlying Areas” in Asian Wall Street Journal (22 December 1993).

22 Ciudad Alternativa (May 1994) Informe al Comité de los Derechos Económicos, Sociales y Culturales de ONU Sobre la Situación de los Desalojos en República Dominicana, Santo Domingo.

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the Plan.23 The evictions, most of which are carried out without adequate compensation or acceptable resettlement, affect both the public and private housing sectors. While ultimate legal liability for the evictions lies with the government, private developers, the Land Development Corporation (public body) and the government Housing Authority are responsible for sizable evictions in the colony. At the same time, under plans for private redevelopment throughout Hong Kong, up to 500,000 private tenants face eviction.

These evictions will primarily affect low income families, single elderly persons and new immigrants. Local groups working in Hong Kong assert that these tenants are offered totally insufficient compensation to relocate and that if they refuse to move, court orders for eviction are easily obtained by private developers. In conjunction with the Long-Term Housing Strategy, 600,000 households will be potentially displaced from their existing public housing flats through a programme carried out by the Hong Kong Housing Authority. One-half of Hong Kong’s total housing stock is found in the public housing sector.

Hungary: Urban gentrification programmes underway in Budapest’s district 7, as part of the ‘Madach Promenade Business District’ project, could displace up to 8,000 predominantly elderly residents.24 India: The Sardar Sarovar Dam project on the Narmada river, until recently supported by the World Bank with loans exceeding US$ 300 million will lead to the forced displacement of at least 200,000 people in 237 villages in the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. In the view of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, one of the principal groups opposed to the project, in excess of 300,000 people will ultimately be displaced by the multi-billion dollar project. Despite totally inadequate resettlement sites, widespread popular disdain for the project and the withdrawal of the World Bank, the central Indian government and the state governments involved have vowed to go ahead with this misguided, ultimate prestige project.25 In another large, multi-dam project in the Utter Kannada district of Karnataka up to 200,000 persons will be displaced. The projects likely to have the most devastating affect on displacement are Kali Stage I, Bedthi Stages I and II and the Aghanashini project.

Plans for a Field Firing Range in Baliapal, if carried out, will result in the forced displacement of between 40-70,000 persons. While the State government considers the plans a dead issue, the central government still supports the plans. Another military-oriented plan to construct a Field Firing Range called Netrahat in the Indian State of Bihar will result in the forced eviction of 235,000 tribals belonging to the Oraon, Munda, Nagesia, Kisan, Birjia, Asur, Birhor and Korwa tribal groups of Jharkhand. The project has been heavily criticized by the tribals and other groups in Bihar, in particular by the Jan Sangharsh Samiti, and is set to destroy a total of 245 villages covering an area of 1,471 sq. km, cause

23 SOCO (September 1993) Country Report: Evictions in Hong Kong, Hong Kong, SOCO. 24 Jane Perlez, “In faded Budapest, Growing Debate Over Face-Lift” in International Herald Tribune (August 1993), p 2.

25 On 24 February 1994, the sluice gates at the foot of the Sardar Sarovar Dam in the Narmada Valley closed, causing the flooding of houses and crops near the controversial dam site. The closing of the sluice gates and ongoing construction of the dam will cause the submergence or destruction of houses and crops of between 500-2,000 families (3,000-12,000 persons) in the coming monsoon. The closing of the sluice gates was done in violation of existing legal agreements between the Indian government and the World Bank, written assurances by the Government of India to the World Bank and in contravention of recommendations made by the Narmada Control Authority and the Central Ministry of Water Resources.

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large-scale deforestation and devastate the Betla National Park. Although required by law to notify the affected groups, government officials have allegedly refused to fully inform the tribals of the planned eviction.

Lesotho: The Lesotho Highlands Water Project will, if carried out as it is currently envisaged, result in the forced eviction of between 20,000-40,000 persons, throughout the tiny Kingdom, who will consequently lose their lands and homes. Over 11,000 ha of arable land (a scarce commodity in Lesotho) will be lost. The massive project, one of the largest anywhere in the world, is being carried out by the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority, which has received funds for the project from a range of external sources, including the government of South Africa (41%), the EU European Development Fund (22%), the World Bank (12%), the European Investment Bank (4%), the government of France (4%), the UNDP (2%), Overseas Development Administration of the UK government (2%), Development Bank of Southern Africa (2%) and the USAID (1%). The government of Lesotho itself has financed ten percent of the project. The multi-billion dollar, 30 year project will affect one-third of the country, involves the construction of five large dams which will create huge reservoirs resulting in the large-scale displacement of thousands of dwellers. Affected communities have complained of the lack of adequate compensation and resettlement. The water generated by the project will flow into South Africa. The new ANC-led government has yet to oppose the plan.

Panama: Reports received from human rights groups in Panama indicate that at least four communities are currently threatened with forced eviction. In total, some 532 families (+/- 2660 persons) are living under the threat of eviction in the areas of Vista Alegre No. 2, Building No. 5 at 27 avenida Justo Arosemena (Corregimiento de Calidonia), Los Tecales (San Vicente, Puerto Armuelles, ChiriquĂ­), and the GĂĄlvez building (Corregimiento de Calidonia, Panama City).

Philippines: More than 47,000 families (+/- 300,000 persons) in Metro Manila are currently threatened with forced eviction, according to detailed studies carried out by housing groups in the city. The government of the Philippines plans to evict urban poor dwellers in connection with a number of public works projects, including: Metro Manila Flood Control, C-3 Road, C-5 Road, Ninoy Aquino International Airport Upgrading and Expansion, Mindanao Avenue Road Project, Nagtahan Link Road Project, Nagatahan Parallel Road Project, Angat Water System Optimization Project (AWSOP), Pasay Reclamation Clearance Project and the Philippine National Railroad Upgrading Project.26 The government of the Philippines has also openly discussed the possible eviction of 60,000 additional families (+/- 360,000 persons) who are currently living along the Pasig River system. Moreover, a further 7,000 families (+/- 42,000 persons) residing in the vicinity of the Manila International Airport Container Terminal in Tondo are threatened with imminent eviction. All in all, therefore, anywhere between 300,000 to 600,000 persons are likely to face forced eviction should currently policies and plans remain unchanged. Of the total number of persons now

26 Urban Poor Associates & Saligan (1994) A Report to the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social & Cultural Rights on Housing Rights Abuses in the Philippines 1986-1994, Manila.

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threatened with removal from their homes in Metro Manila, 20,000 of them will be evicted due to financing provided by the World Bank.27 While adequate, popularly-based resettlement might seem to some a reasonable alternative to eviction without consultation or compensation, there are only 5,000 available lots in all the government relocation camps combined. Even considering that relocation is provided to some 5,000 families to these camps (which in themselves are in many respects inadequate, far from sources of employment and lacking many essential services), the question remains what will happen to the 95,000 additional families threatened with the removal from their homes? Despite a series of national laws ostensibly designed to protect the rights of the urban poor in the Philippines not to be evicted, a Presidential Decree (No. 1818) signed into law by ex-President Marcos strictly prohibits courts of law in the country from issuing any form of injunction designed to prohibit evictions from taking place when public projects are the cause of the eviction in question.

South Korea: 4,000 dwellers from Sinlim-10 Dong, Kwanak-ku in Seoul are threatened with eviction before the end of 1994, according to local housing groups. Other sites, including 626-636 Beonji, Changsin-2 Dong, Jongro-ku (Seoul), 152 Beonji, Sangkyeo-4 Dong, Nowon-ku (Seoul) and 611 Beonji, Sinnae Dong, Joongrang-ku (Seoul) are also threatened with forced eviction.

Sri Lanka: The planned Colombo-Katunayake Expressway Construction Project (CKE), which is being organized with utmost secrecy stands to forcibly evict over 25,000 persons from their homes, and includes the anticipated demolition of more than 3,500 houses. Local movements including the Organisation of Persons to be Dispossessed of Their Dwellings, Property and Environment by the Proposed CKE project claim that the Minister in charge of Urban Development has failed to consider the impact the project will have upon the affected 25,000 persons. There is at present no relocation plan and the groups opposing the project have also asserted that the Sri Lankan government’s plans violate the National Transport Policy, adopted on 27 November 1991.

Thailand: More than 300 families (up to 2000 persons) from the largely Muslim community of Ban Krua in Bangkok are currently threatened with eviction from their community due to a proposed ‘Collector and Distributor’ (CD) Road. A public hearing panel has proposed to cancel the road project, however the Rapid Transit Authority, headed by Governor Sukhavich Rangsitphol, have vowed to carry out the eviction of the Ban Krua community who have lived on the affected site for more than 200 years. The 7th Five Year Housing Plan (1992-1996) includes plans for the relocation and eviction of some 65,000 families from over 300 slums in Bangkok. A document entitled “Slum development”, published by the National Housing Authority lists the slum communities which have already been or which are scheduled to be evicted during the ostensibly labelled ‘housing plan’.

Previously evicted communities have complained bitterly about the inadequate relocation sites, and in particular about the long distance which now must be traveled to and from employment opportunities.

27 Involuntary Resettlement in World Bank Supported Projects: Recent Experiences in Metro Manila (NCR) and Adjacent Provinces of Rizal and Bulacan (September 1993), study conducted by the Urban Poor Associates, in co-ordination with Ms. Tova Maria Solo (ENVSP, World Bank), Quezon City.

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Tibet (Occupied by China): A minimum of 10,000 Tibetans—and perhaps twice or three times that number—in the Tibetan capital Lhasa are faced with the pending demolition of their homes and subsequent eviction and dislocation under the 1980 Lhasa Development Plan, approved in far-off Beijing in 1984. More than half of all traditional Tibetan housing in Lhasa—nearly all of it structurally sound—has been demolished by the Chinese government since 1987.28 Turkey: Local groups in Istanbul have reported that up to 50,000 persons (11,000 families) are currently threatened with forced eviction in Istanbul’s Byzantine Peninsula area by the end of 1994. According to local groups opposing these planned evictions, no relocation strategy exists for affected families and no negotiations have taken place between the local government favouring the evictions and the persons to be forced from their homes in the historic community. The UN sponsored World Habitat II Conference is scheduled to take place in Istanbul in 1996.

United Kingdom: New legislation adopted by the British Parliament in late 1994 introduces a new fast-track system for evicting squatters in the country from occupied premises. Under the 1977 Criminal Law Act, squatting is only a criminal offense if violence is used to gain entry into premises or while inside. Under the new Act squatting will become a criminal offence, punishable by six months imprisonment or fines up to US$ 7,500. There are an estimated 60,000 squatters in the United Kingdom.

Viet Nam: At least 2,000 residents of some 150 fifty-year old French villas in Hanoi are threatened with pending eviction, due to urban renovation plans in the area. The municipal government plans to refurbish the old colonial quarter to attract foreigners. Threatened residents have expressed concern that even if some compensation is paid, it will be insufficient to satisfy housing costs as land and rental accommodation prices continue to skyrocket. Only one-third of the affected residents have agreed to relocate.29

❖ These examples of pending forced eviction cases serve to illustrate the dimensions and influences responsible for this practice and disclose the still common assertion of State power, often backed by powerful economic interests, to remove people from their homes in all regions, against their will. It is relatively facile for the proponents of forced evictions to allege that such initiatives are a necessary price to be paid for the overall economic progress emerging from whatever project or plan stands behind the perceived need to evict. However, such views need to be reconsidered in view of the human rights issues involved.

28 Scott Leckie (1994) Destruction by Design: Housing Rights Violations in Tibet, Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, Utrecht.

29 South China Morning Post 6 October 1993, p. 10.

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2

Modalities of the Eviction Process

Anything but an geographically isolated phenomenon, forced evictions of one type or another are carried out in a majority of countries. The universal nature of the eviction dynamic, in part through the embrace of free trade regimes, economic ‘globalization’ and the clear move towards favouring market forces over and above social concerns is critical to consider; yet not only as evidence of the need for a global approach towards limiting the practice. It is also an overt signal that solutions dedicated to eliminating this violation of human rights have yet to be sufficiently applied. While the result of the eviction process is invariably the same: the involuntary removal of a person(s) from their home against their will, effectively withdrawing possibilities of dwelling in a particular location, the precise nature, causes, effects and magnitude of evictions vary widely both between and within nations.

Nevertheless, several global tendencies related to evictions are readily identifiable.1 Firstly, no government can realistically assert that the housing rights of every citizen are fully satisfied in law and practice, including proper legal protection against forced or arbitrary eviction.2 Forced evictions tend to be most prevalent in countries with the worst housing conditions. Housing circumstances such as slums, squatter settlements, exploitive landlords, homelessness, non-responsive and ineffective legal systems, uncontrolled urbanization, the preferential treatment of property rights over housing rights and other factors not only serve as physical manifestations of governmental inability or unwillingness to take seriously the housing rights of their populace, but also serve as common justifications by governments and other evictors for forcing people from their homes. It is one thing to assist dwellers in achieving their rights through renovation programmes of their homes and communities or through other measures of improvement on-site. However, it is another issue all together when people are thrown out of their homes and sent to the urban edge and start their lives all over again. Because forced evictions often occur in locations dominated by inadequate housing conditions and in areas where housing rights are either actively or passively denied, without rethinking of policy, law and action, evictions will continue to grow as a side-effect of the failure of governments to fulfil this right.

1 See, for instance: Antonio Azuela & Emilio Duhau (1993) Introductory Essay on Case Studies of Evictions, International Evictions Research Network (Habitat International Coalition), Mexico City.

2 In this light the UN Global Strategy for Shelter to the Year 2000 has declared: “No nation can claim to have reached the objective of adequate shelter for all citizens”.

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Secondly, wherever they are carried out forced evictions almost invariably affect the most economically and socially disadvantaged, politically powerless, and lowest income groups in society. In fact, selectivity is a common aspect of the eviction process. Examples are abundant of evictions being carried out in a particular area (due to measures of ecological protection, flood control, gentrification, etc.) which have selectively evicted poorer communities while leaving more affluent neighbours untouched. Groups already driven into the margins of society through the impossibility of accessing affordable, habitable and suitably located legal accommodation elsewhere are forced, at the same time, to live with the constant insecurity of looming eviction and the destruction of their homes.

Thirdly, and in contrast to many other active violations of human rights, evictions tend to be planned, publicly announced, pre-meditated and more often than not, legislatively supported actions. This is largely not the case with a wide range of other active infringements of rights. Such circumstances increase the capabilities of groups, institutions like the UN, donor countries and agencies and non-governmental organizations to undertake preventive measures designed to discourage evictions from occurring, and thus provides for innovative possible applications of human rights law and other legal procedures.

Many similarities between global processes of eviction do indeed exist, but an equal, if not greater number of heterogenous factors are also present. The modalities of eviction in a rich country of the North, for instance, are often quite distinct from those of a country of the South—though the socio-economic position of those affected may be effectively the same. In some countries, property developers, the construction industry and private landlords may be the main forces supporting evictions, whereas in others the State perpetuates this practice.

Individuals or households may be the predominant victim of forced evictions in certain places, while entire communities and ethnic, racial and indigenous groups suffer this fate elsewhere. Eviction programmes are sometimes funded by international development agencies or foreign governments, but most frequently financed by domestic public and private expenditure. Evictions can take place during times of peace as well as armed conflict and occur both in cities and the countryside.

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2.1 The Rule of Law and Forced Evictions It is commonly argued that societies governed on the basis of the rule of law and where political decision-making structures are structured around forms of representative democracy will be much more hesitant to engage in mass forced eviction operations. The eviction policies of the South African apartheid regime, the government of China and the effectively authoritarian political structures governing the Dominican Republic testify to this point of view. As one publication correctly states: Authoritarian governments are more likely to implement large “city beautification� [and other] plans with large-scale evictions; a lack of dialogue, with citizens and their organizations, a lack of representation for citizens views within government and a style of government which represses popular protest greatly limits the possibility of successful opposition to such plans. Not surprisingly, the negotiation of a compromise between those undertaking the redevelopment (the state or a private company) and those to be evicted is more common in nations with representative democracy.3 While clearly not universally true, states in which democratic principles and the rule of law pervade the political and legal landscape tend, when tolerating or carrying out evictions, to do so in a less severe manner than in states with other political structures. As with so many human rights issues, political systems built on democratic principles and the rule of law appear to be crucial if evictions are to be limited in both scope and severity. It would be very wrong to say, however, that countries labelled as democratic do not sponsor or encourage processes leading to forced eviction. States such as South Korea, Hong Kong4, India5, the Philippines6, Turkey7,the Dominican Republic8, the United States9, the United Kingdom10 and other countries commonly referred to as democracies, have clearly yet to entirely eradicate illegal, arbitrary or patently unfair forced evictions.

3 Supra note 3, chap. 1, Squatter Citizen, p. 46.

4 On South Korea and Hong Kong, see: Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (1991) Urban Poor Housing Rights in South Korea and Hong Kong: Fact Finding and Assessment Mission Report (7-18 September 1990), ACHR, Bangkok.

5 See, for instance: Unnayan (1985) The Supreme Courts View of the Eviction Rights of Pavement and Slum Dwellers, July, Unnayan, Calcutta and Youth for the Unity of Voluntary Action (YUVA) (1994) Evictions and Riots: A Case Study of Jogeshwari East, Bombay 1974-1993, YUVA, Bombay.

6 Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (1993) Prima Facie Violations of Article 11(1) of the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by the Government of the Philippines, November, Utrecht, COHRE. 7 Human Rights Watch Helsinki (October 1994) Turkey: Forced Displacement of Ethnic Kurds From Southeastern Turkey, Human Rights Watch, New York.

8 Habitat International Coalition & The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (1995) Forced Evictions in the Dominican Republic, Utrecht, (forthcoming).

9 See, for instance: Housing Court, Evictions and Homelessness: The Costs and Benefits of Establishing a Right to Council (1993), published by Community Training and Resource Center and City-Wide task Force on Housing Court, Inc., New York.

10 See, for instance: Campaign for Bedsit Rights (1994) Law and Order in private Rented Housing: Tackling Harassment and Illegal Eviction, CBR, London.

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Political democracies do generally provide greater options for citizens to undertake legal and other measures designed to halt planned evictions from taking place, are more likely to at least superficially consult affected persons and communities and will be more likely to ensure the provision of compensation as a consequence of an eviction. Nevertheless, in many respects it is not so much democratic principles which will facilitate the creation of socio-legal structures limiting the practice of forced evictions and guiding such developments in a manner consistent with the rights of the persons affected. Formulations of law, independent arrangements for the implementation and enforcement of legislation and the degree of awareness held by persons threatened with forced eviction will, in many respects, constitute more important barometers than the existence of ostensibly democratic structures of governance.

With regard to forced evictions, the law plays an undeniably ambiguous role; tolerating and supporting evictions one day, while condemning and prohibiting them the next. Most forced evictions are supported by legislation, executive decrees or permitted by courts. Legal obstacles often remain an overwhelming barrier to people and communities threatened with forced eviction. For instance, even where housing rights and the rights of people not to be evicted are taken into consideration by courts of law, the systematic avoidance by evictors of such decisions persists.

It is precisely due to this state of affairs that this report seeks to examine how and to what extent legal measures can be employed to deter and prevent them, rather than to rationalize forced eviction processes. Were governments and other relevant international actors to take their freely accepted legal obligations concerning the right to housing as seriously as, say, the right to property, forced evictions would decline in both prevalence and severity. If a government treats its legal duties with an aura of convenience or disregard, how can citizens be expected to place faith and trust in the legal system, or for that matter the rule of law?

All stages of the eviction process maintain identifiable legal and human rights implications. Domestic legal regimes relating to land and dwelling tenure security, occupancy rights, planning controls, expropriation, systems of compensation and others will each have an impact upon how forced evictions are perceived within the legal framework and subsequently how people are treated in the event of a pending removal.

While the right to adequate housing is perhaps the most obvious human rights concern, a number of additional rights are also relevant. The right to freedom of movement and to choose one’s residence, recognized in many international laws and national constitutions, faces infringement when forced evictions occur. People physically forced to move against their will, clearly do not enjoy this freedom. Likewise, and this is especially true when resettlement or relocation takes place, one really has little or no right at all to choose their residence; it is ‘chosen’ for them.

The right to security of the person, also widely established, means little in practical terms when persons are evicted with violence, bulldozers and intimidation. Direct governmental harassment, arrests or even killings of community leaders opposed to an eviction are commonplace and violate the right to freedom of expression, the right

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Some of Bombay’s tens of thousands of pavement dwellers who live without access to water, electricity or sanitation. Forced evictions of pavement dwellers are commonplace in Bombay, subject only to the discretion of the local authorities. © Sijmen Hendriks (1994)

to join organizations of one’s choice and the right to life. In a majority of eviction cases crucial rights to information and popular participation are denied. When children are unable to attend school due to an eviction, the right to education is brought into question. When people lose their sources of employment, the right to work can be breached. When psychological and physical health are threatened by the constant threat of eviction, issues of the right to health are raised. When families and communities are torn apart by eviction, the right to family life is infringed. When uninvited eviction squads forcibly enter one’s home the right to privacy and the sanctity of the home face violation. In sum, the legal and human rights dimensions of the eviction process are wide-ranging, although they are still commonly ignored by the evictors.

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2.2 Evictors The actors responsible for carrying out or sanctioning evictions are diverse. Forced evictions are sponsored, carried out and tolerated by a wide cross section of social actors, including national governments and their organs, local governments, private landlords, property developers, the World Bank and others.

National Governments The state (through its organs, police, military, public authorities or other agents) remains the figure of central responsibility for forced evictions—either through direct acts legitimized by law and/or policy or based upon a failure (omission) to intervene to protect citizens from this practice by non-state actors. Notwithstanding which entity carries out an eviction, according to international human rights law, the government retains ultimate legal liability. A government possessive of legal duties to fulfil the right to housing is under a legal obligation, therefore, not to sponsor or tolerate any form of illegal eviction within its territory.

Local Governments Local authorities in many countries maintain the legal power to evict persons residing in social housing and those dwelling in ‘illegal’ settlements. In some instances, local government can be entrusted with fulfilling eviction orders issued by central government, while in other cases the desire to evict may come directly from local authorities themselves.11 Under international human rights law, national governments must regulate the behaviour of local government to ensure that its’ actions do not undermine international obligations of the national government question.

Private Landlords and Property Developers In locations where dwellers possess either no or insufficient forms of security of tenure, the private sector continues as a major force backing evictions. In the absence of national or local legislation protecting people from eviction, private landlords and property owners often use their legal powers to evict should they wish to use their property for more profitable endeavors, such as “re-development”. This type of eviction is increasingly commonplace as land prices increase sharply in step with the economic developments. While private individuals, such as property owners and landlords do not possess many identifiable legal obligations themselves under human rights law, governments do.

11 See: Habitat International Coalition (1994) Eviction trends as Documented by Habitat International Coalition: The Role of Local Authorities in the Implementation of the Right to Housing, Mexico City.

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The World Bank Any study concerning evictions would be incomplete without mentioning the role played by the World Bank in encouraging, accepting and funding projects involving what they call “involuntary resettlement”. Between 1979 and 1983 the Bank funded programmes involving the involuntary displacement of nearly half a million people.12 The 1980’s were also witness to an array of World Bank financed projects which involved forced displacement of populations, including the Narmada dam project in India and the “Transmigrasi” programme in Indonesia. Although the Bank has adopted an Operational Directive (O.D. 4.30) on involuntary resettlement, it does not appear to be relinquishing its power to fund projects involving eviction.13 A Bank sponsored seminar on involuntary resettlement emphasized that “involuntary resettlement is often an unavoidable aspect of many urban development projects and the volume of people who must be displaced in the name of progress is sure to grow as the world’s urban populations increase”.14 It will be interesting to observe the response by the Bank, if there is one, to the contents of General Comment No. 2 of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on “international technical assistance”, which mentions evictions directly. The Comment states in part: International agencies should scrupulously avoid involvement in projects which, for example....involve large-scale evictions or displacement of persons without the provision of all appropriate protection and compensation. ...

Wherever possible, the agencies should act as advocates of projects and approaches which contribute not only to economic growth or other broadlydefined objectives, but also to enhanced enjoyment of the full range of human rights.15

12 World Bank, “Social Issues Associated with Involuntary Resettlement in Bank Financed Projects: A Review of OD [Operational Directive] 2.33”, 1984. See also: World Bank “Operational Directive 4.30, Involuntary Resettlement” (June 1990).

13 On the general theme of the human rights obligations of the Bank, as well as the issue of forced resettlements, see Paul, James C.N. “International Development Agencies, Human Rights and Humane Development Projects” in Denver Journal of International Law and Policy, vol. 17, No. 1, 1988, pp. 67-120.

14 The World Bank (1989) Coping with Involuntary Resettlement in The Urban Edge (vol. 13, No. 2) , p. 6.

15 UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Fourth Session, 1990, General Comment No. 2, “International Technical Assistance Measures (Article 22), UN document E/C.12/1990/CRP.2/Add.2, Annex 3, pp. 86-89.

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2.3 Evictees One aspect of the global eviction paradigm displays almost absolute international consistency: The least economically and politically powerful segments of society are far and above the social group most adversely affected by forced eviction. Whether pavement dwellers of Bombay, residents of São Paulo’s favelas, squatters in Bangkok, inhabitants of the ‘barrios’ of Santo Domingo, welfare recipients in New York, indigenous peoples of the Narmada Valley in India, township dwellers in South Africa or low-income tenants in Seoul, the victims of forced eviction are invariably those with the least rights and fewest social and economic opportunities.

The logic of impoverished persons, families and communities bearing the brunt of the many dimensions of eviction, although discriminatory in nature, is not difficult to explain. On the one hand, the generally dominant power given to all aspects of property ownership over and above that of possession or occupation of property (or for that matter housing rights), reveals a major basis for evictions affecting predominantly the rural and urban poor. This, of course, raises a serious dilemma when viewed in terms of human rights. Namely, if human rights are non-commodified goods—not for sale, but bestowed on persons because of their humanity—how can it be that in de facto terms property owners and those possessing legal title, in essence purchase their housing rights and legal protection from eviction through the process of property ownership?

The technically ‘illegal’ nature of many settlements and dwellings set for eviction, resultant from squatting, pirate settlements and the non-conformity of dwellings with official building codes provides eviction proponents with legally premised arguments supporting their wishes. The fact that many aspects of poor people’s lives are officially ‘illegal’, due to social and economic conditions restricting access to legal housing resources, is yet another explanation why this social group—whose daily struggle for survival is criminalized—bears the brunt of evictions.16 Referred to as ‘disposable people’, ‘surplus people’, ‘the invisible’ and ‘second class citizens’, the urban and rural poor of the world, however, are anything but the criminal figures they are often labelled to be. In all countries—rich or poor—the similarities of those faced with eviction are striking. Evictees tend to be non-owners, poor or low-income, in the eyes of the law often ‘illegal’, politically and economically weak, already marginalized, under-represented in the decision-making process, or members of a certain ethnic, indigenous or racial group.

16 See, for instance: National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty (1993) The Right to Remain Nowhere: A Report on Anti-Homeless Laws and Litigation in 16 United States Cities, Washington DC.

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2.4 Common Rationale for Forced Evictions The multi-dimensional effects of forced eviction are well-known by forces promoting this practice, and thus virtually no eviction is carried out without some form of public justification seeking to legitimize the action. Many of the rationale behind the eviction process are carefully designed to create sympathy for the evictor, while simultaneously aiming to portray the evicted as the deserved recipient of these policies—a process appropriately labelled “bulldozer justice” by the retired Indian Supreme Court Justice Krishna Iyer.17 The fact that in many, if not most Third World cities, more than one-half of the population resides in slums, squatter settlements or other conditions of acutely inadequate housing conditions, is proof enough for eviction proponents to claim the ‘reasonableness’ of forcibly evicting the poor from their neighbourhoods, barrios, favelas or chawls in order to ‘beautify the city’. Justifying forced evictions in this manner, however, ignores the fact that the victims of this process are already scapegoats in social and legal structures which deny them the right to a decent, safe and healthy place to live. Evicting such people thus amounts to a double violation of human rights; of the right to adequate housing, and the right to livelihood and all that this right encompasses.

Fully recognizing the physical and economic impact of forced eviction upon a person losing their home, governments, development agencies, landlords, property owners and others use a wide variety of arguments seeking make publicly palatable justifications for promoting the process. A distinction, of course, needs to be made between the public rationale for an eviction, and the actual motivation backing the decision to evict. Some of the most frequently heard public justifications are to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p

Build new and improved housing; Improve or beautify the site or city; Protect public health, hygiene and safety; Protect the safety of pedestrians on pavements; Provide infrastructure, roads or public works; Protect historical buildings or landmarks; Provide “good scenery” to foreign guests; Construct facilities for international events; Construct government buildings; Increase arable land for agriculture; Improve housing conditions for the inhabitants; Mete out punishment for political activities; Prevent the growth of a city; Remove “the cancerous rot of the city”; Conserve ecologically important locations; Eradicate safe havens for criminals;

17 Justice Krishna Iyer (1988) Law and the Urban Poor in India, B.R. Publishing Corp., New Delhi.

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q Carry out redevelopment projects; r Demolish premises for reasons of safety and health; s Deter future squatting; t Rent the premises to new tenants; u Free space for family members of the owner; v Protect dwellers from threats of flooding; w Dredge filtrated canals; x Build sporting stadiums or arenas; y Reclaim public land; and z Separate ethnic or racial groups.

Superficially, many of these justifications may sound reasonable, and perhaps under certain circumstances accompanied by the fulfillment of specific criteria, they may be just that. However, in the bulk of eviction cases, evictees, in addition to having faced a violation of human rights, tend to end up in worse conditions than prior to the eviction—despite the fact that even before an eviction their living and housing conditions may have been anything but ideal. If one approaches this issue from the angle of human rights prior to examining the logic of eviction rationale, one is forced to reassess just how ‘reasonable’ most of these justifications are in practical and human terms. In view of the fact that terms such as ‘unavoidable’ and ‘in the public interest’ seek to indicate the inevitability of eviction, these terms are frequently used well before beginning to explore possible alternatives to a planned eviction.

Most of the justifications listed relate to evictions of a multi-household dimension, though some have clear relevance to individual cases. In the individual sense of eviction, it is more common to hear rationale such as: a b c d e f

The persistent non-payment of rent; The need to renovate the premises; To regain the property for personal or family use; To enforce property rights; To repossess illegally occupied land or housing; or Simply to increase rent levels or to engage in property speculation.

Such rationale raise the question as how to most humanely balance the often opposing interests of property rights with the right to adequate housing? Should the rights of property owners inherently supersede the rights of those living in or on the property in question? Would it not be more appropriate were the fundamental and basic human right to adequate housing to take some form of precedence over the ‘right’ of privilege to own, control and purchase private property, simply because housing is accepted everywhere as one of the basic human needs for existence? Such a view of housing rights need not, of course, imply a negation of property rights, but would have to recognize that controls on property ownership and use will be required if housing rights are to be enforced and if forced evictions are to be excluded from the still accepted range of policy options.

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2.5 The Human Cost of Forced Evictions Though some types of forced evictions may be unavoidable and, under law acceptable and reasonable, the human cost of forced evictions are so demeaning that any eviction justification must be analyzed within this framework. There are an equal if not greater range of human impacts of the eviction process as there are justifications for promoting it. Some of the most recognizable human costs upon the individual and community fabric are: a Community and family break-up; b The loss of social networks critical for survival; c Multiplying individual and social impoverishment, including homelessness and the growth of new slums; d Physical, psychological and emotional trauma; e Insecurity for the future; f Economic hardship and losses of employment options; g Medical hardship and the onset of disease; h Substantially higher transportation costs; i Loss of livelihood and traditional lands; j Worsened housing conditions; k Physical injury or death; l The use of arbitrary violence; m The demolition of homes and neighbourhoods; n The removal of children from school; o Arrest or imprisonment of those opposing an eviction; p Loss of faith in the legal and political system; q Reduction of low-income housing stock; r Racial segregation; s Loss of culturally significant sites; t The confiscation of personal goods and property; u Substantially higher housing costs; v Absence of choice for alternative accommodation; w A feeling of powerlessness against external powers; x Criminalizing self-help housing options; y Increased social isolation; and z Tension with existing dwellers at resettlement sites.

Attempts are being made at different levels to guide the eviction process such that inordinate harm and suffering are mitigated. The impetus for adopting such guidelines clearly comes from a recognition of the human impact of the process. This forms, for instance, the basis of the ‘Guidelines For Aid Agencies On Involuntary Displacement and Resettlement in Development Projects’, adopted by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) in 1991. On this issue the Guidelines recognize:

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Residents in one of Santo Domingo’s many popular barrios threatened with forced eviction. Over 100,000 urban poor dwellers have been forcibly evicted since the late 1980’s despite repeated calls from the UN to the Dominican government to halt forced evictions. Š Sijmen Hendriks (1994)

Development projects that displace people involuntarily generally give rise to severe economic, social and environmental problems: production systems are dismantled, productive assets and income sources are lost, and people are relocated to environments where their social and productive skills may be less applicable and the competition for resources greater. Involuntary resettlement thus may cause severe long-term hardship, impoverishment, and environmental damage unless appropriate measures are carefully planned and carried out. Past experience indicates that the absence of explicit guidelines regarding involuntary resettlement has contributed in many projects to underestimating the complexity and impact of displacement.18 The manner by which many evictions are carried out in practice, notwithstanding the existence of guidelines for relocation, contribute significantly to the human hardships inherent in this act. Despite the existence of legally enshrined housing rights and guidelines designed to improve relocation procedures, the use of violence as a means of facilitating eviction remains disturbingly common.

18 18 OECD (1991) Guidelines for Aid Agencies on Involuntary Displacement and Resettlement in Development Projects, Development Assistance Committee, Paris.

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2.6 Are There Reasonable Grounds for Forced Evictions?

Many forced evictions are justified on the grounds that those occupying land are doing so illegally. Attempts have been and continue to be made to classify slum dwellers as ‘criminals’ due to their circumstances of illegality. Yet are these persons the victim or the crime? Do these persons, by virtue either of their humanity or as citizens, have rights to the satisfaction of their housing requirements, at a minimum threshold level, which may supersede the rights attached to the ownership of property or does their technically ‘illegal’ status deny them one of the fundamental basic needs of life?

The illegal-legal dichotomy is central when examining the acceptability of eviction. Do or should persons classified as illegal (at least under the terms of the written law) possess equivalent rights to housing or against eviction to legal tenants? Or do the laws of a society by declaring as illegal, people who generally have no other option to house themselves other than through means contrary to the law in place, perhaps need revision in order to more adequately address social realities? Should it more preferably be policy decisions which impact these circumstance rather than the law?

The fundamental foundation of any analysis for deriving models of ‘reasonableness’ supporting eviction must be the human right to adequate housing. Most of the important derivations of housing rights under international human rights law state clearly that this is a right of everyone.19 Inhabiting adequate housing can in no way be considered a privilege, but tantamount to being human and living a full and dignified life. If this is the basis upon which relationships to forced evictions are examined, the clear correlation of receiving some form of adequate accommodation or compensation if one is threatened with eviction arises, notwithstanding whether affected dwellers are labelled legal or illegal.

Although some dwellers may consciously choose to live in illegal circumstances, most living in such conditions do not do so out of free will. Their illegal status, in many instances, only increases the likelihood of forcible eviction. Even if a person, household, family or community is technically viewed by the law as illegal, one would be hard pressed to justify that evicting them from their homes without adequate warning, relocation options, rehousing alternatives or compensation could be assumed to be reasonable.

Principles of consistency, fairness, equality and justice must accompany any decisions involving the removal of persons from their homes. As a general principle, forced evictions should be avoided whenever possible and people should be allowed to live where they please. The state and the housing market should provide sufficient and affordable housing options for all sectors of the population. Indeed, the human right 19 See, for instance, article 25 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Annex 1).

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to ‘choose one’s residence’ pervades human rights law. Dwellers everywhere should have a right to feel secure in their homes, and not in constant fear of violent eviction.

Legal remedies should be in place, availing redress to all people threatened with theoretical or pending evictions.

Those facing eviction often hear justifications contending that the eviction process must be carried out in ‘the social interest, or perhaps in the interests of a greater ‘social good’. As noted above, the World Bank has characterized some involuntary resettlements as necessary in ‘the name of progress’. Granted, some evictions might be considered reasonable, but only if a series of pre-conditions are fully met. An internationally accepted “code of conduct on evictions” could go some way in both limiting the severity commonly associated with forced removals, as well as guaranteeing the rights of potential and actual evictees.

Are there, then, reasonable grounds for eviction? The answer to this question must, of course, be in the affirmative, though eviction should always be the last possible option considered to rectify a certain situation. The physical, emotional and financial traumas related to forced evictions should be evidence enough for any criteria for ‘reasonable evictions’, to be as limited as possible.

The following situations could be of such a nature that forced eviction might be the only way of solving a particular dilemma: a Racist statements or attacks by one or more tenants against neighbours; b Unjustifiable destruction of rented property; c The persistent non-payment of rent when there exists a corresponding provenability to pay, and in the absence of unfulfilled landlord duties to ensure dwelling habitability ; d Persistent anti-social behaviour which threatens, harasses or intimidates neighbours or persistent behavior which threatens public health and safety; e Criminal behaviour threatening the rights of others; f The illegal occupation of property which is inhabited and utilized at the time of the occupation; and g The occupation of land or homes of occupied populations by nationals of an occupying country (The Occupied Territories of Palestine, Tibet, Western Sahara, East Timor, etc).

❖ Sections 1 and 2 have examined some of the general issues relating to the practice of forced eviction and have sought to disclose the key elements of this phenomenon as a precursor to examining the position taken under international human rights law.

With these aspects of problem now outlined, we now turn to the legal status of forced evictions under human rights law, the perspectives taken on the practice by various international and regional human rights organs and how forced evictions— based upon the norms of human rights law—can be more effectively prevented from destroying the homes, lives and aspirations of those affected.

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3

Human Rights Law and Forced Evictions

Although still an obscure and abstract notion to most people, the system of international human rights law, while complex, is arguably less complicated and easier to grasp than many areas of national legislation. International law may contain fewer means of actual legal enforcement or be unknown to the majority of the world’s citizens, but the manner by which it addresses issues such as housing rights, as well as its universal significance, give some indication of its value in potentially decreasing the frequency with which forced evictions occur.

The treaties, laws, principles, monitoring procedures and judicial bodies included within the realm of international human rights law are so numerous that blanket coverage of these within this report would be impossible.1 However, clarification of some of the fundamental issues involved are necessary adjuncts to comprehending the degree to which this legal system can provide enforceable guarantees against forced and arbitrary eviction for both individuals and groups.

International human rights law is a relatively new legal system, largely in place only since the end of the Second World War. As a reflection of international political, social and economic realities, this legal regime has developed dynamically since the adoption of the United Nations Charter in 1945. To one extent or another, aspects of virtually all legal philosophies find codification within this legal regime.

At the most basic level, international human rights law consists of a code of laws enshrined in a diversity of legal texts.2 Some of these create legally binding obligations, whereas others are more symbolic in nature. Treaties, covenants, conventions and charters are generally considered to be legally binding instruments possessing the force of law. Sometimes ‘charters’, however, are not legally binding. The European Charter on Fundamental Social Rights adopted by the European Community (EC) in 1989 is a case in point.

1 For a full listing of the major human rights texts, see: United Nations Centre for Human Rights (1994) Human Rights: A Compilation of International Instruments, United Nations, Geneve.

2 See, generally: T. Meron, ed. (1984) Human Rights in International Law: Legal and Policy Issues, Clarendon Press, Oxford; and Newman and Weissbrodt (1990) International Human Rights, Anderson Publishing Co., Cincinnati.

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With some notable exceptions, declarations, recommendations, resolutions and codes of conduct tend not to be legally binding. This non-binding nature of these texts can be altered when a certain instrument attains the status of “customary international law”.

For instruments to become legally binding upon governments, states must take a series of steps, beginning with the signature of the text in question and, ultimately following it with the ratification of the text in question, generally by the Parliament of the state concerned. Once ratified, treaties, covenants, conventions and charters create certain obligations grounded in law for ratifying states. Without the ratification of a certain treaty by a state, the text in question does not create legally binding obligations for the state concerned. The two most important international human rights treaties, the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) and the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (CCPR) have been ratified respectively by 130 and 126 states. Thus, for instance, below when we observe the obligations and entitlements of the CESCR, in legal terms these will only be applicable to the 130 “states parties” to this text.

The ratification of a binding text by a state represents in effect, a solemn vow to: a) the state’s citizens (and non-nationals residing there); b) to other states which are parties to the same instrument; and c) to the international community at large that the rights in question will be recognized, respected, protected and fulfilled in good faith. When and if the rights contained in such a text are violated or unfulfilled, the act of ratification limits the ability of the state in question to argue that international concerns about the infringements in question are strictly internal affairs.

Declarations, recommendations, resolutions and codes of conduct are generally adopted with the intention of delineating parameters of action regarding state practice, policy and sometimes legislation. While not always binding in a legal sense per se, these instruments remain of central importance. Once accepted, these texts represent manifestations of contemporary international legal and political opinion.

States voting for such texts indicate their willingness to ensure the realization of the contents of the text in question, as well as providing hints as to the political acceptability of the norms found therein.

Whereas binding human rights texts virtually always maintain some form of enforcement mechanism, non-binding texts generally do not; compliance therewith is generally not subject to international procedures of legal scrutiny. Similarly, the terminology, length of the drafting process, precision of the principles involved and many other characteristics of human rights instruments differ when viewed from the obligations side of the issue.

Such instruments are not, however, permanently without the force of law. Legal texts can become part of customary law by reason of the consistent practice of states and international institutions in invoking relevant provisions of the instrument in question as evidence of the content of international law. If a certain text achieves the status of customary law, it is viewed as binding on all states. The text most closely associated

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with these issues, within the human rights domain, is the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948).

With these basic issues clarified we turn now to another, perhaps more pertinent question: to whom do these legal documents apply and who is liable for implementation? One of the central distinctions between the system of international human rights law and that of international law in general, concerns the central position of non-state entities, (eg. individuals and groups). Whereas international law essentially regulates actions between states (the recognition of states, trade issues, the use of force, issues of sovereignty, delineation of territory, laws of the sea, diplomatic recognition, etc), human rights law refers to the relationship of citizens to the state. Human rights are not states rights, but the rights of individuals and their communities within states. The laws of human rights create various levels of legal obligations for states and their organs, while at the same time generating a series of entitlements for the beneficiaries of these rights.

Of course, not all rights can be considered as human rights. Ultimately, “human rights” are distinguishable from other “rights” in two central ways, as described by Sieghart: First, they are not acquired, nor can they be transferred, disposed of or extinguished, by any act or event: according to the classical theory, now reflected in the international standards, they ‘inhere’ universally in all human beings, throughout their lives, in virtue of their humanity alone, and they are ‘inalienable’. Secondly, their primary correlative duties fall on States and their public authorities, not on other individuals.3 The inclusion of individuals as pertinent actors under international law has created new obligations on behalf of states and thus new types of claims by citizens as well.

Under human rights law all individuals and groups are to be protected against the violation or infringements of their rights. The entity ultimately responsible for doing so is the state. The state makes laws, has the power and capability of enforcing them and, under the norms of international human rights law, the duty to do so. Yet the state is neither ominous nor all-powerful. It is confined in its actions affecting persons in its territory. Human rights law imposes limits on the options available to the state, while increasing the options of the people, creating a framework and premise for “the responsible state” and good governance.

This rudimentary description of international human rights law would be incomplete were the weaknesses of this legal system, and indeed of the law itself not addressed.

The utilization of legal approaches to address fundamental disparities of political and economic power within and between states, let alone redressing these represents a frustrating, often futile and in many countries a dangerous undertaking.

Laws are often made by economic and political elites in an effort to maintain credibility, and to ensure their economic and political domination. Prevailing social realities 3 Paul Sieghart 1983,The International Law of Human Rights, Clarendon Press, Oxford, p. 43.

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The aftermath of one of dozens of forced evictions carried out in Manila each year. Š Ed Gerlock

which should receive legislative attention, are frequently not reflected in the written law. Laws designed with allegedly noble intentions are commonly subjected to abuse and manipulation. The existence of certain laws can make the daily activities and realities of huge numbers of individuals and communities formally illegal. The law is often used as a justification for repression and severe brutality a means of rationalizing forced evictions.

With respect to international human rights law in particular, not only do these and other weaknesses apply, but the system itself is beset with dilemmas. While it might be difficult for a government to not act in accordance with the terms of its national Constitution, it is comparatively simple for States to avoid complying with their international legal obligations. International and regional mechanisms for enforcing human rights standards remain weak. Coercive powers strong enough to force States to comply with international judicial decisions or to enforce their human rights obligations are still in need of further development. The role of good faith in carrying out human rights duties by governments remains central. Most people have no idea that their governments possess binding human rights obligations, and fewer still know of the availability of procedures designed for redressing human rights violations.

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3.1 Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Under international human rights law (as well as its application at the national level), civil and political rights have, in almost every respect, received more attention, legal codification, judicial interpretation and have been instilled in public consciousness to a far greater degree than economic, social and cultural rights. In general terms, the entire system has based itself on the ideological premise that only civil and political rights (right to a fair trial, right to life, right to vote, right to property, etc) can be subject to violation and procedures of redress.4 Economic, social and cultural rights are often seen as second class rights; unenforceable, non-justiciable, only to be fulfilled ‘progressively’ over time.5 Despite these difficulties, the indivisibility and interdependence of civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights remains a fundamental tenet of international human rights law and has been repeatedly re-affirmed. One of the central re-affirmations of the equal nature of these two sets of rights is found within UN General Assembly resolution 32/130 (1977), which states in this regard: All human rights and fundamental freedoms are indivisible and interdependent; equal attention and urgent consideration should be given to the implementation, promotion and protection of both civil and political, and economic, social and cultural rights; The full realization of civil and political rights without the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights is impossible; the achievement of lasting progress in the implementation of human rights is dependent upon sound and effective national and international policies of economic and social development.

Additional texts have reaffirmed these principles by enshrining derivations of both sets of rights within the same instrument, such as the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the UN Declaration on the Right to Development. The adoption of an Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights focusing on economic, social and cultural rights, the appointment and mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Realization of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the existence, work and perspectives taken by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the reality that 130 states have ratified the Covenant and a plethora of other 4 The dualistic view of human rights resembles the following categorization of the commonly perceived relationship between economic, social and cultural rights and civil and political rights, with qualities of economic, social and cultural rights listed first in each of the eight points: 1. positive vs. negative; 2. resource-intensive vs. cost-free; 3. progressive vs. immediate; 4. vague vs. precise; 5. unmanageably complex vs. manageable; 6. ideologically divisive and political vs. non-ideological and non-political; 7. non-justiciable vs. justiciable; and 8. aspirations or goals vs. “real” or “legal” rights. Source: Craig Scott (1989) “The Interdependence and Permeability of Human Rights Norms: Towards a Partial Fusion of the International Covenants on Human Rights” in Osgoode Hall law Journal, vol. 27, no. 4, pp. 770-878.

5 For a solid rebuttal of such views, see: G.J.H. van Hoof (1984) “The Legal Nature of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: A Rebuttal of Some Traditional Views” in The Right to Food (Alston and Tomasevski, eds.), Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, pp. 97-110.

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facts indicate the very real legal nature of these rights.6 Economic, social and cultural rights are fully recognized by the international community and throughout international human rights law. Indeed, far greater attention and seriousness is currently being vested in these rights than ever before. It is not a question of whether these aims are human rights, but rather which entitlements they imply and the legal nature of the obligations to realize them. Two predominant themes related to enhancing understanding, protection and realization of these rights concern: a) discerning the “levels of obligation” inherent with the recognition of these rights; and b) how best to measure State compliance with these obligations.

While any analysis of the obligations relating to economic, social and cultural rights cannot be viewed in isolation from the entitlements of the beneficiaries of the right(s) in question, this approach is increasingly accepted and utilized. Most frequently obligations are divided into “layers” reflecting duties to: a) respect; b) protect; c) promote; and d) fulfil. Each of these legal responsibilities can take on more specific obligations of “conduct” (eg. activity or passivity) and obligations of “result” (eg. ends). The extent to which these rights are enforceable, justiciable and how violations of these rights can be determined are further issues of importance.

As acceptance of the precise legal nature of economic, social and cultural rights increases, the chances for strengthening the enforcement and justiciability of rights relevant to the practice of forced evictions, in particular housing rights, will also grow.

These issues, along with increasing international attention to housing rights violations will almost assuredly be central themes throughout the field of human rights law in the coming years.

6 M.C.R. Craven (1993) “The Domestic Application of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights” in Netherlands International Law Review, vol. XL, pp. 367-404.

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3.2 Housing Rights Provisions Although still relatively unknown to most people, the many conventions, covenants, charters, declarations, resolutions and other decisions comprising the normative foundations of human rights law, contain abundant sources of the right to adequate housing (see Annex 1). Explicit mention of evictions also occur in international law, albeit to a lesser degree, and where absent, housing rights provisions can be asserted as a means of preventing the practice of forced evictions.

In terms of international human rights law, the right to adequate housing was first recognized in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948) in article 25(1): Everyone has a 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.

Many international legal experts now believe the Universal Declaration to be part of customary international law, and thus despite its character as a declaration, it is binding on all countries. Conceived as “a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations�, the Universal Declaration has become a benchmark by which the measurement of respect for, and compliance with, international human rights law takes place. When adopted in 1948, this text was to form the basis for subsequent treaties which would, in a legally binding sense, create explicit obligations for countries which had ratified them. The Universal Declaration has been and continues to be a major source of inspiration for both national and international efforts towards promoting human rights, and has set the general direction for most subsequent work in the human rights field. It was out of this process that the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights was adopted in 1966, achieving the force of law in 1976.

The Covenant contains the single most important formulation of the right to adequate housing under international law.7 The 130 states parties to the Covenant have undertaken in article 11(1) to recognize: The right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and 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.

7 Scott Leckie (1992) From Housing Needs to Housing Rights: An Analysis of the Right to Adequate Housing Under International Law, Human Settlements Programme of the International Institute for Environment and Development, London.

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The states parties to the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights are required under article 2(1) to: “take steps, individually and through international assistance and co-operation, especially economic and technical, to the maximum extent of its available resources, with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of the rights recognized in the present Covenant by all appropriate means, including particularly the adoption of legislative measures”. Countries are required to submit reports every five years to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights outlining the legislative and other measures they have taken to fulfil the rights found in the Covenant.8 Though the norms of the Covenant received very little attention between 1976-1986, substantial progress has been made since that time due to the efforts of the Committee which monitors this important piece of international legislation.9 Prior to 1986, very little legal substance was given to the right to adequate housing. No specific pronouncements were made by the two bodies (now defunct) monitoring the Covenant at the time, nor was any effort undertaken to clarify this still often misunderstood human right. During this time, the guidelines for reports submitted by ratifying countries consisted of six vague questions, and never were countries deemed to have violated housing rights, let alone presented with critical questions concerning the prevalence of forced evictions on their territory.

Over the past few years though, this situation has changed dramatically. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which began its work in 1987 has made a concerted effort towards strengthening and clarifying the right to adequate housing; employing a number of methods in doing so. Of all the rights found in the Covenant, none has been approached with as much vigour and conviction than the right to housing. The guidelines for states reports have been totally revised, with the section on housing rights now consisting not of six meaningless queries, but of three pages of detailed questions. Several questions in the guidelines deal directly with forced evictions. Every country which appears before the Committee is presented with a detailed series of written and oral questions dealing with housing rights and forced eviction issues.

In 1990 the Committee, for the first time since the entering into force of the Covenant, took the historic step of labeling a country to be in violation of one of the rights found in this text; the right to adequate housing. The country was the Dominican Republic, and the act was forced eviction. In its’ 1991 and sixth session, the Committee re-affirmed its decision against the Dominican Republic, as well as declaring Panama to be in violation of the Covenant due to evictions as well.

Also in 1991, in a another positive gesture, the Committee adopted “General Comment No. 4 on the Right to Adequate Housing”, the first such general comment to address a specific right.10 The precision and scope by which the Committee has pro8 Philip Alston (1991) “The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights” in Manual on Human Rights Reporting, United Nations, pp. 39-78.

9 See, for instance: Young Matt Craven (1995) The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: A Perspective on Its Development, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

10 COHRE (1994) Legal Provisions on Housing Rights: International and National Approaches, COHRE, Utrecht, pp. 5964.

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vided normative substance and legal interpretation to the right to adequate housing through the unanimous adoption of the eight-page General Comment No. 4 reveals the complexities associated with housing rights, and provides a serious challenge to governments to act in compliance with their obligations under the Covenant. The Comment should be required reading for anyone interested in grasping the legal meaning of housing rights.

The contents of the General Comment should hopefully put to rest the antiquated, but still prevalent view that housing rights implies the direct government provision of a house to every citizen, built and owned by the State. In the Committee’s view: The right to housing should not be interpreted in a narrow or restrictive sense which equates it with, for example, the shelter provided by merely having a roof over one’s head or views shelter exclusively as a commodity. Rather it should be seen as the right to live somewhere in security, peace and dignity.

The Committee also addresses the difficult question of housing adequacy and the manner by which housing rights are formulated under the Covenant, by stating that: While adequacy is determined in part by social, economic, cultural, climatic, ecological and other factors, the Committee believes that it is nevertheless possible to identify certain aspects of the right that must be taken into account for this purpose in any particular context. They include: (a) legal security of tenure; (b) availability of services, materials, facilities and infrastructure; (c) affordable; (d) habitable; (e) accessibility; (f) location; and (g) culturally adequate.11

11 These seven criteria for determining ‘adequacy’ are elaborated in the following way: (a) Legal Security of Tenure: Tenure takes a variety of forms, including rental (public and private) accommodation, cooperative housing, lease, owner-occupation, emergency housing and informal settlements, including occupation of land or property. Notwithstanding the type of tenure, all persons should possess a degree of security of tenure which guarantees legal protection against forced eviction, harassment and other threats. States parties should consequently take immediate measures aimed at conferring legal security of tenure upon those persons and households currently lacking such protection, in genuine consultation with affected persons and groups; (b) Availability of Services, Materials, Facilities and Infrastructure: An adequate house must contain certain facilities essential for health, security, comfort and nutrition. All beneficiaries of the right to adequate housing should have sustainable access to natural and common resources, potable drinking water, energy for cooking, heating and lighting, sanitation and washing facilities, food storage, refuse disposal, site drainage and emergency services; (c) Affordable: Personal or household financial costs associated with housing should be at such a level that the attainment and satisfaction of other basic needs are not threatened or compromised, Steps should be taken by States parties to ensure that the percentage of housing-related costs is, in general, commensurate with income levels. States parties should establish housing subsidies for those unable to obtain affordable housing, as well as forms and levels of housing finance which adequately reflect housing needs. In accordance with the principle of affordability tenants should be protected form unreasonable rent levels or rent increases by appropriate means, In societies where natural materials constitute the chief sources of building materials for housing, steps should be taken by States parties to ensure the availability of such materials; (d) Habitable: Adequate housing must be habitable, in terms of providing the inhabitants with adequate space and protecting them from cold, damp, heat, rain, wind or other threats to health, structural hazards, and disease vectors, The physical safety of occupants must be guaranteed as well. The Committee encourages States parties to comprehensively apply the “Health Principles of Housing” prepared by the World Health Organization (WHO) which view housing as the environmental factor most frequently associated with disease conditions in epidemiological analyses; i.e. inadequate and deficient housing and living conditions are invariably associated with higher mortality and morbidity rates; (e) Accessibility: Adequate housing must be accessible to those entitled to it. Disadvantaged groups must be accorded full and sustainable access to adequate housing resources, Thus, such disadvantaged groups as the elderly, children, the physically disabled, the terminally ill, HIV-positive individuals, persons with persistent medical problems, the mentally ill, victims of natural disasters, people living in disaster-

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The Comment also expands and clarifies the legal obligations of States parties to give due priority to those social groups living in unfavourable conditions by giving them particular consideration, and for policies and legislation not to be designed to benefit already advantaged social groups at the expense of others. They then issue the view that: It would appear to the Committee that a general decline in living and housing conditions, directly attributable to policy and legislative decisions by States parties, and in the absence of accompanying compensatory measures, would be inconsistent with the obligations found in the Covenant.

As far as specific attention to forced evictions within the framework of the Covenant is concerned, General Comment No. 4 is very clear in condemning the practice: In this regard, the Committee considers that instances of forced evictions are prima facie incompatible with the requirements of Covenant and can only be justified in the most exceptional circumstances, and in accordance with the relevant principles of international law. (Para. 18) In addition to the protection afforded by the Universal Declaration and the Covenant, several other treaties also contain housing rights in more specific formulations. The most widely ratified of the UN human rights treaties, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965), in article 5(e)(iii) prohibits and obliges states parties to eliminate racial discrimination in all of its forms in the enjoyment of, inter alia, the right to housing.12 The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) requires states parties to eliminate discrimination against women in rural areas, as well as obliges states to ensure to such women “the right to enjoy adequate living conditions, particularly in relation to housing, sanitation, electricity and water supply�. The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child asserts that the 169 countries which have ratified this text shall: take appropriate measures to assist parents and others responsible for the child to implement [the right of every child to a standard of living adequate for the child’s physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development] and shall prone areas and other groups should be ensured some degree of priority consideration in the housing sphere. Both housing law and policy should take fully into account the special housing needs of these groups. Within many States parties increasing access to land by landless or impoverished segments of the society should constitute a central policy goal, Discernable governmental obligations need to be developed aiming to substantiate the right of all to a secure place to live in peace and dignity, including access to land as an entitlement; (f) Location: Adequate housing must be in a location which allows access to employment options, health care services, schools, child care centers and other social facilities. This is both true in large cities and in rural areas where the temporal and financial costs of getting to and from places of work can place excessive demands upon the budgets of poor households, Similarly, housing should not be built on polluted sites nor in immediate proximity to pollution sources that threaten the right to health of the inhabitants; (g) Culturally Adequate: The way housing is constructed, the building materials used and the policies supporting these must appropriately enable the expression of cultural identity and diversity of housing. Activities geared towards development or modernization in the housing sphere should ensure that the cultural dimensions of housing are not sacrificed and that they should ensure, inter alia, modern technological facilities, as appropriate.

12 The body monitoring state compliance with such obligations, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has begun paying increased attention to the discriminatory nature of certain types of evictions. See, for instance: Scott Leckie (1994) Destruction by Design: Housing Rights Violations in Tibet, Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, Utrecht, chapter 9, pp. 171-174.

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in case of need provide material assistance and support programmes, particularly with regard to nutrition, clothing and housing.13 The UN Declaration on Social Progress and Development, the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child, the Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements, the UNESCO Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice, the Declaration on the Right to Development and many other texts affirm the human right to adequate housing.14 Several recently established human rights standards recognize the housing requirements of certain social groups such as migrant workers15, disabled persons16, the elderly17 and indigenous peoples18. Political re-affirmation of housing rights has also increased during the past few years such that a series of UN resolutions re-affirming housing as a fundamental human right have been adopted since 1988.19 At the national level, more than fifty Constitutions, and an even broader range of States maintain housing legislation recognizing this demand and the constituent elements of housing rights as human rights.20

13 On the housing rights of children, see: COHRE (1995) Sources #5: Children and Housing Rights, Utrecht, (forthcoming).

14 Additional housing rights norms protect “equality of treatment as regards housing for refugees” (article 21, Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees) and “the rights of migrant workers to equality of treatment in relation to access to housing, including social housing schemes and protection against exploitation in respect of rents” (article 43, International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.

15 Article 43(1)(d) of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (1990) states: “Migrant workers shall enjoy equality of treatment with national of the State of employment in relation to...(d) Access to housing, including social housing schemes, and protection against exploitation in respect of rents.”

16 Article 29 of the Community Charter of Fundamental Social Rights (1989), adopted on 8 December 1989 in Strasbourg, states: “All disabled persons, whatever be the origin and nature of their disablement must be entitled to additional concrete measures aiming at improving their social and professional integration. These measures must concern, in particular, according to the capacities of the beneficiaries, vocational training, ergonomics, accessibility, mobility, means of transport and housing.”

17 Article 4 of the Additional Protocol to the European Social Charter, adopted on 5 October 1988, explicitly addresses housing within the context of the rights of the elderly.

18 Several articles of the (draft) Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as agreed upon by members of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations, at its eleventh session, 30 July 1993 directly enshrine housing rights concerns: Art. 22: Indigenous peoples have the right to special measures for the immediate, effective and continuing improvement of their economic and social conditions, including in the areas of employment, vocational training and retraining, housing, sanitation, health and social security; Art. 23. Indigenous peoples have the right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for exercising their right to development. In particular, indigenous peoples have the right to determine and develop all health, housing and other economic and social programmes affecting them and, as far as possible, to administer such programmes through their own institutions; Art. 31. Indigenous peoples, as a specific form of exercising their right to self-determination, have the right to autonomy or self-government in matters relating to their own internal and local affairs, including culture, religion, education, information, media, health, housing, employment, social welfare, economic activities, land and resources management, environment and entry by non-members, as well as ways and means for financing these autonomous functions.

19 See, inter alia, UN resolutions: 41/146 of 4 December 1986 and 42/146 of 7 December 1987 (UN General Assembly); 1987/62 of 29 May 1987 (UN Economic and Social Council); 1986/36 of 12 March 1986, 1987/22 of 10 March 1987 and 1988/24 of 7 March 1988 (UN Commission on Human Rights); 1994/L.27 of 26 August 1994, 1993/36 of 26 August 1993, 1992/26 of 27 August 1991 and 1991/26 of 29 August (UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities).

20 The following national Constitutions contain various formulations of housing rights and governmental obligations in the housing sphere: Afghanistan, Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Fiji, Greece, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Italy, Kenya, Lithuania, Mali, Mexico, Nepal, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan (Islamic Republic of), Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Russian Federation, Sao Tomé and Principe, Seychelles, Slovenia, South Africa (draft Constitution), Spain, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Turkey, Venezuela and Viet Nam. (UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1994/20, annex 1).

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A number of declarations and recommendations dealing with housing issues adopted by international institutions address the practice of eviction, in explicit terms. The 1976 UN Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements most notably, defines acceptable behaviour relating to evictions in the following two clauses: The undertaking of major clearance operations should take place only when conservation and rehabilitation are not feasible and relocation measures are made. ...

The ideologies of States are reflected in their human settlement policies.

These being powerful instruments for change, they must not be used to dispossess people from their homes or land, or to entrench privilege and exploitation. The human settlement policies must be in conformity with the declaration of principles [on Human Settlements] and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.21 This explicit international recognition of both the non-desirability of clearance operations, as well as the significant relationship noted between human settlement policies and the human rights found in the Universal Declaration provides a solid legal basis upon which governments should view the phenomenon of evictions. Further attention is given to the relocation process in texts adopted by the International Labour Organization (ILO). Convention No. 169 Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries (1989) addresses the removal of indigenous peoples from their lands in article 16, whereas ILO Recommendation No. 115 on Workers’ Housing (1961), which is outwardly outdated and in need of revision, asserts that the central public authority responsible for housing should “formulate... programmes to include measures for slum clearance and the rehousing of occupiers of slum dwellings�.

21 The Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements and Plan of Action, as contained in UN Doc. A/CONF.165/PC.1/INF.8.

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3.3 Regional Systems of Human Rights The various systems of regional human rights law, currently in place in Europe (Council of Europe, et al), the Americas (OAS) and Africa (OAU) each provide some, albeit comparatively limited attention to the issue of housing rights. The most significant trait shared by these systems is the explicit absence of the right to adequate housing within any of the treaties guiding these regional initiatives. Some regional texts however, do make reference to housing issues, and some of the organs responsible for monitoring these systems have addressed housing rights themes.

The two central human rights instruments of the Council of Europe are the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 1950 (ECHR) and the European Social Charter (1961). While the first text lacks an explicit right to housing in terms similar to those found in international instruments (eg, the right to an adequate standard of living), components of the ECHR do provide eviction protection—at least in legal terms. Article 8 of the ECHR guarantees the following: 1 Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and

his correspondence.

The interpretive principles of law demand that treaties be read in full, and thus the potential usefulness of article 1 of Protocol One to the Convention thus read together with article 8 is put forth through its terminology: 1 Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his pos-

sessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law.

2 The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of the

State to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure the payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties.

For a comprehensive view of the utility of this instrument in potentially protecting against arbitrary or other forms of eviction within Council of Europe countries, we must finally view the contents of article 2(1) of Protocol Four: Everyone lawfully within the territory of a State shall, within that territory, have the right to liberty of movement and freedom to choose his residence.

This combination of rights to privacy, peaceful enjoyment of possessions and freedom to choose a residence raise several questions if viewed through the eyes of the grow-

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ing homeless population within Europe or those potentially threatened with eviction.

For instance, can homeless people enjoy a right to privacy or the peaceful enjoyment of their possessions? Does a person without a home in fact possess the freedom to choose his residence?22 Do low-income families possess this freedom in economies with limited social security/welfare systems or where the supply of affordable housing far outstrips demand? The ECHR also guarantees the right to life, the right not to be subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment and the right to security of the person.

Another instrument, the European Social Charter codifies several directly relevant norms, including the rights of migrant workers to accommodation on equal terms to the population at large (art. 19) and the duties of the State to promote the economic, legal and social protection of family life by a variety of means including the provision of family housing (art. 16).23 The Organization of American States (OAS) comprises countries from South America, Central America, the Caribbean and North America. The Inter-American system of human rights protection sustains a variety of legal standards, four of which are pertinent to evictions and housing rights. In 1948 three separate human rights documents were adopted by the member States of the OAS, each of which mentions housing within various conceptual frameworks. These clauses cannot be viewed in isolation from one another and indeed must be seen as a basis for housing law and housing rights within the OAS region.

The OAS Charter acts as the legal foundation for the entire OAS system, somewhat like the UN Charter vis-a-vis the United Nations. Article 31 of the Charter provides the following: In order to accelerate their economic and social development, in accordance with their own methods and procedures and within the framework of democratic principles and the institutions of the Inter-American system, the Member States agree to dedicate every effort to achieve the following basic goals:...(k) adequate housing for all sectors of the population and (l) urban conditions that offer the opportunity for a healthful, productive and full life....

The second OAS text of 1948, the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man (ADRD), is similar to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights in the manner which housing is addressed, in relationship to health. Article XI states that: every person has the right to the preservation of his health through sanitary and social measures relating to food, clothing, housing, and medical care, to the extent permitted by public and community resources.

The Inter-American Charter of Social Guarantees also proclaimed in 1948 by all OAS Member States at the time, with the sole exception of the United States, also contains a pertinent norm relevant to workers rights:

22 See: Mary Daly (1994) The Right to a Home, The Right to a Future: Third Report of the European Observatory on Homelessness, 1994, FEANTSA, Brussels.

23 David Harris (1984) The European Social Charter, New York.

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The home of one of the 33,000 families currently threatened with pending forced eviction in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Š Sijmen Hendriks

workers have the right to share in the equitable distribution of the national well-being, by obtaining the necessary food, clothing and housing at reasonable prices.

These three instruments read together in the context of human rights protection within the Inter-American System refer to housing in the interests of: (a) economic and social development; (b) the preservation of health; (c) obtaining housing at reasonable prices. Problematically, none of these 1948 principles are fully binding in a legal sense, not to mention the fact that the fulfillment of these principles has certainly yet to occur in any OAS state. Most of these housing oriented norms have not been adequately reaffirmed within and by the organs of the OAS in subsequent years, nor further clarified or expanded to sufficient degrees.

The central human rights treaty of this legal system is the American Convention on Human Rights, adopted in 1969, gaining the force of law in 1978. Although this Convention reflects the general dichotomy of rights in enshrining almost solely civil and political rights, several articles are potentially useful. For instance, we should examine the (potentially) wide ranging implications of article 26:

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The States Parties undertake to adopt measures, both internally and through international co-operation, especially those of an economic and technical nature, with a view to achieving progressively by legislation or other appropriate means, the full realization of the rights implicit in the economic, social, educational, scientific and cultural standards set forth in the Charter of the Organization of American States as amended by the Protocol of Buenos Aires.

Although this OAS treaty does not expand on economic, social and cultural rights, one could argue that under this article, the states parties to this treaty implicitly undertake to fulfil the right to housing (eg. article 31 (k) and (l) of the Charter of the OAS). Further standard-setting within the Inter-American system, however, has not adequately reflected this view. The long-standing inadequacies of this human rights system vis-a-vis economic, social and cultural rights led finally in 1988 to the adoption of The Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which enshrines legal guarantees for these norms. However, the text, does not contain a right to adequate housing. This omission is staggering when viewed in the totality of legal norms found within this region, as well as within the context of legislative and normative consistency. Yet even more disturbing is the fact that all of the draft versions of this text, with the exception of the final draft, included the right to housing in explicit terms. Moreover, the monitoring procedures within the Protocol are extremely weak, involving the Commission and Court only in the most peripheral manner.

In Africa the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981) forms the basis of human rights law in member states of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). The Charter does not recognize the right to adequate housing, nor express protection against eviction. Although under the context of the right of all peoples to freely dispose of their wealth and natural resources (art. 21), “[i]n the case of spoliation the dispossessed people shall have the right to the lawful recovery of its property as well as to adequate compensation”. The rights to health (art. 16), to development (art. 22) and to a general satisfactory environment (art. 24) are economic, social and cultural rights with derivative qualities possibly pertinent to some cases of eviction as well.

Under article 19, freedom of residence is guaranteed, but only to those who “abide by the law”.

❖ This concise survey of the legal foundations of housing rights within international and regional legal systems plainly reveals widespread global support for this right. Though few rights are infringed as frequently or to the degree that housing rights experience violation, the principle that such a legally binding right exists is an indisputable fact.

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3.4 Forced Evictions and Humanitarian Law International humanitarian law (the laws of war) also addresses a number of issues directly related to forced evictions. Involuntary relocations and displacements, mass evictions and the destruction of homes are frequent during armed conflict. The act of home demolition as occurs in Palestinian territories occupied by Israel, for instance, has clear ramifications under humanitarian law, as does the construction of settlements in these territories.24 The bombing of civilian neighbourhoods during armed conflicts represents an additional act to which the laws of war apply. For instance, during the invasion of Panama by the US in late 1989, 18,000 people were made homeless, in effect evicted from their homes by US bombs.25 The Nuremberg Military Tribunal convened following the end of the Second World War declared that, among others, the following acts constituted war crimes and thus violations of the laws or customs of war: (a) deportation for any purpose of civilian population; (b) plunder of public or private property; (c) wanton destruction of towns or villages; and (d) devastation not justified by military necessity. These and other principles were expanded upon within the 1949 Geneve Conventions I-IV, the central concerns of which are the protection of victims of war. The 4th Geneve Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War August 12, 1949 addresses these issues in detail. Article 49 of Convention IV provides clearly that: Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited regardless of their motive.

Although this clause aims essentially to prevent forcible transfers and evictions, at the same time it sanctions these acts when “imperative military reasons so demand”. The principles contained within article 49 can just as easily be used to give forcible removal a legal basis as to protect the rights of potential evictees. The breadth with which imperative military reasons could be interpreted leave doubts as to the de facto protection this article might provide. Nevertheless, the fact remains that this convention prohibits individual or mass forcible transfers, regardless of motive. Should attempts be made by any legal entity sanctioning forced transfers on grounds of military necessity, these must be scrupulously analyzed for their validity.

In another text adopted in 1977, these themes are also addressed in terms very much like those of article 49. In Protocol II Concerning Non-International Armed Conflicts, article 17 states:

24 See, for instance: Palestine Human Rights Information Center (February 1994) Clever Concealment: Jewish Settlement in the Occupied Territories Under the Rabin Government: August 1992-September 1993, Jerusalem.

25 Commission for the Defence of Human Rights in Central America (1990) This is the Just Cause: Breaking the Silence: Testimony of the Panamanian People, Resulting From the USA Invasion, San José.

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1 The displacement of the civilian population shall not be ordered for reasons related to the conflict unless the security of the civilians involved or imperative military reasons so demand. Should such displacements have to be carried out, all possible measures shall be taken in order that the civilian population may be received under satisfactory conditions of shelter, hygiene, health, safety and nutrition.

2 Civilians shall not be compelled to leave their own territory for reasons connected with the conflict.

In terms of legal protection against removal, this article (which only deals with internal conflicts) provides less than those found in Convention IV. Forcible transfers are not expressly prohibited, and thus this clause could be used as a basis for the right of the State to evict. In many contexts, ‘imperative military reasons’ are often a justification for resettling entire regions of countries, and especially for displacing certain ethnic groups and indigenous peoples. The pretext of guerilla activity, whether real or perceived, is often enough to legally rationalize the forced removal of thousands of people from their homes involuntarily.

Most recently, the Statute of the International Tribunal for the Persecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia Since 1991 outlines the powers of the Tribunal to prosecute persons violating the laws or customs of war, including: b wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity; c attack, or bombardment, by whatever means, of undefended towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings; .... e plunder of public or private property.26 In legal terms at least, and especially when considered together with human rights norms, humanitarian law dealing with international conflicts prohibits individual and mass forcible transfers, as well as the destruction or attack of civilian homes. Whether countries act in good faith, abide strenuously with legal norms during the traumas of warfare and whether other members of the international community or other States Parties to the same treaties are willing to publicly condemn violations of these principles constitute further questions worth pondering.

26 The Statute of the International Tribunal for the Persecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia Since 1991 (adopted by the Security Council by resolution 827 on 25 May 1993).

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3.5 The Housing Rights Obligations of States That housing rights responsibilities are now a fundamental component of the state obligations arising under international law is not disputed. Every state has voluntarily undertaken to respect, protect and fulfil this right. Until the mid-1980’s very little other than superficial attention was given to the entire range of economic, social and cultural rights, including housing rights, whether by states themselves, or by the UN, academics, lawyers and even human rights non-governmental organizations. The past decade, however, has witnessed a significant increase in attention to economic, social and cultural rights as addressed under international law.27 One particularly important arena of activity has centered the refinement of both the state obligations relating to these rights, as well as the citizen entitlements emerging from these legal rights. Once again, article 11(1) of the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, has received the bulk of consideration of any foundation of housing rights under international human rights law.28 A synthesis of the jurisprudence of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the European Commission and Court on Human Rights, the European Committee of Independent Experts and the contents of UN resolutions and legal texts addressing housing rights issues, set within the framework of the commonly accepted methodology of the four ‘layers of obligations’ (e.g. to respect, to protect, to promote and to fulfil) of states in terms of the right to adequate housing reveals much of the substance and core content of this right.

The obligation to respect housing rights requires the state, and thereby all of its organs and agents to abstain from carrying out, sponsoring or tolerating any practice, policy or legal measure violating the integrity of the individual or infringing upon his or her freedom to use those material or other resources available to them in a way they find most appropriate to satisfy individual, family, household or community housing needs.

In this context, governments should desist from restricting the right to popular participation and must accept the corresponding commitment to facilitate and create economic, social and political conditions conducive to self-help initiatives by the beneficiaries of housing rights, as well as rights to freely organize and assemble, which are essential for the assertion of demands by dwellers or tenants groups.

Of particular importance, the responsibility to respect housing rights requires states to eschew carrying out, advocating or condoning the practice of forced or arbitrary 27 See, for instance, the reports of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Realization of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Mr. Danilo Türk, UN Docs: E/CN.4/Sub.2/1989/19; E/CN.4/Sub.2/1990/19; E/CN.4/Sub.2/1991/17; and E/CN.4/Sub.2/ 1992/16.

28 See, for instance: “General Comment No. 4 on the Right to Adequate Housing (article 11(1) of the Covenant)”, adopted by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights at its sixth session (1991), UN doc. E/C.12/1991/4, pp. 114120; P. Alston and G. Quinn, “The Nature and Scope of States Parties’ Obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights”, in: Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 9(2), May 1987, pp. 156-229; and S. Leckie, “The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Right to Adequate Housing: Towards an Appropriate Approach”, in: Human Rights Quarterly vol. 11(4), (November 1989), pp. 522-560.

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evictions of any persons or groups from their homes. States must also respect people’s rights to build their own dwellings and order their living environments in a manner which most effectively suits their culture, skills, needs and wishes.29 Scrupulously honoring the right to equality of treatment, principles of non-discrimination, the right to privacy of the home and other relevant rights form constituent aspects of the duty to respect.

While the duty to respect essentially implies a series of limits of state action, the obligation to promote compels governments to recognize the multifaceted human rights dimensions of housing and to take steps to ensure that no measures are taken with the intention of deliberately eroding the legal and practical status of this right. Moreover, comprehensive legislative review should take place, with any existing legislation or policies negatively affecting the exercise of the right to housing subject to repeal or alteration.30 The promotion function additionally requires states to place sufficient legal and policy emphasis on the full realization of housing rights, through a series of active measures including national and/or local legislative recognition of the right, the incorporation of housing rights imperatives into housing and related policies, and the identification of discernable ‘benchmarks’ towards the full enjoyment of housing rights by all sectors of society.31 The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has emphasized that “policies and legislation should not be designed to benefit already advantaged social groups at the expense of others”.32 Further refinement of the policy aims required with the recognition of housing rights dictate to governments the need to adopt national housing strategies defining the objectives for the development of the housing sector, identifying the resources available to meet these goals, the most cost-effective way of using them and setting out the responsibilities and time-frame for the implementation of the necessary measures. For both reasons of relevance and effectiveness, as well as in order to ensure respect for other human rights, such a strategy should reflect extensive genuine consultation with, and participation by, all those affected, including the homeless, the inadequately housed and their representatives. Subsequent steps

29 In third world cities, anywhere between 40-70% of all new housing is built by the eventual occupants themselves; most often outside legal regulations. See: J. Hardoy and D. Satterthwaite, Squatter Citizen: Life in the Urban Third World, London, 1989: Earthscan Publications Ltd. 30 An expansive array of legislation will, to one degree or another, affect the scale by which the right to housing is enjoyed in any society. In addition to housing laws and tenants rights legislation, laws relating to planning, zoning regulations, building codes, land and land use laws, expropriation regulations, property laws, environmental laws and many other legal domains can effect the realization of housing rights. On the effect of these various legal areas upon the realization of housing rights within India, see: TARU & YUVA (1994) The Evaluation of Legal and Regulatory Constraints to Housing Activity in India (Draft One), Delhi.

31 On the need for more intensive action on developing housing rights indicators, see: M. Kothari, “The Human Right to Housing: Problems and Perspectives of Developing ideal Indicators”, (Paper prepared for the UN Expert Seminar on “Appropriate Indicators to Measure Achievements in the Progressive Realization of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights”, held in Geneva from 25-29 1993). Also, among other developments geared toward more accurately measuring the degree to which the right to housing is in place, the UN Centre on Human Settlements (Habitat) has developed a set of key indicators designed to capture the essential elements of the shelter sector performance in all countries (UN doc. HS/C/13/INF.7 [Housing Indicators Programme], 27 April 1991).

32 General Comment No. 4 (para. 11).

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must be taken by governments to ensure co-ordination between ministries, regional and local authorities in order to reconcile related policies with the obligations arising from the Covenant.

Accurately assessing the degree to which the right to housing remains unsatisfied or denied exists as a further element of the State obligation to promote the norm. An identifiable effort must be made to identify where and to what extent the right is not in place, and consequently to target housing policies and legal measures towards attaining the right for everyone in the shortest possible time. In this regard, international law has repeatedly stressed that states must give due priority to those social or other groups living in conditions not fully consistent with the contents and intent of housing rights.

The obligation to protect the right to housing obliges the state and its agents to prevent the violation of any individual’s rights to housing by any other individual or nonState actor. Housing rights beneficiaries must, therefore, be protected from abuse by landlords, property developers, land owners or any other third party capable of abusing these rights. Where such infringements do occur, public authorities should act to preclude further deprivations as well as guaranteeing access to legal remedies for any infringement caused. Effective measures protecting persons from forced evictions, racial or other forms of discrimination, harassment, withdrawal of services or other threats must also be established.

The obligation to fulfil the right to adequate housing is the most interventionary and positive in nature, involving issues of public expenditure, governmental regulation of the economy and land market, housing subsidies, monitoring rent levels and other housing costs, the provision of public housing, basic services and related infrastructure and taxation and subsequent redistributive measures. States must establish forms of housing finance and levels of budgetary expenditure adequately reflecting society’s unmet housing needs, and which are consistent with the commitments arising from the Covenant and other legal sources enshrining housing rights.

Primarily, the duty of fulfillment comprises those active measures by government necessary for guaranteeing for each person under its jurisdiction opportunities to access the entitlements of housing rights which cannot be obtained or secured through exclusively personal efforts.

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3.6 Third Party Liability and Forced Evictions Thus the question arises: Does international human rights law play a role or have any significance to actions carried out completely independent of the organs of the state?

For instance, do the norms and standards of human rights law apply when a private landlord evicts a tenant or when thugs or private armies are hired to carry out an eviction on the private property of an owner?

Human rights law is often associated exclusively with the direct actions and omissions of the state and its agents with respect to specific legal obligations possessed by the state and consequently some argue that third party (non-state actors) responsibility cannot be directly attributable to the state. If such a vision of human rights were true, human rights law would subsequently apply only to forced evictions carried out directly by government and its organs. Evictions perpetrated by the private sector would thus, according to this argument, fall outside the mandate of human rights law.

The question as to whether third party liability has been established or addressed under various human rights standards and has received increasing acceptance. Perhaps the most prevalent position is reflected in the following manner: The general view today is that human rights treaties entail legal obligations binding States Parties to provide appropriate domestic legislation, and in some cases also administrative regulation, which furnishes protection from infringement by anyone of the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the instruments, and effective remedies if they are infringed.33 More generally, under the terms of international law, the principle of ‘due diligence’ may be of relevance in cases of forced eviction. Under this postulate, states possessive of legal obligations must show due diligence in respect to the activities, or failures to act, of particular organs of the state in order to ensure compliance with the obligations in question. As far as third party liability with regard to forced evictions is concerned, it could be argued that states must apply due diligence in regulating the private housing sector to such a degree that the rights of persons not to be forcibly evicted from their homes is enshrined in law. In the absence of such diligence, further contentions could be put forth that the state in question was failing to implement its obligations.

International human rights texts have increasingly begun addressing the issue of liability in terms of forced evictions. UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities resolution 1991/12 (Forced evictions) provides guidance in determining the legal responsibilities of actors who evict. In this respect, the resolution broadly asserts that:

33 Supra, Sieghart, note 3, chap. 3, p. 35.

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Forced evictions can be carried out, sanctioned, demanded, proposed, initiated or tolerated by a number of actors, including, but not limited to, national Governments, local governments, developers, planners, landlords, property speculators and bilateral and international financial institutions and aid agencies.34 The resolution then goes on to emphasize that “ultimate responsibility for preventing evictions rests with Governments”, a point which has been repeatedly reaffirmed within various international resolutions and other instruments. To bring this point into further perspective we can observe a case decided by the European Court on Human Rights in late 1989.35 The Court decided that rent control measures in place in Austria did not violate the rights of owners of the property under examination. The social nature of the rent control measures, while clearly quite strong, were deemed superior to the “right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions” of the several property owners who initiated the complaint. In effect thus, the rights of the tenants concerned (the beneficiaries of rent control measures) were protected from [attempted] infringement by third parties (the property owners and thus non-state actors) by this judgement. Similar reasoning was used in the more recent case of Spadea and Scalabrino v. Italy decided by the European Commission on Human Rights on 9 May 1994.36 Broadly interpreted, in those countries which have ratified treaties containing either housing rights or additional rights related to eviction, any and all persons, groups or institutions planning, sanctioning, tolerating or actually undertaking forced evictions should be regulated by the state in such a manner ensuring the prevention of possible infringements of the law. Though ultimate legal responsibility rests with the state, it is also under an obligation to ensure that any social player capable of violating the rights of others is effectively prevented from doing so.

Governments maintaining legal duties to recognize, protect, respect and fulfil housing rights therefore, are obliged to provide appropriate legislation (including the repeal or reform of laws contradictory to the realization of housing rights), policies, and enforcement mechanisms to protect all persons against infringements of their rights by anyone, and to provide effective and fair legal remedies if rights are in fact violated.

National and local governments, through either active deeds or passive inaction, are the principal institutions responsible for the eviction process attaining the excessive level it has reached throughout the international community.

Indeed, the failure to enact legislative measures explicitly protecting people against forced evictions, the large-scale absence of security of tenure rights, inappropriate housing laws and policies, an unwillingness to intervene into the private housing market or to curtail forced evictions by third parties and numerous other areas of state intransigence serve only to assist in the eviction process growing ever more widespread.

34 For the full text of Resolution 1991/12, see: COHRE (1993) Forced Evictions & Human Rights: A Manual for Action, COHRE, Utrecht.

35 Case of Mellacher and others, (13/1988/157/211-213), Judgement of the European Court of Human Rights, Strasbourg, 19 December 1989.

36 For a brief description of this case, see: Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights (1994), vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 452-453.

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Violent eviction of a squatter settlement during the apartheid era in South Africa.

Some states and institutions argue that the prevailing nature of the global economy and inter-state relations is such that evictions constitute an ‘unfortunate but necessary’ aspect of the price of development. Yet although state sovereignty is in many cases eroding as a consequence of externally imposed decisions concerning global finance, free trade, investment, debt and economic adjustment, the legal duties of states under the UN Charter and subsequent human rights treaties remain firmly in place. Moreover, even when a government willfully accepts bilateral “development assistance” or loans from the IMF or World Bank and as a result violates one or more human rights, liability does not shift entirely to the provider of finance. Legal obligations freely accepted by governments are not and cannot be subject to the fancies of a particular administration, nor the inevitable ups and downs of the international economic climate. Put succinctly, states with obligations to fulfil, respect, recognize and protect the right to housing maintain legal responsibilities to: a Provide appropriate legislation, including the repeal or reform of laws contrary to the implementation of housing rights; b Protect everyone against infringements of their rights by third parties; and c Provide effective legal remedies if human rights are infringed.

Housing rights obligations clearly imply, in an ultimate sense, the legal duty of the state to regulate the actions of all sectors of society capable of infringing on any human rights, including third parties.

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3.7 The Enforcement and Implementation of Housing Rights Under International Human Rights Law As states parties to human rights instruments are legally bound under international law to ensure the realization of the guarantees found within these instruments, certain international entities have been established to enforce or monitor compliance with the various standards. Most of the major human rights texts have corresponding committees, commissions, courts and other bodies designed to provide some recourse if any state party fails to provide adequate domestic measures or remedies.

Some international enforcement bodies are capable of receiving and judging individual complaints, also known as petitions or communications, alleging violations of a state’s obligations under a particular treaty. Some human rights treaties provide the opportunity for states parties to instigate inter-state complaints against other states parties to the same treaty, although this procedure has rarely been invoked, with the exception of the inter-state procedures under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Most human rights treaties rely heavily on a state reporting procedure and on the authority of Committee in question to review such reports in order to determine whether or not states parties have complied with the various obligations involved.

Under the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, for example, all states parties are required under article 16 and 17 of the Covenant to submit comprehensive reports once every five years outlining all legislative, policy and other measures they have to ensure compliance with the rights under the Covenant.

The Covenant does not yet include an individual complaint mechanism, although the prospects of amending the Covenant to include such options have been discussed extensively by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and within other bodies.37 Despite the absence of formal complaint procedures within the Covenant, however, through the examination of States reports, the adoption of legally interpretive ‘General Comments’ on certain provisions of the treaty, elaborating the state obligations arising from the treaty and receiving information from UN Specialized Agencies (such as the ILO, WHO, UNESCO, etc) and non-governmental organizations, monitoring bodies such as the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights are able to make consistent, balanced and constructive observations as to the degree to which states parties are complying with their obligations under international law.

Lacking a formal petition procedure, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has, however, agreed to receive written submissions from non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) and to hear oral information from NGO’s pursuant to the Committee’s review of reports of states parties on implementation of particular articles of the Covenant. According to the Committee, the purpose of this procedure is to enable the Committee to have access to all possible sources of information.

37 See, for instance: “Discussion Note prepared by Mr. Philip Alston on the question of drafting an Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which would permit the submission of communications pertaining to some or all of the rights recognized in the Covenant” (UN Doc. E/C.12/1991/WP.2).

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An important aspect of the role of international human rights organs such as the Commission on Human Rights, the UN Human Rights Committee and the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is to promote and monitor compliance with internationally recognized human rights. Such committees may adopt resolutions, concluding observations, carry out on-site investigations, publish reports and engage in other investigative or educational activities, depending on their mandate.

As distinct from international mechanisms, the domestic enforcement of international human rights instruments raises two key issues. Firstly, to what degree do human rights standards operate within national legal systems generally? This concerns the domestic validity of international human rights standards. While secondly, to what degree are these rights judicially enforceable within national legal systems? This point deals with the domestic applicability of international legal standards. These two issues will be addressed in turn as they relate to the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as they apply generally and more specifically to the right to housing.

According to the legal principle of pacta sunt servanda, states are under a legal obligation to perform treaty obligations in good faith. Resulting from this principle, states should make the requisite changes to domestic law on, or prior to, the ratification of the treaty concerned.

There are a number of methods utilized by states parties to give international treaties such as the Covenant domestic effect. One is known as ‘automatic incorporation’. A similar method, but which also requires the approval of the legislature prior to ratification is called ‘quasi-automatic incorporation’. For both of these methods, the degree to which legal provisions will be capable of being relied upon under domestic law will depend upon their self-executing character.

A third method is based upon a ‘dualist’ view of international law, whereby on the face of things, treaties have no validity under domestic law and must consequently be either incorporated or transformed into the domestic legal system, and can always be relevant in the interpretation of statutes or in the development of common law.

As far as the domestic applicability of human rights norms is concerned, it would be impossible for every human rights violation to be adjudicated in an international forum. The primary arena for the judicial enforcement of human rights remains that of the domestic law and the judiciary of the states. International human rights law therefore places emphasis on the establishment of domestic enforcement mechanisms for the protection of human rights. States parties have obligations to provide necessary, fair and adequate remedies within their own judicial systems.

Provisions of international law which lend themselves to judicial or administrative application without further legislative incorporation within the domestic context are deemed ‘self-executing’. Under international law, it is entirely appropriate for domestic courts to have reference to the Committee’s interpretation of the provisions of the Covenant.

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Even without explicit incorporation of treaties or inclusion of their provisions in domestic law, treaties and customary international law may be enforceable or “justiciable” within domestic courts, depending upon the particular legal system. Some countries, for example, have a “monist” system of law, in which the courts may require legislative action to remedy any inconsistency between international treaties ratified by these countries and their domestic legislation.

A lesser form of justiciability may be found by way of declarations by domestic courts regarding violations of international instruments. By declaring a breach of international human rights instruments, and thereby clarifying the state of international law with respect to a matter, the judiciary may play an important role in identifying infringements of rights and encouraging governments to act in accordance with international obligations. For courts to pronounce upon the status of a right and the degree of its respect as a matter of international law does not necessarily require the court to order further remedies beyond the declaration.

In accordance with the Limburg Principles on the Implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, “States parties shall provide for effective remedies including, where appropriate, judicial remedies”.38 At a minimum, the judiciaries of states must consider international human rights law as an interpretive aide to domestic law and ensure that domestic law is interpreted and applied in a manner that is consistent with the provisions of international human rights instruments ratified by the state. From the perspective of international law the underlying principle is that courts should avoid placing their governments in violation of the terms of a treaty which it has ratified.39 Generally, under international human rights law, states undertake to ensure certain human rights to all individuals under its jurisdictions and to do so without distinction as to race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. All states, therefore, as part of the international community, undertake to ensure, at a minimum that: 1 Any person whose rights or freedom are violated shall have an effective domestic remedy for such violation, even if the violation has been committed by persons not acting in an official capacity; 2 Any person claiming such remedy shall have his or her rights determined by a competent judicial, administrative or legislative authority, or by any other competent authority provided by the legal system of the state, and to develop the possibilities of judicial remedy; and

38 Limburg Principles (1987) in Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 122-135. Also contained in UN doc.

E/CN.4/1987/17, annex.

39 Philip Alston and Gerard Quinn (1987) “The Nature and Scope of States Parties’ Obligations Under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights” in Human Rights Quarterly, May, vol. 9, no 2, p.171.

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3 The competent authorities shall enforce such remedies when granted.40 With particular respect to the international law of treaties, this interpretive presumption is consistent with the general perspective that the law of treaties takes on the hierarchical relationship between international law and internal law: notably, article 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties states “a party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty.”

Instead, the Covenant often requires legislative action to be taken in cases where existing laws are in violation of the obligations assumed under the Covenant. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights also emphasizes the importance of domestic legal remedies with respect to illegal evictions or discrimination in access to housing: 17 The Committee views many component elements of the right to adequate housing as being at least consistent with the provision of domestic legal remedies. Depending on the legal system, such areas might include, but are not limited to: a legal appeals aimed at preventing planned evictions or demolitions through the issuance of court-ordered injunctions; b legal procedures seeking compensation following an illegal eviction; c complaints against illegal actions carried out or supported by landlords (whether public or private) in relation to rent levels, dwelling maintenance, and racial or other forms of discrimination; d allegations of any form of discrimination in the allocation and availability of access to housing; and e complaints against landlords concerning unhealthy or inadequate housing conditions. In some legal systems, it would also be appropriate to explore the possibility of facilitating class action suits in situations involving significantly increased levels of homelessness.

States parties have an obligation, under Article 2(1) of the Covenant to progressively adopt legislative measures which protect and realize the right to housing. And there is an obligation on states parties to undertake legislative action where current legislation is in express violation of the obligations in the Covenant. While the norms found in the Covenant may or may not be subject directly to a complaints process within domestic law, the Covenant must still play a significant role in the application and interpretation of domestic law. Where domestic law is unclear, it should be interpreted in such a way as to be consistent with any relevant international obligations assumed by that state.

40 Tanja Petovar “Domestic Institutions and Action as the Primary Means to Implement Human Rights” (paper presented to the meeting entitled “Human Rights at the Dawn of the 21st Century”, held in Strasbourg from 28-30 January 1993), reprinted in UN doc: A/CONF.157/PC/66/Add.1, p. 1.

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4

Perspectives on the Illegality of Forced Evictions

Although forced evictions continue to be widely carried out, a sizable number of judicial, quasi-judicial and political decisions have been made which, viewed in their totality, point to many inconsistencies between forced evictions and human rights law, in particular the right to adequate housing. Some legal views explicitly link violations of human rights with all manifestations of eviction, while others have approached the matter in more country and case specific terms. After reviewing the current status of international jurisprudence in this regard, we will address whether or not forced evictions are in fact a violation of human rights.

4.1 The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Of all UN human rights bodies, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has displayed the greatest sensitivity and fortitude in addressing and pursuing acts of forced eviction. The emerging jurisprudence of the Committee reveals a convincing and consistent legally-based approach concerning the practice and towards governments which sponsor or tolerate evictions, placing this act firmly into the category of unacceptable actions.

Responsible for monitoring state compliance with the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, this 18 member quasi-judicial body has requested each of the 130 countries which have ratified the Covenant to provide it with specific information about the prevalence of evictions within their territories. The guidelines which outline the form and content ‘States reports’ should take were fully overhauled in 1990, whereby each state party is required to submit to the Committee every five years, detailed answers to a variety of questions concerning the eviction dynamic in the country, including:

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• the number of persons evicted during the previous five years and the number

of persons currently lacking legal protection against eviction; • legislative measures taken to prohibit all forms of evictions; • measures taken preceding international events geared towards protecting the

rights of dwellers, and preventing evictions; and • legislative measures designed to confer security of tenure to those currently

lacking such protection.1 During 1990 and 1991 the Committee took the unparalleled steps of declaring both the Dominican Republic (twice) and Panama to be in violation of article 11(1) of the Covenant due to the extent and manner by which evictions have occurred in both these countries. These decisions embody the first official condemnations of specific countries by a UN treaty body because of the practice and tolerance of forced evictions.

The Committee has thus far adopted four ‘general comments’ which seek to provide additional guidance to states towards the fulfillment of their obligations under the Covenant. Both General Comments No. 2 and No. 4 refer directly to forced evictions.2 General Comment No. 4 also notes that under the norms of the Covenant that everyone “should possess a degree of security of tenure which guarantees legal protection against forced eviction”. Between 1992-1994, the Committee has scrutinized the housing rights situations in 18 countries and issued stern decisions and clear recommendations to several of these concerning government complicity in the practice of evictions.

Indeed, the Committee has devoted particular attention and derision to the practice of forced evictions carried out by states parties to the Covenant, and has regularly condemned evictions as a violation of the Covenant3.

1 “Revised guidelines regarding the form and contents of reports to be submitted by States parties under articles 16 and 17 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights”, Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Report on the Fifth Session (26 November - 14 December 1990), UN docs. E/1991/23 & E/C.12/1990/8, pp. 88-110.

2 General Comment No. 2 on International Technical Assistance Measures (1990) draws the attention of the international financial institutions, in particular the World Bank and IMF to the view of the Committee that: International agencies should scrupulously avoid involvement in projects which, for example...promote or reinforce discrimination against individuals or groups contrary to the provisions of the Covenant, or involve large-scale evictions or displacement of persons without the provision of all appropriate protection and compensation...Every effort should be made, at each phase of a development, to ensure that the rights contained in the Covenant are taken duly into account.

In General Comment No. 4 on the Right to Adequate Housing, adopted in late 1991, the Committee put forth one of the most forceful legal views on eviction ever to emerge from an international legal body. Paragraph 18 comprehensively declares: The Committee considers that instances of forced evictions are prime facie incompatible with the requirements of the Covenant and can be justified only in the most exceptional circumstances, and in accordance with the relevant principles of international law.

3 “With regard to the right to adequate housing, the Committee notes with great concern that practices of forced evictions without consultation, compensation or adequate resettlement appear to be widespread in Kenya, particularly in Nairobi.” (Kenya, para. 82). “The Committee requests the government Nicaragua to provide precise information on the incidents involving the expulsion of persons who have occupied land to inform it, before May 1994, of the measures it

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Additionally, at its 7th-11th sessions (1992-1994), the Committee has specifically addressed housing rights issues in States parties relating to: (a) the rights of tenants4; (b) the universal provision of security of tenure5; (c) homelessness6; (d) the need to construct low-income housing7; (e) the lack of domestic remedies for housing rights violations8; (f) land regularization9; (g) the prevalence of inadequate living conditions and service availability10; (h) the need to establish a national housing commission11;

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has adopted, in accordance with the undertakings of the Covenant, to deal with the problems of irregular settlements.

In this regard, the Committee considers that instances of forced evictions are prima facie incompatible with the requirements of the Covenant and can only be justified in the most exceptional circumstances, and in conformity with relevant principles of international law.” (Nicaragua, para. 209). “The Committee urges that State party to desist from policy measures that lead to large-scale evictions. It recalls General Comment No. 4 in which it noted that “the Committee considers that instances of forced eviction are prima facie incompatible with the requirements of the Covenant and can only be justified in the most exceptional circumstances, and in accordance with the relevant principles of international law.”(Mexico, para. 239).

“The Committee reiterated the importance the Covenant attaches to the right to housing, and recommends that the Italian government should take all appropriate measures to improve the situation of tenants and to ensure that mediumterm solutions are found in order to deal more satisfactorily with housing for the most disadvantaged social categories.

It hopes to receive all relevant information on the occasion of Italy’s submission of its third periodic report”. (Italy, para.

193).

“The Committee suggests that the State party ensure the effective implementation of laws 85 and 86 of 1990 with a view to guaranteeing security of tenure and property title. The Committee recommends that the State party develop and implement urgently a comprehensive housing policy consistent with the State party’s obligations under international instruments.” (Nicaragua, para. 211). “The Committee recommends the extension of security of tenure to all tenants and draws the attention of the State party to its General Comment Number 4 on the Right to Adequate Housing (article 11, para. 1 of the Covenant), in particular paragraph 8.” (Canada, para. 116). “The Committee recommends that steps should be taken urgently to overcome the grave housing crisis in the country. It further recommends the speedy adoption of policies and measures designed to ensure adequate civic services, security of tenure and the availability of resources to facilitate access by low-income communities to affordable housing. (Mexico para. 238).

“The Committee notes the omission from the Government’s written report and oral presentation of any mention of the problems of homelessness. The Committee regrets that there are no figures available from the Government on the extent of homelessness, on the numbers of persons evicted annually throughout the country, on the lengths of waiting lists or on the percentage of houses accessible to people with disabilities.” (Canada, para. 108).

“The Committee also recommends the increased construction of rental housing, as well as the adoption of other measures to enable Mexico to comply fully with its obligations under article 11 of the Covenant, as dealt with in General Comment No. 4 of the Committee.” (Mexico, para. 238). “The Committee recommends that Belgian authorities take appropriate measures to promote investment programmes and encourage, in particular, the construction of low-cost rental housing. In this connection, the Committee refers to its General Comment No. 4 of 1991 concerning the right to adequate housing and points out that in situations indicating a clear deterioration in the enjoyment of that right, urgent measures should be taken by the authorities concerned.” (Belgium, para. 14). “Regarding the right to housing, the Committee expresses its concern about the discontinuation of the Government’s programme for providing low cost housing in Mauritius. In this regard, the Housing Development Company Ltd, established in 1992, is in no position to replace the former Central Housing Authority, as was sadly demonstrated after the recent cyclone Hollanda. Further, concern is expressed with regard to Government harassment of hundreds of homeless people who built shacks on state land.”

(Mauritius, para. 14).

“The Committee is concerned that provincial human rights legislation has not always been applied in a manner which would provide improved remedies against violations of social and economic rights, particularly concerning the rights of families with children, and the right to an adequate standard of living, including food and housing.” (Canada, para. 113).

“Moreover, the Committee, while noting with satisfaction that the right to housing has been inscribed in the recently revised Constitution of Belgium, expresses concern at the adequacy of the measures taken to actually enforce that constitutional provision.” (Belgium, para. 11).

“The Committee is also concerned about the lack of consistency and effectiveness of the programmes to regularize land ownership and to deal adequately with the problems of housing. In particular, the non-observance of ownership of lowcost housing under Acts Nos. 85 and 86, and the slowness of the procedures instituted by the Planning Office creates a situation of legal insecurity for the occupants of such housing.” (Nicaragua, para. 207).

“The Committee is concerned about the fact that a large segment of the population of Mexico has to endure inadequate living and housing conditions, without access to basic services such as sanitation and potable water.” (Mexico, para. 234).

“The Committee, in view of the problems in the housing sector, which are still considerable, urges the Government to establish an official, nationwide Commission on Housing, comprised of representatives of Government, non-governmental organizations and other relevant groups.” (Belgium, para. 14).

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Demolition in action in Lhasa, Tibet. To date more than 10,000 Tibetans have been forced from their homes in Lhasa in accordance with the 1980 Lhasa Development Plan, devised in far-off Beijing, China. © Jirina Simajchlova (1993)

(i) protection from discrimination within the housing sphere12; and (j) expropriation for social housing purposes13.

It should be said that while such pronouncements may on the surface of things seem inconsequential, once the Committee begins explicitly addressing housing rights issues within countries, a broad series of domestic political and legal processes are brought into motion, leading in some instances to favourable changes in national laws and policies, reconsideration of the practice of forced evictions and awareness throughout countries that the international community is concerned about and closely monitoring the human rights situation. The intense scrutiny given by this Committee to forced evictions and housing rights in both developing as well as developed countries reveals, as well, that such matters are anything but purely internal affairs, as is argued by some governments.

12 “In view of the non-discrimination clauses contained in article 2(2) of the Covenant, the Committee strongly urges the Government to fully ensure that persons belonging to ethnic minorities, refugees and asylum seekers are fully protected from any acts or laws which in any way result in discriminatory treatment within the housing sector.” (Belgium, para. 14).

13 “In view of information received by the Committee that not all social housing units are occupied by lower income groups, the Committee urges the Government to undertake all necessary measures to ensure that lower-income groups have access to social housing which is affordable. The Committee urges the Government to more intensively apply existing laws allowing the Government to requisition properties and housing left unoccupied by owners.” (Belgium, para. 14).

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4.2 The UN Commission on Human Rights The UN Commission on Human Rights, comprised of 53 governments, has devoted increasing attention to the practice of forced evictions as violations of human rights in recent years. Of particular significance in this respect was the unanimous adoption of resolution 1993/77 on Forced Evictions during its 49th session in 1993. As noted above, resolution 1993/77 unequivocally equates forced evictions with ‘gross violations of human rights’.

In February 1994, the UN Commission on Human Rights considered the first-ever report issued by the United Nations Secretary-General concerning forced evictions.14 The significance of such a report cannot be over-estimated, for it indicates that the issue of forced evictions has reached one of the highest echelons of the world organization, and in turn that pronouncements relating to the incompatibility of forced evictions with human rights standards are strengthened. Among a wide range of conclusions and recommendations issued by the Secretary-General, he concluded that “in most cases evictions can be prevented and in all cases the adverse consequences can be avoided”.15 The practice of government-sponsored or induced forced evictions and displacement have also received increasing attention by the United Nations Human Rights Special Rapporteurs who have exposed and elaborated official concerns about evictions and displacement, indicating the growing seriousness with which the UN views these phenomenon. For instance, considerable attention was given to the practice of displacement and forced evictions by the UN Commission on Human Rights Special Rapporteurs on Iraq and the former Yugoslavia in 1994. Additionally, several resolutions adopted at the 49th16 and 50th sessions of the UN Commission on Human Rights held in early 1994 expressly condemned the practices of forced eviction and displacement.17 14 Analytical Study on Forced Evictions and International Law by the United Nations Secretary-General, UN Doc. E/CN.4/1994/20.

15 id., para. 142.

16 Situation of Human Rights in the Sudan (1993/L.32): “Noting with deep concern reports of grave human rights violations in the Sudan, particularly...forced displacement of persons...Alarmed by the mass exodus of refugees into neighbouring countries and the large number of internally displaced and victims of discrimination in the Sudan, including members of minorities who have been forcibly displaced in violation of their human rights; 1. Expresses its deep concern at the serious human rights violations in the Sudan, including... forced displacement of persons....9. Calls upon all parties to the conflict....to protect all civilians from violations of human rights, including forcible displacement; and Situation of human rights in Zaire (1993/L.33): “Concerned about the seriousness of the situation of human rights in Zaire and, in particular... forced population displacements; 3. Expresses its concern about the deterioration of the situation in Shaba, where the authorities bear responsibility for fresh outbreaks of ethnic tensions and for the forced displacement of 20,000 persons.

17 For instance: Situation of human rights in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Res. L.84): “5. Reaffirms the right of all refugees and displaced persons to return to their homes and the invalidity of forced transfers of property and other acts made under duress, and urges the international community to assist in reversing the consequences of these acts.”; Situation of human rights in the Sudan (Res. L.90): “2. Expresses its deep concern at the continuing and serious human rights violations in the Sudan, including...forced displacement of persons.”; Situation of human rights in Iraq (Res. L.82): “Deeply concerned at the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of Kurds and at the destruction of Iraqi towns and villages.”; and Question of the violation of human rights in the occupied Arab territories, including Palestine (Res. 1994/3(A)): “2. Condemns the continued violations of the human rights of the Palestinian people in the Palestinian territory occupied

by Israel...in particular...the demolition of homes, the expropriation of houses...the confiscation of property of Palestinians, the expropriation of land .and the establishment of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory”.

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4.3 The UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination andProtection of Minorities The UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities has been a forerunner in the provision of attention to the human rights dimensions of forced evictions. To date, the Sub-Commission—which is comprised of 26 individual experts serving in their personal capacity—has adopted resolutions each year on forced evictions since 1991; namely resolutions 1991/12, 1992/14, 1993/41 and 1994/39.18 Each of these resolutions, which closely resemble one another—have reaffirmed that forced evictions constitute gross violations of human rights and continue to urge governments to rapidly eliminate the practice. These resolutions emphasize that ‘ultimate responsibly for preventing forced evictions rests with governments’.

In 1991 the Sub-Commission also took the forward-looking step of appointing one of its expert members to prepare a working paper on “Promoting the Realization of the Right to Adequate Housing”. Justice Rajindar Sachar, Sub-Commission expert from India, was entrusted in resolution 1991/26 with examining, for the first time within a UN-sponsored study, ways and means of promoting practical respect for the internationally recognized right to housing and preventing correlative violations. The working paper was considered by the Sub-Commission in August 1992, and consequently Sachar was appointed officially by the Commission on Human Rights as UN Special Rapporteur on Housing Rights in early 1992.19 Two progress reports have been submitted by Sachar (in 1993 and 1994), with the Rapporteur’s final report to be examined in August 1995.20 Throughout his mandate, thus far, Sachar has devoted extensive attention to forced evictions in terms of illegality under international human rights law.

18 For the full texts of these resolutions, see: COHRE (June 1993) Forced Evictions and Human Rights: A Manual for Action, COHRE, Utrecht; and COHRE (August 1994) Forced Evictions: Violations of Human Rights No. 6, COHRE, Utrecht.

19 The Right to adequate housing: Working paper submitted by Mr. Rajindar Sachar, expert appointed pursuant to resolution 1991/26 of the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1992/15.

20 UN Docs. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993/15 (First Progress Report); and E/CN.4/Sub.2/1994/20 (Second Progress Report).

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4.4 The European Commission and Court on Human Rights Although neither the right to housing, nor explicit protection from forced eviction are contained in the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1950), several cases considered by the Commission and Court monitoring the Convention have dealt with forced evictions. Perhaps most prominently, the interstate complaint case of Cyprus v. Turkey of 1976 addressed evictions as a violation of the right to ‘respect for the home’, and thus provided significant protection against this clear violation of internationally recognized housing rights. The opinion of the European Commission held that: The evictions of Greek Cypriots from houses, including their own homes, which are imputable to Turkey under the Convention, amount to an interference with rights guaranteed under article 8(1) of the Convention, namely the right of these persons to respect for their home, and/or their right to respect for private life....The Commission concludes...that...Turkey has committed acts not in conformity with the right to respect for the home guaranteed in article 8 of the Convention.21 According to this opinion and within the strict context of the right to respect for the home and the right to private life, evictions constitute violations of this legal norm.

The right to respect for the home was interfered with, according to the Commission, due to the prevention of the possibility of returning to one’s home after being evicted.

The legal precedent set by this case is of the utmost importance in terms of the protection implied by the right to privacy. The inclusion of such jurisprudence within European human rights law has served to strengthen legal protection within Council of Europe member states against mass and forced evictions, and it is likely that the Commission will decide several pending cases dealing with forced evictions and massive village demolitions in Turkish Kurdistan in a similar fashion.

In the case of James and others v. the United Kingdom housing rights and eviction issues were raised by the European Court on Human Rights in the context of the right to peaceful enjoyment of one’s possessions. The Court held that “modern societies consider housing of the population to be a prime social need, the regulation of which cannot entirely be left to the play of market forces”. As such, legislation aimed at securing greater social justice in the sphere of people’s homes was justified (and thus sitting tenants should be protected), even when it “interferes with existing contractual relations between private parties and confers no direct benefit on the State or the community at large”.22 In another case dealing with an individual eviction (Case 7465/76), a man who lawfully owned his home was refused a permit to live in the house by a local Housing Authority 21 Application 6780/74 and 6950/75, Cyprus v. Turkey, Report of the Commission, paras. 208-210, European Human Rights Reports, vol. 4, p. 482.

22 Case of James and others, judgment of 28 February 1986, publications of the European Court of Human Rights, Series A, No. 98, para. 47.

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“Listen, Mr. President” proclaims this sign placed upon an evicted barrio in Lima, Peru.

due to a recent separation from his wife. The government submitted that the occupancy of the house in question was conditional on his being a member of his wife’s household, and requested the applicant to move out of his house, although he had been living there for five years. The Commission found that the refusal of the Housing Authority to grant the applicant a license and their order that he should vacate the premises interfered with his right to respect for his home as guaranteed by Article 8(1). However, under article 8(2), the Commission found that the order by the Housing Authority to the owner to vacate the premises was “in accordance with the law...which pursued a legitimate aim of preventing over-population of Guernsey, which was necessary for the economic well-being of Guernsey and for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.” Although the man’s rights were interfered with, the Commission justified the order to vacate under article 8(2), by siding with the government.

In the more recent case of Spadea and Scalabrino v. Italy, the European Commission on Human Rights opined that the failure of the public authorities to evict elderly tenants from the homes owned by the applicants was not a violation of the right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions; in effect protecting the rights of the tenants to remain in the accommodation.23 23 For a brief description of this case, see: Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights (1994), vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 452-453.

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4.5 The UN Commission on Human Settlements Though not a judicial body, one would perhaps anticipate the UN Commission on Human Settlements (comprised of 58 Governments) to have undertaken a variety of activities and decisions devised to reduce the global magnitude of forced eviction.

However, with the exception of resolutions directed at already pariah states in the eyes of the UN, the Commission has only once addressed the practice of forced evictions in universally relevant terms.

The contents of the resolutions of the Commission’s 1988 session entitled “11/9 The situation between Iraq and the Islamic Republic of Iran”; “11/10 Reconstruction of Palestinian homes”; “11/11 Assistance to victims of apartheid and colonialism in southern Africa”; and “11/12 Financing of shelter” are useful in establishing international recognition of the practice of evictions, removals and in general terms, housing rights. Resolution 11/9 stated the concern of the Commission “that the continuation of fighting will lead to further destruction and misery for innocent civilians and lead to their immigration and the abandonment of their habitat, thus leaving them without shelter”.

The resolution concerning the reconstruction of Palestinian homes addresses the issues with strong language, calling upon the Israeli occupying authorities to cease their malpractices against Palestinians in the occupied territories, particularly the blowing up and destruction of Palestinians’ houses, which conflict with the aims and principles of the Commission of Human Settlements and its endeavours to fulfil the goals of the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless, as well as reiterating ‘the right of the Palestinian people whose houses have been blown up and destroyed by the Israeli occupation to rebuild their houses and to reside in them again.’

Similarly strong criticism was directed towards the government of South Africa in resolution 11/11, wherein the Commission “strongly condemns the Pretoria apartheid regime for its continuous forced removal of the African population from their homes”. This decision was expanded in 1989 in resolution 12/3 which reaffirmed past condemnations of the continuous forced removal of the African population from their homes, yet also going further in also calling upon “the international community to provide material assistance to the displaced and homeless victims in the region”.

The 12th session also adopted resolution 12/4 which “calls for an end to the continuous destruction of human settlements in Lebanon”. The resolution addressing the Israeli-occupied territories (12/11), to the best of the author’s knowledge, represents the most detailed UNCHS resolution on eviction related circumstances, affirming the right of the Palestinian people to secure adequate shelter in which to live in peace and dignity, reiterates the right of the Palestinian people whose houses and other civilian structures have been blown up and destroyed by the Israeli occupation authorities to rebuild their homes and reside peacefully, calling upon the Israeli occupation authorities to make open the houses sealed by military order in the occupied territories; and requested the Secretary-General of the UN to establish an international fund for the

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purpose of rebuilding the homes and other structures, which were demolished by Israeli occupation authorities, as the demolition process has rendered numerous Palestinian families homeless.

A significant shift in the general approach towards forced evictions was taken by the Commission on Human Settlements at its 14th session, held in 1993. In resolution 14/6 entitled ‘The Human Right to Adequate Housing’ (operative paragraphs 3 & 4), the Commission made its initial clear statement to all states of the international community on forced evictions in the following terminology: 3 Urges all States to cease any practices which could or do result in infringements of the human right to adequate housing, in particular the practice of forced mass evictions and any form of racial or other discrimination in the housing sphere.

4 Invites all States to repeal, reform or amend any existing legislation, policies, programmes or projects which in any manner negatively affect the full realization of the right to adequate housing.24 The contents of these resolutions provide an impetus for further action along these lines at upcoming sessions of the Commission. The Commission on Human Settlements has recognized that: (a) forced evictions are an ‘infringement’ of human rights; (b) warfare leads to homelessness; (c) housing rights can be “denied”; (d) forced removals deserve international condemnation; (e) housing rights need consistent reaffirmation; and (f) the right to rebuild homes destroyed during operations sanctioned by the State. Future sessions of this body could provide a good place to put further substance to these themes, applicable to all States and not solely for those States already viewed as some of the world’s worst human rights violators. A global resolution on forced removals and evictions could assist in strengthening views of the non-acceptability of this practice, as well as creating favourable international legal precedence.

Overall, the UN Commission on Human Settlements has taken a cautious approach towards forced evictions, though where it has acted it has done so in strong terms.

Although we find increased mention of housing rights, such as within resolutions 14/6 and 11/12 as well as the central placement of housing rights within the Global Shelter Strategy, the Commission itself could foreseeably do much more to confront the global eviction dynamic.

24 UN Doc. A/48/8, pp. 20-22.

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4.6 Are Forced Evictions a Violation of Human Rights?

Considering all relevant components of international human rights law—treaties, declarations, jurisprudence, resolutions—it is increasingly clear that forced evictions are viewed as a violation of human rights. Major strides have been made in the past several years by a variety of human rights bodies which have further strengthened this view.

Despite this progress though, these decisions equating evictions with illegality, have yet to have a marked impact upon curbing this practice; evictions continue to be carried out at an alarming rate.

The human right to adequate housing is as subject to violation or infringement as any other existing human right. This fact has been widely recognized under international law. In 1990 the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights noted that “The right to housing can be subject to violation. Acts and omissions constituting violations will need to be explored by the Committee, especially in the context of forced evictions”.25 As mentioned earlier, the Committee’s General Comment No. 4 stipulates two circumstances amounting to violations of the housing rights provisions of the Covenant, namely: Para. 11: [A] general decline in living and housing conditions, directly attributable to policy and legislative decisions by States parties, and in the absence of accompanying compensatory measures, would be inconsistent with the obligations found in the Covenant.

Para. 18: [T]he Committee considers that instances of forced evictions are prima facie incompatible with the requirements of the Covenant and can only be justified in the most exceptional circumstances, and in accordance with the relevant principles of international law.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Housing Rights has also devoted substantial attention to the issue of acts and omissions by States amounting to violations of the right to housing in his three reports as well. In addition to outlining earlier proclamations as to what would constitute housing rights violations, the Special Rapporteur also outlined a lengthy series of both acts and omissions which could provoke concern regarding possible infringements of the right to adequate housing. Acts which could be considered to constitute housing rights violations include carrying out, sponsoring, tolerating or supporting the practice of forced evictions or demolishing or destroying homes or dwellings as a punitive measure.26 25 Report on the fourth session of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, UN doc. E/C.12/1990/3, p.

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26 Other violations noted by the Special Rapporteur, were: Actively denying basic services such as water, heating or electricity, to sectors of society, despite a proven ability to provide these; Acts of racial or other forms of discrimination in the housing sphere; Adoption of legislation or policies clearly inconsistent with housing rights obligations, particularly when these result in homelessness, greater levels of inadequate housing, the inability of persons to pay for housing and so forth; Repealing legislation consistent with, and in support of, housing rights, unless obviously outdated or replaced with equally or more consistent laws; Unreasonable reductions in public expenditures on housing and other related areas, in the absence of adequate compensatory measures; Overtly prioritizing the housing interests of high-income

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Several states parties to the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have been explicitly declared by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to have violated article 11(1) of the Covenant due to the tolerance and support of the practice of large-scale forced evictions. Additionally, other states have received specific recommendations for legislative and policy changes due to the existence of circumstances amounting to violations of housing rights.

Clearly the sole equation of an act with violations of human rights has rarely been sufficient to fully halt the act in question. We need only to examine the immense gap between what human rights law says about acts such as torture, racial discrimination, disappearances and political killings and the continuing flagrant violations of these norms throughout the world. And while human rights advocates struggling against these acts of brutality certainly face large difficulties, those lawyers and NGO’s grappling with the human rights implications of forced eviction have an equally daunting uphill battle.

To begin with, the vast majority of the world’s citizens have no idea whatsoever that they as individuals possess legally binding human rights to adequate housing and protection against eviction. At the same time, organizations supporting the interests of low-income groups and other marginalized segments of the world’s population also remain largely unaware of the existence, meaning and scope of housing rights protection. Even when people are knowledgeable about their rights, cases can be cited where, in an effort to halt a pending eviction using legal means, no lawyer is willing to take on the case.

Even when awareness of housing rights norms is apparent by both the people and their organizations, and legal strategies are pursued geared towards enhancing respect for these rights, small steps forward may be made, but structural change is rarely achieved. The continuing priority placed on civil and political rights by virtually all actors involved in the human rights movement, has also led to circumstances where human rights organizations and lawyers are unwilling to provide assistance to slum dwellers organizations, community groups and others fighting a planned eviction, because the legal field continues to view economic, social and cultural rights as largely insignificant.

Many further examples could be provided, but suffice it to say that although in the eyes of international human rights law, forced evictions clearly constitute a violation of the right to adequate housing and other rights, this mere fact will not in and of itself result in a reduction of the global evictions dynamic. Clearly, new initiatives will be required to achieve this goal.

groups when significant portions of society live without their housing rights having been achieved; Constructing or allowing the building of housing upon unsafe or polluted sites threatening the lives and health of future occupants; and Harassing, intimidating or preventing non-governmental and community-based organizations and grassroots movements and groups concerned with housing rights from operating freely. (UN doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993/15, para. 144).

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5

Deterrents to Forced Evictions

There is a clear need for a concerted global probe for viable, people-based alternatives to eviction. This paper argues that in the majority of cases forced evictions can easily be prevented, and that in those cases where a situation of so-called ‘unavoidability’ exists, only rarely are all possible alternatives faithfully explored and considered.

And yet there do remain just grounds for carrying out forced evictions, as discussed in section 2.6. Human rights law itself recognizes that under ‘exceptional circumstances’ and ‘in accordance with existing principles of international law’, evictions can be undertaken. As outlined, above, forced evictions are commonly characterized as ‘unavoidable’ or ‘necessary in the public interest’, implying the inevitability of this process and placing subsequently insufficient emphasis on seeking viable alternatives to the practice or on the human rights issues involved. Only a minor percentage of all forced evictions affecting the world today, however, are carried out in situations consistent with ‘exceptional circumstances’.

While the significance of UN and other pronouncements linking forced evictions with human rights violations are sizable, in the absence of corresponding plans and procedures for avoiding the practice, seven of which are considered below, the rights of those promoting forced evictions will continue to prevail over and above the rights of those forced against their will to leave their homes and lands.

5.1 Taking Housing Rights Seriously Economic and developmental considerations are the actual motivations behind a majority of evictions. Incentives to grow economically, to reap benefits from rising land prices, and to ‘develop’, often overshadow the urges of common people to a decent and secure place to live. Rights to property continue to prevail over rights to housing and because of this housing rights remain under-emphasized by governments, unenforced by courts, and largely unknown to the very people these rights are designed to assist. In the absence of housing rights being taken seriously, implementing viable alternatives to forced evictions will continue to constitute a very challenging task.

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As noted earlier, nowhere in international law or elsewhere does the right to housing mean the immediate provision of a home to all citizens upon request. Unfortunately, this mistaken vision of the meaning of housing rights continues to dominate the public’s impression of this right. This stems from both the fact that housing is still viewed mainly in commodified or structural terms, linked with the ‘four walls and a roof’ approach to housing. The fact that the manner in which the term is phrased—a right to housing—easily adds to confusion. These false outlooks, moreover, guide people and governments into the complacent opinion that housing rights are unenforceable under the law.

International law, of course, qualifies the entitlements found within housing rights with the impressionable terms of ‘progressive realization’ and ‘to the maximum extent of a States resources’. Similarly, states with obligations to fulfil this right are required to take ‘appropriate steps’. There would be no other way of formulating this right. As such, enforcing the right to housing and the many entitlements of this right, implies a step-by-step approach leading only eventually to the full, society-wide enjoyment of this right.

However, even with these many qualifications a precious few countries have taken sufficiently meaningful and appropriate steps, utilizing fully all available resources towards this end. A quick review of the states reports submitted to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights reveals that almost no State acts upon the right to housing in a manner fully consistent with the norms of the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, nor the emerging jurisprudence on this right adopted by the Committee itself.

Few states, if any, have undertaken comprehensive and systematic legislative reviews of all laws relevant to or affecting the full realization of the right to housing. Only a handful of countries place as much emphasis on international legal standards as on national norms. Almost nowhere are all aspects of this right deemed capable of judicial scrutiny or considered fully justiciable. No state regularly collects figures on the number of people forcibly evicted over a given period of time, and even census figures in those few countries which collect data on homelessness are far more often glaringly unrealistic than truly accurate.

The vast majority of governments have yet to undertake large-scale public information campaigns informing their citizenry of their housing rights. Whereas a minute proportion of countries provide training and education to civil servants on the obligations assumed with the recognition of this right. A minority of states have consciously adopted implementing legislation following the ratification of treaties containing the right to housing. Virtually no government is presently willing to officially criticize other governments records on respecting housing rights, although this option always remains open under international law.

This wholly inadequate situation exposes the many political and legal spaces which, for the majority of the world’s governments, remain depressingly empty. Without concerted efforts along these lines aimed at enforcing the right to housing—developing a

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Forced evictions are particularly harmful to children, as exemplified by this child in front of her demolished home in Nairobi, Kenya.

package of new legal and policy objectives—the practice of forced eviction will continue to affect literally millions of persons every year. Enforcing housing rights will not, in and of itself, eradicate, but will assist in preventing further outbreaks of this ugly consequence of development. As recommended by the UN Secretary General in his analytical study on forced evictions and international law: One of the most urgent measures to be taken by Governments in eliminating the practice of forced evictions is the enforcement of housing rights....(Para.

151) It is, therefore, recommended that the steps to be taken towards the full enjoyment of the right to adequate housing include, inter alia, the undertaking of comprehensive and systematic legislative reviews of all national laws relevant to or affecting the right to housing to ensure their conformity with international standards, to initiate nationwide public information campaigns on the various provisions on the issue of housing, as well as the regular inclusion in States reports to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of data relevant to evictions, resettlement and homelessness. (Para. 152).1 1 UN Doc. E/CN.4/1994/20.

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5.2 Legislative Protection Against Forced Evictions Legislative measures are often optimistically seen by lawyers as instantaneous solutions for many social ills, even when dealing with complex issues like housing, employment, taxation and discrimination. Yet even if a law is designed with the most noble aims, in the absence of sustainable political will, powerful means of enforcement and a society-wide pledge to respect it, legislation is unlikely to succeed in achieving its objectives. We need only look at the situation of the Philippines where constitutional and statutory protection exists against evictions, yet also where many tens of thousands of people are forcibly evicted each year.2 At the same time, none of the 51 countries which enshrine housing rights or other state duties in the housing domain in their Constitutions can rightfully assert the full satisfaction of this right for everyone.

Though often unenforced and beset with inadequacies, legislation remains a central and imperative part of the social contract required for the eviction process to be curtailed. Under the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights countries are obliged to submit information on legislation in place which protects people from forced and arbitrary eviction.

In the quest towards seeking alternatives to forced eviction, the adoption of legislative protection against all manifestations of this practice remains of paramount importance as one means of halting this most severe violation of housing rights. Legislation creates a framework designed to build-in parameters of acceptable action by all actors capable of instigating the eviction process, and serves to enhance and operationalize existing governmental obligations to respect housing rights. At the same time, the legislative process can provide a pedagogical and empowering perspective in society about the relationship between the duties of the State and the rights of citizens.

Corresponding legislation is also needed for those exceptional cases where absolutely no reasonable alternative to eviction can be accessed, guaranteeing adequate and acceptable alternative accommodation, the rights of dwellers to participate fully in the process from start to finish, the right to return to one’s dwelling following the completion of renewal or renovation programmes, the right to full information and consultation prior to any eviction plan, and the right to legal remedies and assistance.

2 Urban Poor Associates & Saligan A Report to the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social & Cultural Rights on Housing Rights Abuses in the Philippines 1986-1994 (1994), Manila.

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5.3 Universal Security of Tenure The universal conferral of security of tenure to all citizens would perhaps constitute the single most effective action governments could undertake to curtail the practice of forced evictions. Security of tenure—the legal right to protection from arbitrary or forced eviction from one’s home or land—plays a significant role in discouraging the eviction process and in protecting dwellers. This point has been repeatedly recognized and is well-accepted. However, as Angel and Boonyabancha point out: There is ample evidence that, given secure land tenure, poor people will mobilize their own savings to improve their houses gradually over time. There is also ample evidence that governments cannot produce housing units which the poor can afford. Given these realizations it has been suggested again and again that governments act to make land tenure secure, and to enable people to build and improve houses by themselves. Reasonable as it may seen and convincing though it may be, governments have failed to act widely on the land tenure issue in all but a handful of cases.

Security of tenure has been increasingly addressed within the human rights domain, and several encouraging developments have occurred in recent years, firmly linking housing rights, evictions and the right to security of tenure. General Comment No. 4 on the Right to Adequate Housing clearly places security of tenure into the category of legal entitlements assumed under the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Tenure takes a variety of forms, including rental (public and private) accommodation, cooperative housing, lease, owner-occupation, emergency housing and informal settlements, including occupation of land or property. Notwithstanding the type of tenure, all persons should possess a degree of security of tenure which guarantees legal protection against forced eviction, harassment and other threats. States parties should consequently take immediate measures aimed at conferring legal security of tenure upon those persons and households currently lacking such protection, in genuine consultation with affected persons and groups.

Additionally, the UN Secretary General’s report on forced evictions refers to the necessity of conferring on security of tenure in the following terms: Governments are often not required to do more than refrain from forced evictions in order to respect the right to adequate housing, as long as a commitment to provide support to the self-help housing efforts of the poor exist through technical, legal and financial assistance. In this situation, one of the most far-reaching measures is the provision of security of tenure. According to [UNCHS] Habitat, legal protection in the form of granting an occupancy permit or title to a piece of land destined for residential use is the single most important step Governments can take in honouring their commitment to the

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right to adequate housing, and to the eradication of the practice of forced evictions. These steps, in turn often trigger and impressive level of investment in self-help housing, especially among the poor in developing countries. (para.

160)3 He continues, stating that “[o]ne specific legally based action Governments should undertake to curtail the practice of forced evictions is the universal conferral of security of tenure. Security of tenure, namely the legal right to protection from arbitrary or forced eviction - equally relevant to owners, tenants and squatters - may play a significant role in discouraging the eviction process”.

Each of the resolutions adopted by the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities and Commission on Human Rights recommend that Governments undertake policy and legislative measures aimed at curtailing the practice of forced eviction, including the conferral of legal security of tenure to those currently threatened with forced eviction, based upon effective consultation and negotiation with affected persons and groups. For instance, resolution 1993/77 of the Commission on Human Rights, in increasingly common language of the UN human rights bodies, urges all Governments to “confer legal security of tenure on all persons currently threatened with forced eviction and to adopt all necessary measures giving full protection against forced eviction, based upon effective participation, consultation and negotiation with affected persons or groups”.

In UN Commission on Human Settlements resolution 14/6, states are urged to establish appropriate monitoring mechanisms and indicators on the extent of homelessness, inadequate housing conditions and persons without security of tenure, as well as other issues arising from the right to adequate housing. Furthermore, Agenda 21 adopted at the conclusion of UNCED in 1992 is explicit in the recognition of the importance of tenure security: Chapter 7.30(f): All countries should consider developing national landresource management plans to guide land-resource development and utilization and, to that end, should...establish appropriate forms of land tenure that provide security of tenure for all land users, especially indigenous people, women, local communities, the low-income urban dwellers and the rural poor.

Read in conjunction with one another, and considering as well, the other foundations of housing rights in international law, security of tenure for everyone has been entrenched into the official legal interpretation of the right to adequate housing. Naturally, the exclusive existence of tenure security, without adequate safeguards for affordability and an acceptable level of habitability, would not fully satisfy the legal requirements inherent in housing rights, nor would it ensure the prevention of planned forced evictions. Nevertheless, security of tenure remains fundamental.

3 UN Doc. E/CN.4/1994/20, p. 40 (paras. 159 & 160).

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5.4 Popular Responses to Threats of Eviction Community-based and non-governmental responses to the global threat of eviction have in some cases been successful in preventing planned evictions from taking place as well as in encouraging positive legislative activity aimed at reducing the prevalence or scale of this practice. In so doing, a broad range of strategies, actions and programmes have been undertaken, including the formulation of alternative urban policy proposals drastically limiting the necessity of forced eviction, mobilization of communities affected by forced evictions, invoking judicial remedies aimed at hindering planned evictions, and increasingly undertaking international legal measures.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the majority of information about eviction incidents contained in this report were not obtained from government or official sources, but from the numerous non-governmental and community-based organizations involved in the global struggle against this practice.

Non-governmental organizations (NGO's) and community-based organisations (CBO's) have developed a wide range of alternative plans in instances were evictions are set to occur. In the Dominican Republic, CBO’s such as COPADEBA, CEDIAL, and Ciudad Alternativa have drafted detailed alternative schemes for urban development in Santo Domingo, wherein an eviction-free, people-based city is the intention.

The Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR) and other groups in Thailand have sought to incorporate eviction alternatives and participatory-based development into the planning process in Asian urban centres such as Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Seoul, Hong Kong and Manila. The National Campaign for Housing Rights (NCHR) in India has assisted in fundamentally shifting national views of housing as a structure to housing as a process. In so doing, the NCHR has prepared a draft Housing Rights Bill.

A variety of other organizations have rallied behind the issue of housing rights in the quest of achieving greater legal recognition and respect for this right. Fedevivienda in Colombia, for instance, waged a successful campaign to include housing rights in the new Colombian constitution in 1991. The Swiss Campaign for Housing Rights also succeeded in obtaining enlarged legal protection for housing rights in the mid-1980’s.

On the other side of the coin, the UK Housing Rights Campaign received only a blind eye from the UK Parliament when it proposed its own Housing Rights Bill as an alternative to the Conservative Government’s Housing Bill. The Institute for Policy Studies in the US has developed a detailed ‘Blueprint for Housing the Nation’ which relies heavily on the right to housing, though no governmental action has been taken.

NGO’s and CBO’s also play the important role of exposing and publicizing actual and planned evictions throughout the world. Organizations such as the ACHR, YUVA in Bombay, and numerous others have sought to create greater public awareness of the nature and extent of eviction processes by providing high-quality and reliable information about evictions to a wider public.

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Virutally no one is ever forced from their homes without a struggle for their rights, their place and their community.

(Lima, Peru)

At the international level, Habitat International Coalition (HIC) is engaged in a Global Campaign for Housing Rights and Against Forced Evictions, involving a series of activities geared towards achieving the aim of a place to live for everyone, everywhere.

Many of the recent developments in international law concerning housing rights and evictions, such as the General Comment No. 4, resolutions on Forced Evictions, the commissioning of a UN study on promoting housing rights and other initiatives were accomplished due in part to pressure applied by HIC upon the various human rights organs of the UN. The HIC-affiliated Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) also publishes annual reports listing all the major evictions which have come to its attention during the previous year, and lobbies UN human rights bodies to devote attention to countries where evictions are prevalent.4 The groups working with communities and people threatened by the global scourge of forced eviction know better than anyone else the human tragedy which is so commonly a result of this practice. And for this and many additional reasons, the efforts of NGO’s and CBO’s towards gaining greater respect for housing rights, as well as protecting people from eviction, are a significant means of seeking viable alternatives to the processes leading to forced eviction.

4 The UN Secretary-General has recognized in para. 174 of his analytical study that: The role of non-governmental organizations in the prevention and elimination of the practice of forced evictions is one of great importance and should be promoted in full. Their involvement as intermediaries between policy makers and affected persons for the mutual benefit of all actors involved and especially to defend the interests of the victims must be stressed. Well-informed non-governmental organizations may help to obtain political support and to alert public opinion to deter planned forced evictions, they may coordinate and assist in the resettlement, as their role is often crucial in the relocation process. In addition, people often do not know what their rights and options are in situations of looming forced evictions, and NGO’s can give legal and professional assistance. (UN Doc. E/CN.4/1994/20).

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5.5 Land Sharing In typical cases where a conflict of interests arises between landowners and the occupants of the land in question, the practice of land-sharing can provide a mutually satisfactory solution to the dispute for both sides. The principle of land-sharing as a means of eviction prevention involves the re-distribution of the land in question between the occupants and the owner. At the most basic level, the land is split into two (or more) parts; one reserved for housing the people who live on the site and the other part reserved for the landowner to develop, generally along commercial lines.

A concept originally developed in several Asian countries, most notably Thailand, India and Sri Lanka, land-sharing not only prevents eviction, but satisfies both parties to the conflict. Landlords benefit from the immediate repossession of land and developing it, a likely increase in land value, and the elimination of legal or other fees involved when evictions are carried out. More importantly even, the occupants benefit by being accorded security of tenure, the elimination of eviction threats or harassment, a strong incentive to build permanent and thus safer and healthy homes, and they get to remain on the location originally occupied, near to places of employment, transport, schools and other social amenities which encouraged them to move to the land in the first place. Public agencies benefit as well, to the extent that social unrest is avoided, the relative ease with which public services can be provided, and the occupants new security of tenure provides incentives to government to pursue upgrading and improvement programmes.

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5.6 Relocation Guidelines In recognition of the severe human traumas associated with forced evictions, as mentioned at the outset, several agencies have developed guidelines on relocation.

Though initiatives with ostensibly noble intentions, relocation guidelines can only ever be partial solutions. This is true even if such measures recognize the non-desirable human impacts of eviction. According to the UN Secretary-General: Para. 169. [Relocation] guidelines may assist policy makers of donor countries in deciding against funding a project involving evictions, but will have only limited impact upon Governments in recipient countries which continue the practice. Where outside agencies. such as donors and/or bilateral organizations, are able to exert influence through project guidelines, as in the case of the World Bank, such guidelines may indeed play a positive role. However, it is imperative to develop guidelines which can have an impact on development situations where special leverage is not available or outside agencies are not involved....

Para. 170. Nevertheless, it is vital to understand that such guidelines might also constitute a tacit acceptance of the practice of forced evictions, although this report advocates as its main recommendation that forced evictions must be avoided if at all possible and only carried out if absolutely necessary. Guidelines for relocation are important, however, and, if pursued realistically and faithfully by all the actors involved, can assist in finding alternatives to the eviction process and the consequent violations of the right to adequate housing.

The current position of UNCHS (Habitat) regarding forced evictions, relocation and resettlement, as outlined and understood in the report on forced evictions and international law by the UN Secretary-General concludes that: “The guidelines elaborated

by Habitat contain the following elements: a avoidance of relocation if at all possible; b if relocation is unavoidable, sufficient resources, including the assistance of NGO’s and community-based organizations, must be allocated to ensure that the urban poor do not suffer from the process; and c the parties benefitting from the development causing the relocation should pay the full costs of the relocation process including the socio-economic rehabilitation of relocatees.�5

At one level, such guidelines provide a tacit acceptance of the practice of evictions, and proponents of such policies fervently support them claiming their necessity when 5 UN Doc. E/CN.4/1994/20, para. 169.

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a removal is ‘unavoidable’ or ‘in the public interest’. Rarely, however, are these legitimizing terms explicitly defined. Without a globally accepted clarification of these rationales for removal, we come dangerously close to the similar justifications of ‘in the interests of national security’, which are widely known to have led to cruel abuses of power by those promoting this form of politics.

Moreover, guidelines on removal rarely address in sufficient detail the many human rights implications or the political economy of the eviction process. Ignoring the political motivations of this practice, of course, means a lack of recognition that precious few countries at this stage at least, will be willing to apply such guidelines in full.

Such guidelines may assist policy-makers in the aid-giving countries in deciding against funding a project involving eviction, but will unfortunately have only limited impact upon the majority of the world’s governments which continue to evict their citizens using their own resources.

Some commentators have suggested including the financing of relocation within the overall budget for specific projects involving the involuntary movement of people, particularly concerning World Bank supported projects. On the surface of things this may seem a positive suggestion. However, it appears unlikely that governments already swamped by external debt problems will accept World Bank loans, perhaps nearly doubled in size due to the inclusion of relocation costs, and therefore be forced to pay back the loan at a much higher rate than initially anticipated.

Many aspects of relocation strategies are fully supportable within a human rights context. For instance, the criteria that the responsibility of parties benefitting from the development causing relocation to pay the full costs of the relocation process, fits in consistently with the rights of dwellers to receive compensation, as well as acting as a strong dis-incentive for developers to evict.

Guidelines for relocation are important, but should not be allowed to be used as a rationale for encouraging the eviction process, nor viewed as a panacea for addressing the human component of this practice. If pursued faithfully and realistically by governments, third parties, international financial and development agencies, NGO’s and others, the most important role of guidelines—discouraging and deterring the eviction process—can assist in finding real alternatives to this continuing violation of human rights to adequate housing.

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5.7 Invoking International Legal Remedies Although one of international human rights law greatest inadequacies concerns the relative paucity of legal remedies designed to vindicate violations of economic, social and cultural rights, there do exist a substantial number of complaint procedures which can be invoked by individuals or groups threatened with forced eviction and by those seeking adequate compensation following any eviction of any size.6 Indeed, two of the more interesting developments in the continuing codification of international human rights law relate precisely to the establishment of new remedial procedures associated with economic, social and cultural rights. Discussions have been underway for several years to include such procedures under the European Social Charter and the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.7 Should such measures eventually be adopted, the prospects of individual and group victims of past or pending forced eviction achieving both justice for past wrongs and protection against future breaches, will expand considerably.

As far as currently available international (UN) or regional (OAS, OAU, Council of Europe) human rights complaint procedures are concerned, a certain degree of creativity is required in invoking either the legal or quasi-legal redress mechanisms.

Indeed, it must be emphasized that the utilization of the numerous international and regional human rights mechanisms are often more political than legal in nature, which one the one hand might decrease the vitality of whatever decisions are made, but which also allow the relatively easy use such measures by non-lawyers and victims of human rights violations themselves. As outlined in section 4, a wide range of human rights bodies have examined the practice of forced evictions within clear human rights and housing rights frameworks. From these processes, a reasonably unified approach to forced evictions has been taken, eg. as an action carried out or tolerated by governments falling outside the realms of acceptable governmental behaviour.

Some may consider the use of international or regional legal remedies devoted to vindicating housing rights as an inherently futile gesture of desperate communities menaced by the prospect of a destructive eviction. However, as evidenced by the activities of Habitat International Coalition with and on behalf of affected communities within the UN human rights bodies, such initiatives can make a real difference in the ultimate actions of governments. None of the currently available legal or quasi-legal remedies will have any impact unless they are actively and consistently invoked by civil society. And as has been shown repeatedly throughout this report, when invoked, more often than not, international mechanisms dealing with human rights have taken staunchly critical stances against forced evictions.

6 See: COHRE (1995) Handbook on Enforcing Housing Rights, COHRE, Utrecht (forthcoming).

7 On the European Social Charter, see: “Draft Second Additional Protocol to the European Social Charter Providing for a System of Collective Complaints”; and Boerefijn, Heringa and Schokkenbroek (1991) “Towards a New System of Supervision for the European Social Charter” in The Review, International Commission of Jurists, Geneva, pp. 42-50. On moves to amend the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to include an individual complaint mechanism, see: Draft optional protocol providing for the consideration of communications: by Mr. Philip Alston (UN Doc. E/C.12/1994/12 (9 november 1994)).

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6

International Measures for Eviction Avoidance

Despite the expanded attention given to forced evictions by the human rights community, the practice rather than decreasing, appears to be growing. If forced evictions do indeed constitute a violation of housing rights and are judicially viewed as incompatible with international legislation, there thus exists a substantial gap between legal norms and practice. Such circumstances disclose the compelling need for creating new legislation, guidelines and enforcement mechanisms geared towards eviction prevention, and which will have applicability at all levels: locally, nationally, regionally and globally. The suggestions outlined here point to specific and practical actions, which if pursued vigourously, could succeed in eroding and eventually eradicating the acceptability still gifted upon the practice of eviction.

6.1 Model Eviction Prevention Legislation With a view to assisting governments in adopting legislative measures aimed at preventing evictions and identifying areas of legislative review, a number of institutions, including the United Nations, donor agencies, housing ministries, research institutes and non-governmental and community-based organizations could formulate ‘model eviction prevention legislation’ and seek to identify those areas of the law which should be examined for their consistency with international legal interpretations of the right to adequate housing.1 In this respect, several areas merit particular attention.

1 Such a perspective is shared by the UN Secretary-General: “...The involuntary removal of persons, families and groups from their homes is a current practice in many countries which, in most cases, is contradictory to, if not a blatant infringement of, fundamental, internationally recognized human rights law” (Para. 143). “Such circumstances disclose a compelling need to create new legislation and effective mechanisms geared to the prevention of forced evictions at national, regional and international levels, with a view to enforcing the implementation mechanisms of the right to adequate housing” (Para. 144).

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Resettlement area outside Bombay. Proponents of resettlement as an adequate response to forced evictions should perhaps experience the reality of resettlement prior to advocating such approaches. © Sijmen Hendriks

a Constitutional Amendments or Revisions States which do not maintain Constitutional provisions providing sufficient legal protection against evictions should examine the utility and purpose of amending or revising their Constitutions to include such guarantees. When and if this occurs, attempts should be made to ensure that these additions are accompanied by judicial remedies.

Including such norms within constitutional frameworks is an inherently reasonable proposition.

States which have undertaken to respect and protect housing rights under, for example, the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have accepted obligations under article 2 to achieve the full realization of, inter alia, housing rights “by all appropriate means, including particularly the adoption of legislative measures”. One conclusively ‘appropriate’ legislative measure which could and should be considered by governments is the adoption of constitutional provisions explicitly designed to prevent forced evictions from taking place.

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b Protection Against Eviction Acts Comprehensive and detailed legal provisions against forced evictions could be also included in national “Protection Against Evictions Acts”. The precise grounds upon which evictions cannot be justified, the legal remedies available to those illegally evicted and other core issues could be included within such legislation. c Housing Rights Acts National Housing Rights Acts could be adopted with a view to ensuring full and comprehensive legal protection for everyone that their housing rights will be respected, protected and fulfilled. In many settings, this option is both more feasible and substantial than the inclusion of housing rights within a Constitutional framework. Statutes are, of course, generally far more detailed than Constitutional citations. Many national housing acts, laws or statutes already contain express clauses prohibiting illegal evictions. Whether these measures go far enough in protecting the rights of occupants is another question. However, the existence of such legal measures point to the clear and reasonable possibility of countries currently lacking such legislation, considering adopting measures like these. d Revision or Reform of Existing Housing Legislation One of the central purposes of the period between the signature and ratification of a treaty and the subsequent reporting obligations found in all major human rights treaties involves internal legislative review. If carried out with the necessary resources, wherewithal and comprehensiveness, the legislative review function can divulge areas of law which require revision or repeal, and other areas where new legislation should be put in place. Any serious attempt by governments to review legislation with a view to creating consistency between national laws and international legal obligations, must include an analysis of the relationship existing law and forced evictions.

Comprehensive legislative surveys could be carried out within all countries with a view to determining the precise extent to which eviction protection and general housing rights exist within legislation as it now stands. Analysis could focus on a determination of which of the “core contents” of housing rights are in place, which are not, which are protected in practice and which are largely ignored. Through this process, the legal gaps within housing legislation vis-a-vis housing rights can be derived, leading towards the encouragement of measures aimed at rectifying these.

Through the adoption of such measures, the general avoidance of evictions as a tool of housing (or other) policy within a certain state will be explicitly addressed through a public debate and discussion at all levels. Purely state-based or lawyer-based initiatives, however, are likely to reinforce often inappropriate visions of housing rights and evictions.2 Full and active participation during all stages of the legislative process by all sectors of society must accompany any legal developments in the fields discussed here.

2 Boucher, Laurie “Building Housing Rights From the Bottom Up: The Community Development Approach”, A Discussion Paper presented for the “Working for Housing Rights Conference”, Habitat International Coalition, Ottawa, May 1990.

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6.2 An International Convention on Housing Rights The relative inconsistency of existing norms, the sometimes major discrepancies between current formulations of housing rights as well as the still prevailing disagreements about the nature of housing rights and protection against forced evictions continue to confront the legal side of the housing rights debate. Although legal resources can be found on a very wide scale, they have yet to be taken seriously enough by the states bound to fulfil whatever obligations may exist.

Adding an International Convention on Housing Rights to the existing body of international human rights law could, if appropriately worded and backed up with adequate enforcement mechanisms and popular awareness, yield practical progress in fulfilling this right. The steps leading towards a new Convention would provide an opportunity for in-depth global debate on the issue of housing rights, something which for all intents and purposes has yet to occur. Recently, appeals have been made to conclude an International Convention on Housing Rights within the context of the World Summit on Human Settlements (Habitat II) to be held in 1996.3 The UN Secretary General also addressed this issue in early 1994.4 The eventual adoption and widespread ratification of an International Convention on Housing Rights could serve to: a Strengthen and consolidate international legal standards relevant to evictions and housing rights; b Provide a framework for international debate and discussion to emerge on these themes during the drafting process; c Provide a succinct and comprehensive legislative text comprising all of the central elements of the issue; d Encourage the further development, refinement and elaboration of general themes surrounding economic, social and cultural rights as a whole, such as the enforcement of these rights, determination of violations and the general justiciability of these norms; e Instigate new international discussions concerning the entire monitoring and enforcement process of human rights treaties, aiming to broaden the existing scope of these bodies; and f Provide a ‘yardstick’ against which to measure national and local laws impinging upon the practice of forced eviction or the full realization of housing rights.

3 Scott Leckie (1994) Towards an International Convention on Housing Rights: Options at Habitat II, American Society on International Law, Washington DC. 4 Para. 173 of the Secretary General’s analytical study on forced evictions and international law provides: “It should also be noted that the Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing has been requested by the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities to examine the feasibility of an international convention on housing rights which would provide an opportunity for...debate on the issue...at the international level”.

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6.3 Eviction Impact Statements Similar in content to environmental impact statements, the addition of Eviction Impact Statements to the list of legal requirements of forces supporting or tolerating evictions could serve to protect the rights of potential victims of this process.

Though the weaknesses of environmental impact statements in comprehensively protecting ecological stability have long been known, these processes have sometimes proven successful in reducing local distress from planned development projects with potentially damaging effects on the environment.

An eviction impact statement, however, should never be viewed as a substitute for legislative activity designed to protect citizens from forced eviction. At best such statements can only be an interim measure; as with guidelines on resettlement such measures, if improperly carried out, will only to justify the eviction process. The ultimate goal of such procedures would be to protect the rights of potential evictees, reduce social tension and mitigate occupants hardship. Yet again, the UN Secretary General, has addressed this issue as well.5 The following components could form the core of Eviction Impact Statements wherever they may arise: 1 Eviction Impact Statements constitute a permanent element of all economic and physical planning and development processes and decisions which could threaten persons or groups with eviction. Permission to remove occupants from any given site will not be granted if such Statements are not provided to the competent authorities, or if the completed Statement reveals insufficient protection for affected persons or groups; 2 All actors, whether the government or its organs, private persons, international funding agencies or any other relevant person or group planning to carry out or sponsor any act, project or programme, which in any way could foreseeably result in the forced eviction of one or more persons, shall be obligated to present to the competent authorities a complete Eviction Impact Statement, carried out by persons independent of the proponents of the act, project or programme in question; 3 The required investigation and assessment element of Eviction Impact Statements shall be carried out by persons or organs fully independent from the actor desiring the removal of persons or groups from the site in question. This requirement shall apply to all actors involved;

5 “Eviction impact statements may also contribute to the protection of the potential victims, the reduction of social tension and the mitigation of the inhabitants; hardship, as long as they are viewed only as interim measures and not as substitutes for legislative authority which, if improperly carried out, may even justify an eviction process. Under such a procedure, permission to remove occupants from any given site will not be granted unless such statements, prepared by persons or organs fully independent of the actor requesting the eviction are provided to the competent authorities, and if the statements do not reveal that the target community is inadequately protected�. (Para. 150).

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4 Sufficient protection of occupants will be satisfied only if all of the following conditions are satisfactorily met, and viewed as acceptable to the evictees: a All possible alternatives and methods of avoiding the eviction in question were fully pursued in consultation with affected persons and groups; b Where no agreement can be reached wherein the full avoidance of the eviction in question can be guaranteed, full and equal consultation and negotiation shall take place between the evictees, the evictor and an impartial arbitrator; c Evictees shall have judicially enforceable rights to: i a minimum 180 day warning, in writing, prior to the set date of eviction; ii the enforceable right to alternative accommodation or land at an equal or better location, at an equal or lessor cost, and of a physical quality consistent with the right to adequate housing; iii the right to receive financial or other compensation for hardship and lost income; and iv the right to appeal any eviction order to a judicial body, prior to the decision of which, no eviction will be carried out.

5 The conclusions, recommendations and order drawn from eviction impact statements will be binding.

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6.4 Codes of Conduct An international Code of Conduct on Forced Evictions adopted by the UN and relevant predominantly to national governments might assist in limiting some of the severest human tragedies involved in the eviction process. However, as we saw above, the adoption by both the World Bank and OECD of similar codes (guidelines) have been clearly insufficient measures in practice. One possible advantage of an internationally adopted Code, especially if initiated by UN human rights bodies, would be the direct linkage between human rights and forced evictions and the direction of the Code towards governments themselves, rather than outside donor agencies. While eviction impact statements would be undertaken once a decision was made to evict, codes of conduct would be relevant to the actual physical carrying out of independently determined unavoidable removals.

Any efforts towards an International Code of Conduct on Forced Eviction must, in order to yield effect, firmly recognize the right to adequate housing as the foundation of the Code. Unlike existing guidelines on resettlement, any such Code must not play a role in legitimizing evictions, but rather aim to provide guidance to governments by outlining the parameters of acceptable behaviour. Possible contents of such Codes could be based on the following points: 1 Evictions should, as a general principle, be avoided to the maximum extent possible. The housing rights of all citizens should be satisfactorily fulfilled and respected and included in any eviction scenario; 2 Any plan for eviction must be made public and subject to public debate and consideration, prior to it being carried out; 3 Negotiations must take place based on mutual respect between those wishing to carry out the eviction and those to be removed. Every possible attempt should be made to come to a mutually acceptable agreement, deemed reasonable by all parties involved in the process; 4 If no agreement can be reached, an independent arbitrator should be engaged, with a view to finding an amicable settlement; 5 If no settlement can be reached which allows the residents to remain where they are (thus preventing an eviction), those to be moved shall have rights to compensation of their own choice; 6 A warning period of at least six months will be provided to those facing eviction; 7 Those responsible for the eviction shall be required to provide the requested compensation;

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Popular protest against evictions during the World UN World Conference on Human Rights, Vienna, 1993 Š Siijmen Hendriks

8 Forms of compensation shall include one or any combination of the following options: a) re-housing at an equal or better location at an equal or lessor cost; b) re-location at an equal or better location, the quality of which will be determined by the evictees; or c) financial compensation sufficient to cover costs associated with the eviction itself, and any loss of property linked to the removal.

Arguably, if each of these conditions were prerequisites for carrying out evictions, far fewer forced evictions would take place, and those that could not be prevented would be far less severe and involve less violence; violence so commonly associated with the majority of the world’s evictions today.

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6.5 UN Guidelines on Planning International Events As was noted above, forced evictions often tend to accompany the planning and preparation of large international events and celebrations. While events like the Olympic Games, World Fairs, international conferences, global celebrations and others are completely valid, and indeed frequently result in greater international understanding and good will, the global media attention and prestige of these projects surely should not suffice as a reasonable justification for the wholesale removal of sometimes hundreds of thousands of a city’s citizens. This is particularly evident if we view such scenarios in the context of the human rights and housing rights possessed by potential victims of eviction.

There thus appears an arguable need for the drafting and eventual adoption of international guidelines for the planning and preparation of such events. It is unlikely that such an instrument could be adopted in a directly legally binding framework, for instance within the United Nations in the form of a treaty or convention. However, a declaratory text of guidelines is a feasible option and could be initiated by a number of UN organs including the UNCHS and/or UN Commission on Human Rights. Such guidelines could eventually be considered and adopted by the UN General Assembly.

Favourably, a consensus-based resolution adopted on 26 August 1994 by the UN SubCommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities requested, inter alia, the UN Centre for Human Rights to draft a set of guidelines on the forced evictions and international events, designed to prevent this practice prior to the convening of large-scale events of this nature.6 The Secretary General’s report on forced evictions also stressed the “need for the drafting and adoption of guidelines for the planning of international events, which could be initiated by....the Commission on Human Rights and the Commission on Human Settlements”.7 The Secretary General suggests that the following elements be considered in the drafting of such guidelines: a The discouraging of external donors if evictions are likely to result from the planned event; b Public hearings conducted prior to the decision to adopt the plan in order to address the likelihood of evictions in connection with the event; c Persons threatened with forced evictions shall have the right to bring the matter before a court of law and the right to appeal before a higher court; d If no alternatives to evictions exist, minimum periods of warning, possibilities of relocation and adequate financial compensation and participation in the process must be guaranteed (para. 172).

6 Sub-Commission resolution 1994/39 (Forced evictions). Additionally, the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions is scheduled to publish a document on “International Events and Forced Evictions” in 1995.

7 Para. 172.

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6.6 UN Special Rapporteur on Forced Evictions The UN Commission on Human Rights utilizes the procedure of special rapporteurs to investigate and prevent human rights abuses. There are currently special rapporteurs on torture, religious intolerance, summary and arbitrary executions, the independence of the judges and lawyers and for a number of specific countries. Habitat International Coalition has suggested to the Commission and other human rights organs the necessity and utility of appointing a new Special Rapporteur on Forced Evictions, with a view to both reducing the worldwide practice of evictions, as well as institutionalizing UN attention to what the UN itself has labelled a ‘gross violation of human rights’.

In the Secretary General’s analytical report on international law and forced evictions presented to the fiftieth session of the UN Commission on Human Rights in early 1994, arguments in favor of the appointment by the UN Commission on Human Rights of a UN Special Rapporteur on Forced Evictions are outlined.8 Were the UN to appoint such a Rapporteur, a large number of crucial functions could be mandated to the person chosen for the task. Namely: 1 Providing victims of forced and other forms of eviction recourse to the existing enforcement machinery of international human rights law-something extremely difficult to access for such groups at present; 2 Seeking and advocating viable alternatives to the eviction process, including the mandate to intervene when large-scale evictions are planned; 3 Annually documenting the practice of forced evictions in all countries, in a manner similar to existing Rapporteurs; 4 An analysis of national legislation, policy and practice relevant to forced evictions (with the assistance of the UN Advisory Services Programme), with a view to assisting governments in achieving equity between national laws and international obligations; 5 Developing a set of reliable and accurate ‘living conditions indicators’ to assess the human rights impact of the eviction process wherever it may occur; 6 Proposing guidelines to international agencies involved in the field of development aimed at reducing assistance provided for eviction programmes and suggesting amendments to existing guidelines; and 7 Putting forced evictions firmly on the UN human rights agenda, and prioritized at a level equal to violations of civil and political rights.

8 UN Doc. E/CN.4/1994/20.

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6.7 Guaranteed Compensation for Victims of Eviction A minority of governments will openly defend the legitimacy of an eviction without any form of compensation. Governments generally recognize the legitimacy of claims for fair compensation notwithstanding whether affected groups actually receive adequate compensation, or whether those affected are occupying land in technically illegal terms. This view has been reflected in a number of relevant texts, including resolution 1993/77 which states that: “All Governments [should] provide immediate restitution, compensation and/or appropriate and sufficient alternative accommodation or land, consistent with their wishes and needs, to persons and communities that have been forcibly evicted, following mutually satisfactory negotiations with the affected persons or groups”.

In addition, the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Restitution, Compensation and Rehabilitation for Victims of Gross Violations of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Mr. Theo van Boven, recognizes in his final report that “the issue of forced removals and forced evictions has in recent years reached the international human rights agenda because it is considered a practice that does grave and disastrous harm to the basic civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of large numbers of people, both individual persons and collectivities”.9 The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in its General Comment No. 4 (1991), deemed legal procedures seeking compensation following an illegal eviction one of the possible remedies in connection with the right to adequate housing: “The Committee views many component elements of the right to adequate housing as being at least consistent with the provision of domestic legal remedies. Depending on the legal system, such areas might include, but are not limited to: (a) legal appeals aimed at preventing planned evictions or demolitions through the issuance of court-ordered injunctions; (b) legal procedures seeking compensation following an illegal eviction; (c) complaints against illegal actions carried out or supported by landlords (whether public or private) in relation to rent levels, dwelling maintenance, and racial or other forms of discrimination; (d) allegations of any form of discrimination in the allocation and availability of access to housing; and (e) complaints against landlords concerning unhealthy or inadequate housing conditions. In some legal systems, it would also be appropriate to explore the possibility of facilitating class action suits in situations involving significantly increased levels of homelessness.10 In many cases, evicted persons and communities do not receive any form of compensation whatsoever, and where provided, it tends to fall far short of the requirements of those moved. This situation is clearly unsatisfactory viewed from any angle, even

9 UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/ 1993/8, para. 21.

10 UN Doc. E/1992/23, E/C.12.1991/4 (annex III, para. 17).

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more so seen in the light of human rights.11 Many human rights texts maintain clauses guaranteeing various forms of compensation should these rights be subject to violation. However, these are almost invariably texts dealing with civil and political rights, and not those containing economic, social and cultural rights such as the right to adequate housing.12 The UN Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power (1985) outlines basic compensatory principles which could be applied in the case of illegal evictions to victims of this clear violation of human rights. These include: 1) Victims are entitled to prompt redress for the harm they have suffered; 2) They should be informed of their rights in seeking redress; 3) Offenders or third parties should make fair restitution to victims, their families or dependents. Such restitution should include the return of property or payment for the harm or loss suffered, reimbursement of expenses incurred as a result of the victimization, the provision of services and the restoration of rights; 4) When compensation is not fully available from the offender or other sources, States should endeavor to provide financial compensation; and 5) Victims should receive the necessary material, medical, psychological and social assistance and support.13 If examined in the context of evictions, it is evident that these principles are not applied in most circumstances. Indeed, persons subjected to forced eviction are often not viewed as victims, but as criminals or people violating the law by squatting or using services without paying for them. A shift in both action and perception will be required for rights to compensation to be universally and consistently applied to victims of eviction. Obviously, the need for compensation diminishes as human rights against eviction are strengthened, and as such, the requirement of compensation may act as a powerful deterrent to forced eviction.

11 The report of the Secretary-General on forced evictions and international law provides: Compensation and restitution may take various forms. Cash payments represent the most frequent form of compensation, although experience shows that the money offered is usually insufficient and it is argued that this type of indemnity by itself is an inadequate form of countering the problems involved with forced evictions. (Para. 180). Alternative accommodation at relocation sites is one of the most feasible ways to reduce the adverse effects of evictions. However, overcrowding, long distances from employment opportunities and previous neighbours, lack of basic amenities and a general decline in living conditions are too frequently characteristics of this alternative. At the other extreme, the costs of the alternative housing offered may far exceed the means of the evicted persons. Furthermore, in many cases the victims are offered no compensation whatsoever. Therefore, the situation with regard to the consequences resulting from the practice of forced evictions is clearly unsatisfactory and point to the urgent need to avoid and eliminate the practice in the first instance, rather than trying to “soften the blow� afterwards. (Para. 181).

12 See: Study concerning the right to restitution, compensation and rehabilitation for victims of gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms (Preliminary report submitted by Mr. Theo van Boven, Special Rapporteur), UN doc: E/CN.4/Sub.2/1990/10.

13 Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power (General Assembly resolution 40/34 of 29 November 1985).

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6.8 International Monitoring and Fact-Finding Internationally sanctioned preventive monitoring activities on forced evictions, relocation and resettlement, including the undertaking of fact-finding or assessment missions would assist both in seeking alternatives to planned evictions, as well as indicating the seriousness with which the international community views this practice. Such missions, which could be organized under the auspices of the United Nations human rights programme, could be sent to countries contemplating the carrying out of largescale relocations or forced evictions with a view to assisting the Government in question to comply fully with its freely accepted human rights and housing rights obligations through the aversion of pending forced evictions.

UNCHS (Habitat) has recognized the need for monitoring such practices in the following terms: Insufficient systematic monitoring or evaluation of relocations seems to have taken place so far. Existing documentation is of a rather haphazard nature, often only documenting a small part of the relocation process. In addition, much of the documentation on relocation happens to be part of research on other urban development issues and not intended as an evaluation including the planning and the implementation of relocation and its impact on the relocatees.14 Another possible route for averting planned or pending forced evictions could involve invoking the ‘good offices’ of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights or the Secretary-General as a means of promoting dialogue designed to find viable, mutually acceptable alternatives based on international law.

To some degree the information needed for a systematic monitoring system could be supplied by non-governmental and other organizations currently involved in such activities. The Eviction Watch programme of the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR), the eviction monitoring carried out by the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) and the eviction data and prevention initiatives by Habitat International Coalition (HIC) could each be requested to assist UNCHS (Habitat) in developing a monitoring function regarding the practice of forced evictions. Moreover, NGO fact-finding missions examining the forced eviction situation within specific countries, have been undertaken with increasing frequency. To date such missions have taken place in the Dominican Republic, Malaysia, Philippines, Israel/Palestine, South Korea, Hong Kong and India (see annex 4).

14 UNCHS (Habitat)(1991), Evaluation of Relocation Experience, Nairobi, p. 42.

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These eight recommendations for international measures of eviction prevention aim to create a framework for future legal initiatives concerning forced evictions at the global level, by governments, NGO’s and international organizations. These options should not, of course, create the illusion that these measures alone will halt the immensely powerful process of eviction. We can surmise, however, that without these and other means of restricting the practice, the insidious nature of forced eviction will continue to haunt the tens of millions of persons throughout the world who are currently threatened by this act. International law has developed rapidly in the past several years in addressing evictions, but the time for complacency has certainly yet to arrive.

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shown to be true regarding states and their agents, judicial organs, international organizations and agencies, NGO’s and even the people themselves. Consequently, insufficient emphasis has thus far been placed on many of the elements of protection against forced eviction implied with the recognition of the right to adequate housing.

2 Whether labelled as evictions, displacements, resettlements or removals, this practice continues to exist, in one form or another, within all countries. Some states are clearly more affected than others. In regional terms, the practice of forced removals appears to be most prevalent within the Asian context—affecting at least seven million Asian citizens during the 1980’s alone. While perhaps more severe in Asia, the global nature of evictions can neither be ignored nor denied. Indeed, the political and economic systems governing a country are central determinants in the extent to which evictions are sanctioned, tolerated or prohibited. Though certainly not always the case, the greater degree of democratically-oriented, popularly-based participation in all aspects of the development and housing process and the decree to which communities are politically organized (or are allowed by the state to organize), the lesser the likelihood that evictions will be carried out on a large-scale. Similarly, governments which accept and decidedly act upon their legal responsibilities under human rights law to house their citizens tend on the whole to less frequently function as proponents of mass forced evictions. Wherever they are carried out, forced evictions continue to be an unpopular measure, and a subsequent threat to elected governments when, and if, elections are to be held. Generally, forced evictions are rarely carried out immediately preceding elections, due precisely to their unpopularity.

3 Although a global phenomenon, the modalities of eviction differ widely between regions, states, cities, communities and households. The form that evictions take and the justifications supporting these vary widely from one setting to another. In some countries mass forced evictions are not uncommon, whereas in others, individual households are those chiefly affected. Despite these and other distinctions, several common themes are also evident. The most pressing is the fact that the poorest sectors of society are far and above the most frequent victim of this human rights violation; that is, the social group already disproportionately denied other correlative rights related to an adequate standard of living.

4 International law is relevant to and has addressed forced evictions in a broad number of contexts. There exists a clear and inherent relationship between housing rights and forced evictions. Likewise, a wide variety of additional civil and political rights such as the right to freedom of movement, freedom to choose one’s residence, the right to privacy and others are linked to the issues surrounding this practice. Although international perceptions of the right to property also vary widely, the fact remains that this right all too often acts as a tool in encouraging eviction, rather than as a means for protecting the rights of evictees to property. Those unable to exercise their right to property due to low incomes, often suffer from forced eviction as wealthier sectors exercise their rights to property. As was shown, the law can as easily be used to sanction an eviction as it can be used as a tool preventing this practice.

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bal awareness about the extent and brutality of this dubious method of carrying the process some like to call “development�.

9 This report has revealed that although substantial legal protection does exist within human rights law at all levels, it remains insufficient for dealing adequately with the problems at hand. A series of recommendations were thus provided, giving an indication of the types of changes which may be required for protection against forced eviction to gain the legal power necessary for halting this global scourge. None of the recommendations offered should be viewed as utopian or wholly unrealistic. An attempt has been made to provide suggestions which are both attainable and necessary. It will be the absence of political will as opposed to a lack of legal clarity that will be responsible should these options for action not be implemented with adequate resolve and seriousness.

10 Finally, we have seen that the majority of information available about both evictions and housing rights is unknown outside of the country in which it occurs.

Enhanced international attention and more widely available research on the legal implications of forced eviction should be pursued. As such, this study has exhibited several of the many possible areas where future research could be carried out in the quest of enhancing awareness about and comprehension of the universal reality of evictions, housing rights and the law. An increasing amount of research is being devoted to this theme, however a great deal remains to be done, both at the microand macro-levels.

â?– Like so many events in the post-Cold War, conflict-laden world, the carrying out of forced evictions is an issue invariably linked to the misuse of power; the strength of the powerful and the victimization of the weak. Granted, there are instances in which an eviction might be justified or reasonable, even in a human rights framework. Without doubt however, the overwhelming majority of evictions not only lead to greater social injustice but amount to gross and systematic violations of fundamental internationally recognized human rights. The day to make evictions a real part of past history has surely arrived.

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8

Annexes

Annex 1: Sources of Housing Rights in International Law INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS (1966), adopted by United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution 2200A(XXI), 16 December 1966, entered into force on 3 January 1976, 130 States Parties as of December 1994. State compliance with the Covenant is monitored by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Article 11(1) states: The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and 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. ❖ INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION (1965), adopted by UNGA resolution 2106A(XX), entered into force on 4 January 1969, 130 States Parties as of January 1994. State Compliance with the Convention is monitored by the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Article 5(e) (iii) states: In compliance with the fundamental obligations laid down in article 2 of this Convention, States Parties undertake to prohibit and eliminate racial discrimination in all of its forms and to guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, colour, or national or ethnic origin, to equality before the law, notably in the enjoyment of the following rights:...(e) in particular...(iii) the right to housing. ❖ INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN (1979), adopted by UNGA resolution

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34/180 on 18 December 1979, entered into force on 3 September 1981, 132 States Parties as of December 1994. State compliance with the Convention is monitored by the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Article 14(2)(h) states: States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in rural areas in order to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, that they participate in and benefit from rural development and, in particular, shall ensure to such women the right...(h) to enjoy adequate living conditions, particularly in relation to housing, sanitation, electricity and water supply.... ❖ INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD (1989), adopted by UNGA resolution 44/25 on 20 November 1989, entered into force on 2 September 1990, 157 States Parties as of January 1994. Compliance with this Convention is monitored by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. Article 27(3) states: States Parties in accordance with national conditions and within their means shall take appropriate measures to assist parents and others responsible for the child to implement this right and shall in the case of need provide material assistance and support programmes, particularly with regard to nutrition, clothing and housing. ❖ INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION RELATING TO THE STATUS OF REFUGEES (1951), adopted on by UNGA resolution 429(V) on 28 July 1951, entered into force on 22 April 1954, 121 States parties as of 20 December 1993. Article 21 states: As regards housing, the Contracting States, in so far as the matter is regulated by laws or regulations or is subject to the control of public authorities, shall accord refugees lawfully staying in their territory treatment as favourable as possible and, in any event, not less favourable than that accorded to aliens generally in the same circumstances. ❖ INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON THE PROTECTION OF THE RIGHTS OF ALL MIGRANT WORKERS AND MEMBERS OF THEIR FAMILIES (1990), adopted December 1990, 2 States parties as of December 1994. State compliance with this Convention will be monitored by the UN Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families. Article 43(1)(d) states: Migrant workers shall enjoy equality of treatment with national of the State of employment in relation to...(d) Access to housing, including social housing schemes, and protection against exploitation in respect of rents. ❖

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INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION CONVENTION NO. 117 CONCERNING SOCIAL POLICY (BASIC AIMS AND STANDARDS) (1962), adopted June 1962, 31 States parties as of 31 December 1993. State compliance with this Convention is carried out by the ILO Governing Body and the ILO Committee of Experts on Conventions and Recommendations. Articles 2, 4(d) and 5(2) state: 2. The improvement of standards of living shall be regarded as the principal objective in the planning of economic development; ...

4(d). The measures to be considered by the competent authorities for the promotion of productive capacity and the improvement of living of agricultural producers shall include: (d) the supervision of tenancy arrangements and of working conditions with a view to securing for tenants and labourers the highest practicable standards of living and an equitable share in any advantages which may result form improvements in productivity or in price levels; ...

5(2). In ascertaining the minimum standards of living, account shall be taken of such essential family needs of the workers as food and its nutritive value, housing, clothing, medical care and education. ❖ INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON THE SUPPRESSION AND PUNISHMENT OF THE CRIME OF APARTHEID (1973), adopted and opened for signature and ratification by UNGA resolution 3068 (XXVIII) of 30 November 1973, entered into force on 18 July 1976, 99 States parties as of January 1994. State compliance with this treaty is monitored by a three person group appointed by the UN Commission on Human Rights. Article II (b) and (d) states: For the purpose of the present Convention, the term “the crime of apartheid”, which shall include similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practised in southern Africa, shall apply to the following inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them: ... (b) Deliberate imposition on a racial group or groups of living conditions calculated to cause its or their physical destruction in whole or in part; ... (d) Any measures, including legislative measures, designed to divide the population along racial lines by the creation of separate reserves and ghettos for the members of a racial group or groups....the expropriation of landed property belonging to a racial group or groups or to members thereof. ❖

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International Declarations and Recommendations UNIVERSAL DECLARATION ON HUMAN RIGHTS (1948), adopted and proclaimed

by United Nations General Assembly resolution 217A (III) on 10 December 1948.

Article 25(1) states: Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing 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.

DECLARATION ON THE RIGHT OF THE CHILD (1959), proclaimed by UNGA resolution 1386(XIV) on 29 November 1959. Paragraph 4 states: The child shall enjoy the benefits of social security. He shall be entitled to grow and develop in health; to this end special care and protection shall be provided to him and his mother, including adequate pre-natal and post-natal care. The child shall have the right to adequate nutrition, housing, recreation and medical services.

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION (ILO) RECOMMENDATION NO. 115 (1961), adopted at the forty-fifth session of the ILO Governing Body on 7 June 1961.

Principle 2 states: It should be an objective of national [housing] policy to promote, within the framework of general housing policy, the construction of housing and related community facilities with a view to ensuring that adequate and decent housing accommodation and a suitable living environment are made available to all workers and their families. A degree of priority should be accorded to those whose needs are most urgent.

DECLARATION ON THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION (1963), proclaimed by UNGA resolution 1904 (XVIII) of 20 November 1963. Article 3(1) states: Particular efforts shall be made to prevent discrimination based on race, colour or ethnic origin, especially in the fields of civil rights, access to citizenship, education, religion, employment, occupation and housing.

DECLARATION ON SOCIAL PROGRESS AND DEVELOPMENT (1969), proclaimed

by UNGA resolution 2542(XXIV) on 11 December 1969.

Part II, article 10 states: Social progress and development shall aim at the continuous raising of the material and spiritual standards of living of all members of society,

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with respect for and in compliance with human rights and fundamental freedoms, through the attainment of the following main goals:...(f) The provision for all, particularly persons in low-income groups and large families, of adequate housing and community services.

DECLARATION ON THE RIGHTS OF DISABLED PERSONS (1975), proclaimed by UNGA resolution 3447 (XXX) of 9 December 1975. Article 9 states: Disabled persons have the right to live with their families or with foster parents and to participate in all social, creative or recreational activities. No disabled person shall be subjected, as far as his or her residence is concerned, to differential treatment other then that required by his or her condition or by the improvement which he or she may derive therefrom. If the stay of a disabled person in a specialized establishment is indispensable, the environment and living conditions therein shall be as close as possible to those of the normal life of a person of his or her age.

VANCOUVER DECLARATION ON HUMAN SETTLEMENTS (1976), adopted by the UN Conference on Human Settlements in 1976. Section III(8) states: Adequate shelter and services are a basic human right which places an obligation on governments to ensure their attainment by all people, beginning with direct assistance to the least advantaged through guided programmes of self-help and community action. Governments should endeavor to remove all impediments hindering attainment of these goals. Of special importance is the elimination of social and racial segregation, inter alia, through the creation of better balanced communities, which blend different social groups, occupations, housing and amenities.

Chapter II (A.3) states: The ideologies of States are reflected in their human settlement policies.

These being powerful instruments for change, they must not be used to dispossess people from their homes or land or to entrench privilege and exploitation. The human settlement policies must be in conformity with the declaration of principles and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

DECLARATION ON RACE AND RACIAL PREJUDICE (1978), adopted and proclaimed by the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at its twentieth session, on 27 November 1978. Article 9(2) states: Special measures must be taken to ensure equality in dignity and rights for individuals and groups wherever necessary, while ensuring that they are not such as to appear racially discriminatory. In this respect, particular attention should

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be paid to racial or ethnic groups which are socially or economically disadvantaged, so as to afford them, on a completely equal footing and without discrimination or restriction, the protection of the laws and regulations and the advantages of the social measures in forced, in particular in regard to housing, employment and health; to respect the authenticity of their culture and values; and to facilitate their social and occupational advancement, especially through education.

ILO RECOMMENDATION NO. 162 CONCERNING OLDER WORKERS (1980), adopted by the General Conference of the International Labour organisation on 23 June 1980. Article 5(g) states: Older workers should, without discrimination by reason of their age, enjoy equality of opportunity and treatment with older workers as regards, in particular...(g) access to housing, social services and health institutions, in particular when this access is related to occupational activity or employment.

DECLARATION ON THE RIGHT TO DEVELOPMENT (1986), adopted by UNGA resolution 41/128 on 4 December 1986. Article 8(1) states: States should undertake, at the national level, all necessary measures for the realization of the right to development and shall ensure, inter alia, equality of opportunity for all in their access to basic resources, education, health services, food, housing, employment and the fair distribution of income. Effective measures should be undertaken to ensure that women have an active role in the development process.

Appropriate economic and social reforms should be carried out with a view to eradicating all social injustices.

DRAFT DECLARATION ON THE RIGHTS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES (1993), as agreed upon by members of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations, at its eleventh session, 30 July 1993. Article 10 1states: 10. Indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands or territories. No relocation shall take place without the free and informed consent of the indigenous peoples concerned and after agreement on just and fair compensation and, where, possible, with the option of return; Regional Human Rights Instruments Council of Europe EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS (1950), adopted in Rome on 4 November 1950, entered into force on 3 September 1953, 28 States parties as of January 1992. State Compliance with the Convention is monitored by the European Commission and Court of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Article 8(1) states:

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8(1) Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 of the ECHR states: 1(1) Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law.

1(2) The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of a State to enforced such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure the payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties.

Article 2(1) of Protocol No. 4 of the ECHR states: 2(1) Everyone lawfully within the territory of a State shall, within that territory, have the right to liberty of movement and freedom to choose his residence. â?– THE EUROPEAN SOCIAL CHARTER (1961), adopted in Turin on 18 October 1961, 20 States parties as of January 1994. State compliance with this Charter is monitored by the European Committee of Independent Experts. Housing rights provisions are found in articles 16 and 19(4) of the Charter, and within article 4 of the Additional Protocol to the Charter. Articles 16 and 19 state: 16. With a view to ensuring the necessary conditions for the full development of the family, which is the fundamental unit of society, the Contracting Parties undertake to promote the economic, legal and social protection of family life by such means as social and family benefits, fiscal arrangements, provision of family housing, benefits for the newly married, and other appropriate means.

19(4). With a view to ensuring the effective exercise of the right of migrant workers and their families to protection and assistance in the territory of any other Contracting Party, the Contracting States undertake...(4) to secure for such workers lawfully within their territories, insofar as such matters are regulated by law or regulations or are subject to the control of administrative authorities, treatment not less favourable than that of their own nationals in respect to the following matters...(c) accommodation.

Article 4 of the Additional Protocol to the European Social Charter, adopted on 5 October 1988 states: With a view to ensuring the effective exercise of the right of elderly persons to social protection, the States Parties undertake to adopt or encourage, either directly or in cooperation with public or private organizations, appropriate measures designed in particular....to enable elderly persons to choose their

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life-style freely and to lead independent lives in their familiar surroundings for as long as they wish and are able, by means of: provision of housing suited to their needs and their states of health or of adequate support for adapting their housing....[and] to guarantee elderly persons living in institutions appropriate support, while respecting their privacy, and participation in decisions concerning living conditions in the institution. â?– EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON THE LEGAL STATUS OF MIGRANT WORKERS, adopted on 24 November 1977. Article 13 states: 1. Each Contracting Party shall accord to migrant workers, with regard to access to housing and rents, treatment not less favourable than that accorded to its own nationals, insofar as this matter is covered by domestic laws and regulations.

2. Each Contracting Party shall ensure that the competent national authorities carry out inspections in appropriate cases in collaboration with the respective consular authorities, acting within their competence, to ensure that standards of fitness of accommodation are kept up for migrant workers as for its own nationals.

3. Each Contracting Party undertakes to protect migrant workers against exploitation in respect of rents, in accordance with its laws and regulations on the matter.

4. Each Contracting Party shall ensure, by the means available to the competent national authorities, that the housing of the migrant worker shall be suitable.

European Union (EU) COMMUNITY CHARTER OF FUNDAMENTAL SOCIAL RIGHTS (1989), adopted on 8 December 1989 in Strasbourg. Article 29 states: All disabled persons, whatever be the origin and nature of their disablement must be entitled to additional concrete measures aiming at improving their social and professional integration. These measures must concern, in particular, according to the capacities of the beneficiaries, vocational training, ergonomics, accessibility, mobility, means of transport and housing.

European Parliament RESOLUTION ON SHELTER FOR THE HOMELESS IN THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY, adopted by the European Parliament in resolution No. C 190/39 on 16 June 1987. Paragraphs 4-8 state:

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4. Calls for clear priority to be given to legal rules concerning the implementation of the right to adequate housing and aid for rehabilitation and consequently for national legal provisions on vagrancy, where they exist, and particularly those on begging and sleeping rough to be adapted to the resulting requirements.

5. Asks that associations and any tenant should be offered the possibility of being assisted in legal proceedings by a natural or legal person of their choice.

6. Considers it vital that the rights of the homeless to be housed in decent and appropriate housing suited to their needs be recognized, which implies putting an end to all discrimination, whether legal or moral.

7. Considers that the punitive classification of homeless persons seeking housing as ‘intentionally homeless’ or ‘not rehouseable’, for example, contravenes the basic right of the homeless to be housed.

8. Asks that the right to a home should be guaranteed by legislation, that Member States should recognize it as a fundamental right and that no person or family should be evicted without being rehoused.

Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) FINAL ACT OF HELSINKI (1975), adopted on 1 August 1975, includes: The participating States [agree] to ensure equality of rights between migrant workers and nationals of the host countries with regard to conditions of employment and work, and to social security, and to endeavour to ensure that migrant workers may enjoy satisfactory living conditions, especially housing conditions.

VIENNA CONCLUDING DOCUMENT (1989), adopted on 19 January 1989 in Vienna. Principle 14 states: The participating States recognize that the promotion of economic, social and cultural rights as well as of civil and political rights is of paramount importance for human dignity and for the attainment of the legitimate aspirations of every individual. They will therefore continue their efforts with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of economic, social and cultural rights by all appropriate means, including in particular by the adoption of legislative measures. In this context they will pay special attention to problems in the areas of employment, housing, social security, health, education and culture. They will promote constant progress in the realization of all rights and freedoms within their countries, as well as in the development of relations among themselves and with other States, so that everyone actually enjoys to the full his economic, social and cultural rights as well as his civil and political rights.

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DOCUMENT OF THE COPENHAGEN MEETING OF THE CONFERENCE ON THE HUMAN DIMENSION OF THE CSCE (1990), adopted on 29 June 1990 in Copenhagen. Article 23 states: In the context of continuing their efforts with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of economic, social and cultural rights by all appropriate means, the [participating States] will pay special attention to problems in the areas of employment, housing, social security, health, education and culture.

Organization of American States (OAS) CHARTER OF THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES (1948), adopted in Bogota on 30 April 1948. Article 31(k) states: To accelerate their economic social development, in accordance with their own methods and procedures and within the framework of the democratic principles and the institutions of the Inter-American System, the Member States agree to dedicate every effort to achieve the following goals...(k) Adequate housing for all sectors of the population.

AMERICAN DECLARATION ON THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF MAN (1948), adopted by resolution (XXX) at the Ninth International Conference of American States at Bogota on 1948. Articles 8, 11 and 23 state: 8) Every person has the right to fix his residence within the territory of the state of which he is a national, to move about freely within such territory, and not to leave it except by his own will.

11) Every person has the right to the preservation of his health through sanitary and social measures relating to food, clothing, housing and medical care to the extent permitted by public and community resources.

23) Every person has the right to own such property as meets the essential needs of decent living and helps maintain the dignity of the individual and of the home. â?– ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL TO THE AMERICAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS (1988), adopted on 17 November 1988 in San Salvador, El Salvador at the Eighteenth Regular Session of the General Assembly. Article 11 states: 1) Everyone shall have the right to live in a healthy environment and to have access to basic public services.

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United Nations Resolutions •UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities resolution 1994/39 entitled “Forced evictions”, adopted on 26 August 1994, states in part: 1 Reaffirms that the practice of forced evictions constitutes a gross violation of a broad range of human rights, in particular the right to housing.

•UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities resolution 1993/41 entitled “Forced evictions”, adopted on 26 August 1993, states in part: 1 Reaffirms that the practice of forced evictions constitutes a gross violation of human rights, in particular the right to housing; 2 Strongly urges Governments to undertake all necessary immediate measures, at all levels, aimed at rapidly eliminating the practice of forced evictions; ...

5 Invites all international financial, trade, development and other related institutions and agencies to take fully into account the views contained in the present resolution, and pronouncements under international law on the practice of forced evictions.

•UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities resolution 1993/36 entitled “The Right to Adequate Housing”, adopted on 26 August 1993, states in part: 3 Strongly encourages all governments to pursue effective policies and legislation aimed at creating conditions towards ensuring the full realization of the right to adequate housing of the entire population concentrating on those currently homeless or inadequately housed, and to take into account the particularly negative impact on housing and living conditions that may result from the adoption of economic adjustment and other policies based exclusively upon the dictates of the free-market.

•UN Commission on Human Settlements resolution 14/6 entitled “The Human Right to Adequate Housing”, adopted on 5 May 1993, states in part: 3 Urges all States to cease any practices which could or do result in infringements of the human right to adequate housing, in particular the practice of forced mass evictions and any form of racial or other discrimination in the housing sphere; 4 Invites all States to repeal, reform or amend any existing legislation, policies, programmes or projects which in any manner negatively affect the full realization of right to adequate housing;

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5 Encourages all States to take steps according to their available resources, with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of the right to adequate housing, by appropriate means, including particularly the adoption of legislative measures; 6 Urges all States to comply with existing international agreements concerning the right to adequate housing, and to this end, to establish in accordance with the human settlements parts of international human rights law, appropriate monitoring mechanisms to provide, for national and international consideration, accurate data and indicators on the extent of homelessness, inadequate housing conditions, persons without security of tenure and other issues arising from the right to adequate housing and providing insights into policy, structural and other impediments to the efficient operation of the shelter sector.

•UN Commission on Human Rights resolution 1993/77 entitled “Forced evictions” (see annex 3 for the full text) •UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities resolution 1992/26 entitled “Promoting the Realization of the Right to Adequate Housing”, adopted on 22 August 1992, states in part: 2 Encourages all States to pursue effective policies and legislation aimed at creating conditions aimed at ensuring the full realization of the right to adequate housing of the entire population, concentrating on those vulnerable groups that are homeless or inadequately housed.

•UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities resolution 1991/12 entitled “Forced evictions”, adopted on 28 August 1991, states in part: Recognizing that the practice of forced evictions involves the involuntary removal of persons, families and groups from their homes and communities, resulting in the destruction of the lives and identities of people throughout the world, as well as increasing homelessness ...

1 The Sub-Commission...draws the attention of the Commission on Human Rights to...(b) The fact that the practice of forced evictions constitutes a gross violation of human rights, in particular the right to adequate housing; (c) The need for immediate measures to be undertaken at all levels aimed at eliminating the practice of forced eviction; ...

3 Emphasizes the importance of the provision of immediate, appropriate and sufficient compensation and/or alternative accommodation, consistent with the wishes and needs of persons and communities forcibly or arbitrarily eviction, following mutually satisfactory negotiations with the affected person(s) or group(s).

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•UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities resolution 1991/26 entitled “Promoting the Realization of the Right to Adequate Housing”, adopted on 29 August 1991, states in part: The Sub-Commission urges all States to pursue effective policies and adopt legislation aimed at ensuring the realization of the right to adequate housing of the entire population, concentrating on those currently homeless or inadequately housed.

•UN Commission on Human Rights resolution 1988/24 entitled “The Realization of the Right to Adequate Housing”, adopted on 7 March 1988, states in part: The Commission on Human Rights decides to keep the question of the right to adequate housing under periodic review.

•UNGA resolution 42/146 entitled “The Realization of the Right to Adequate Housing, adopted on 7 December 1987, states in part: The General Assembly reiterates the need to take, at the national and international levels, measures to promote the right of all persons to an adequate standard of living for themselves and their families, including adequate housing, and call upon all States and international organizations concerned to pay special attention to the realization of the right to adequate housing in carrying out measures to develop national shelter strategies and settlement improvement programmes within the framework of the Global Strategy for Shelter to the Year 2000.

•Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations resolution 1987/62 entitled “The Realization of the Right to Adequate Housing”, adopted on 29 May 1987, states in part: ECOSOC recognizes that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights provide that all persons have the right to an adequate standard of living for themselves and their families, including adequate housing, and that States should take appropriate steps to ensure the realization of this right.

•UN Commission on Human Rights resolution 1987/22 entitled “The Realization of the Right to Adequate Housing”, adopted on 10 March 1987, states in part: The Commission on Human Rights reiterates the need to take appropriate measures, at the national and international levels, for promoting the right of all persons to an adequate standard of living for themselves and their families, including adequate housing.

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•UNGA resolution 41/146 entitled “The Realization of the Right to Adequate Housing”, adopted on 4 December 1986, states in part: The General Assembly expresses its deep concern that millions of people do not enjoy the right to adequate housing.

•UN Commission on Human Rights resolutions 1986/36 entitled “The Realization of the Right to Adequate Housing”, adopted on 12 March 1986, states in part: The Commission on Human Rights reiterates the right of all persons to an adequate standard of living for themselves and their families, including adequate housing. ❖

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Annex 2: Examples of Recent Mass Forced Evictions Country

Place

Date

Argentina Bangladesh Bhutan Bosnia & Herz.

Brazil Brazil Brazil Cambodia Cambodia Cambodia Cambodia China China Costa Rica Croatia Dom. Rep. El Salvador France France France India India India India India India India India Indonesia Indonesia Indonesia Iran Iraq Iraq Israel/Palestine Kenya Kenya Kenya Kenya Kenya Malaysia

Buenos Aires Mirpur (Dhaka) Southern Bhutan nationwide(a) Julio de Castilhos Sao Paulo SP Tenants Phnom Penh Phnom Penh Phnom Penh Phnom Penh Shenzhen Shanghai Puntarenas Nationwide Santo Domingo Hacienda Amlunga Menilmontant Paris Paris Madras Madras Bombay Calcutta Vachathi Delhi (Slum Fires) Bhopal Bombay Ampang Kampung Sawah Jakarta Mashad Southern Marshes Qulat Dizam Gaza Strip Rural areas Miturma (Nairobi) Kasoido (Nairobi) Nairobi Nairobi Kg Tasek, Selangor

1992 28.4.1993 1990-199 1992-1994 21.3.1993 1990-1991 6/90-1/91 3/1994 2/1994 11.9.1992 10/1990 1992 992-93 1.3.1994 1992-93 1987-1992 4.6.1991 20.08.93 28.10.1992 2.5.1990 20.3.94 19.2.94 31.1.94 1993 20.6.1992 1991 1991 4/1990 11.2.1993 8/1992 1991 30.5.1992 1993-94 1989 11.02.93 1991-1994 20.4.1993 17.3.1993 11-12/1990 5/1990 1/1994

#’s Evicted ,200 16,000 1,500+ 2,100,000 2,500+ 10,000 70,000 3,000 ,200 3,000 1,900 200,000+ 100,000+ ,350 3,120+ 180,000 ,450 ,070 1,500 ,240 1,200 1,000 1,200 ,500 1,000+ 40,000+ 3,000 5,000 ,100+ 10,000 29,247 (?)

10,000+ 50,000+ ,179 300,000 2,000 1,200 45,000 2,000 ,750

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Malaysia Malaysia Mexico Mexico Mexico Mexico Mexico Myanmar Myanmar Nicaragua Nicaragua Nigeria Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Panama Panama Panama PNG PNG Philippines Philippines Philippines Senegal Senegal South Korea South Korea Sudan Sudan Thailand Thailand Turkey Turkey Tibet Uganda UK Zambia Zambia Zimbabwe Zimbabwe

Sentul Sungai Petani Morelos Mun. Alto Balsas Chiapas Guadalupe Pensil Rangoon Countryside Linda Vista (Man.) Managua Maroko, Lagos Faisalabad Karachi Karachi Bocas del Toro Chiriqui 3 locations New Britain Island Lae Manila Manila Manila Dakar Dakar Seoul Seoul Khartoum Khartoum Bangkok Duan Pitak, Machim Kelkum Kurdistan (b) Lhasa Kibale Nationwide Kapiri Moshi Lusaka Churu Farm Harare

1993 1/1990 1-2/1993 1990-92 1991 1992 1992 1989-1991 4/1992 14.1.94 1992 14.7.1990 13.9.93 23.2.1992 26.8.1991 1993 12/1993 1/1990 10.02.94 5/1991 7/92-4/94 1991 1/90-9/90 23.11.92 1991-92 1992-1994 1990-1991 1992 29.11.1991 annually 10/1991 4/1993 1990-6/94 19901992 Annually 6/1992 1990-91 11/1993 10/1991

10,000 ,250 3,000 46,000 ,230 ,775 ,700 500,000 6,000 2,500 25,000 300,000 ,200 10,000 2,000 ,289 3,000 5,800 ,100 2,000 84,000+ 100,000+ 60,000+ ,600 1,035 16,000+ 100,000+ 520,000+ 30,000 10,000+ 3,000 1,000 1,700,000 5,000+ 31,000 144,000 2,400+ 2,290 20,000 2,500 ________________

Total

6,948,075

(a) Figure Includes Displacement and Forced Evictions (b) Figure Includes Displacement Forced Evictions and Population Transfer (c) Figure Includes Illegal Eviction and Harassment by Landlords

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Planned/Possible Forced Evictions The figures below assume that new laws, policies, projects and programmes involving planned or possible forced evictions are implemented in full.

Country

Place

Potential Evictees

Argentina Austria Brazil China China China Dom. Rep. Hong Kong Hungary India India India India India India Laos Lesotho Malaysia Mexico Nepal Nicaragua Panama PNG Pakistan Philippines South Korea Sri Lanka Thailand Thailand Tibet Turkey Uk USA Viet Nam

Buenos Aires Nationwide Rio de Janeiro Three Gorges Xiao Langdi Dam Shanghai Santo Domingo Kowloon/Other Budapest Narmada Valley Gandhi Sagar Dam Karnataka Madras Baliiapal Nethahat Mekong Highlands Water Project Kg Railway Puebla Arun III (Chisapani Dam) Nationwide Panama City Lae Kalabagh Dam Metro Manila Seoul Near Colombo Ban Krua Bangkok Lhasa Istanbul Nationwide Atlanta Hanoi

100,000+ 103,000 25,000+ 1,300,000 190,000 300,000+ 100,000+ 1,130,000 8,000 240,000+ 100,000 200,000 123,000 40 - 70,000 235,000 142,000 40,000 ,700 4,500 55,000+ 200,000+ 2,660 18,000+ 80,000 282,000+ 4,800 25,000 3,000 300,000+ 15,000+ 50,000+ 60,000+ 10,000+ 2,000+ _________________

Total

5,468,660+

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Annex 3: UN Resolution 1993/77 on 'Forced Evictions' (1993) Adopted unanimously on 10 March 1993 during the 49th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights 1993/77. FORCED EVICTIONS The Commission on Human Rights Recalling resolution 1991/12 (Forced evictions) of 26 August 1991 of the SubCommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, Also recalling its resolution 1992/10 of 2 February 1992, in which it took note with particular interest of General Comment No. 4 (1991) on the right to adequate housing (E/1992/23, annex III) adopted on 12 December 1991 by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights at its sixth session and the reaffirmed importance attached in this framework to respect for human dignity and the principle of nondiscrimination, Reaffirming that every woman, man and child has the right to a secure place to live in peace and dignity, Concerned that, according to United Nations statistics, in excess of one billion persons throughout the world are homeless or inadequately housed, and that this number is growing, Recognizing that the practice of forced eviction involves the involuntary removal of persons, families and groups from their homes and communities, resulting in increased levels of homelessness and in inadequate housing and living conditions, Disturbed that forced evictions and homelessness intensify social conflict and inequality and invariably affect the poorest, most socially, economically, environmentally and politically disadvantaged and vulnerable sectors of society, Aware that forced evictions can be carried out, sanctioned, demanded, proposed, initiated or tolerated by a range of actors, Emphasizing that ultimate legal responsibility for preventing forced evictions rests with governments, Recalling that General Comment No. 2 on international technical assistance measures (1990), adopted by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights at its fourth session, states, inter alia, that international agencies should scrupulously avoid involvement in projects which, inter alia, involve large-scale evictions or displacement of persons without the provision of all appropriate protection and compensation,

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Mindful of the questions concerning forced evictions included in the guidelines for States’ reports (E/1991/23, annex IV) submitted in conformity with articles 16 and 17 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Noting with Appreciation that the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in its General Comment No. 4, considered that instances of forced evictions were, prima facie, incompatible with the requirements of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and could only be justified in the most exceptional circumstances, and in accordance with the relevant principles of international law, Taking note of the observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights at its fifth (1990) and sixth (1991) sessions concerning forced evictions, Taking note also of the inclusion of forced evictions as one of the primary causes of the international housing crisis in the working paper on the right to adequate housing, prepared by Mr. Rajindar Sachar (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1992/15), Taking note further of Sub-Commission resolution 1992/14 (Forced evictions)

of 27 August 1992, 1 Affirms that the practice of forced evictions constitutes a gross violation of human rights, in particular the right to adequate housing; 2 Urges Governments to undertake immediate measures, at all levels, aimed at eliminating the practice of forced evictions; 3 Also urges Governments to confer legal security of tenure to all persons currently threatened with forced eviction and to adopt all necessary measures giving full protection against forced evictions, based upon effective participation, consultation and negotiation with affected persons or groups; 4 Recommends that all Governments provide immediate restitution, compensation and/or appropriate and sufficient alternative accommodation or land, consistent with their wishes or needs, to persons and communities which have been forcibly evicted, following mutually satisfactory negotiations with the affected persons or groups; 5 Requests the Secretary-General to transmit the present resolution to Governments, relevant United Nations bodies, including the United Nations Centre on Human Settlements, the specialized agencies, regional and intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations and community-based organizations, soliciting their views and comments; 6 Also requests the Secretary-General to compile an analytical report on the practice of forced evictions, based on an analysis of international law and jurisprudence and information submitted in accordance with the previous paragraph, and to submit his report to the Commission at its fiftieth session...

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Annex 4: Selected Literature on Forced Evictions 1. Case Studies South Africa •Albertyn, Cathi (1987) “Forced Removals and the Law: The Magopa Case” in South African Journal on Human Rights, pp. 91-99;

•Classens, A. (1984) The Myth of ‘Voluntary’ Removals (Carnegie Conference Paper No. 74), South African Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town, Cape Town; •Haysom, N. and Armstrong, A. (1984) Population relocation and the law: social engineering on a vast scale (Carnegie Conference Paper No. 86), South African Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town, Cape Town; •Hunsley Magebhula, Patrick (1994) "Evictions in the new South Africa: a narrative report from Durban" in Environment and Urbanisation, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 59-62; •James, D. (1983) The Road from Doornkop: A Case Study of Removals and Resistance, South African Institute of Race Relations, Johannesburg; •Mare, G. (1980) African Population Relocation in South Africa, South African Institute for Race Relations, Johannesburg; •Murray, C. and O’Regan, C. (eds.) (1990) No Place to Rest: Forced Removals and the Law in South Africa, Oxford University Press, Capetown; •Planact (1992) Evictions and the Right to the City: A Critical Study of Communities Involved in the Struggle for Access to the Witwatersrand Region in South Africa, report prepared for the International Development Research Centre & HIC, August; •Platzky, L. (1986) “Relocation in South Africa”, South African Journal for Human Rights, pp. 270-278; ——— and Walker, Cherryl (1985) The Surplus People: Forced Removals in South Africa (for the Surplus Peoples Project), Ravan Press, Johannesburg; •Settlements Information Network Africa (1991) SINA Newsletter: Special Issue on Evictions No. 24 (July), Mazingira Institute, Nairobi; •South African Council of Churches (1984) Relocations: The Churches Report on Forced Removals, SACC;

•Unterhalter, Elaine (1987) Forced Removal: The Division, Segregation and Control of the People of South Africa, International Defense and AID Fund for South

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Africa, London.

Palestine/Israel •Al Haq (1992) Stop Destroying Palestinian Homes, Al Haq, Ramallah; ——— (1990) “House Demolition and Sealing” in A Nation Under Siege, Ramallah, pp. 345-364; ——— (1987) Demolition and Sealing of Houses: As a Punitive Measure in the Israeli-Occupied West Bank (Emma Playfair), Occasional Paper No. 5, Al Haq, Ramallah; •Coon, Anthony (1992) Town Planning Under Military Occupation: An Examination of the Law and Practice of Town Planning in the Occupied West Bank, Al Haq, Ramallah; •Palestine Human Rights Information Centre and EAFORD (1990) “Demolition of Palestinian Homes and Other Structures by Israeli Authorities”, EAFORD, Washington, DC; •Schechla, Joe (1994) "Forced Eviction as an Increment of Demographic Manipulation" in Environment and Urbanisation, vol.6, no. 1 pp. 89-105; ——— (1992) “Planning the End of Existence”, Middle East Policy, vol 1, no. 2, pp.

106-119; ——— (1992) No Place to Live: Unhousing the Palestinian People, Habitat International Coalition, Mexico.

••• Tibet •Leckie, Scott (1994) "Social Enginering, Occopying Powers and Evictions: the Case of Lhasa, Tibet" in Environment and Urbanisation, vol.6, no. 1 pp. 74-88; ——— (1994) Destruction by Design: Housing Rights Violations in Tibet, Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, Utrecht; •Martin, Max & Anders, Andrew (1993) The Final Demolition of Lhasa: The Destruction of old Tibetan buildings around the Barkhor and the village of Shöl, Freie Kultur Aktion Verlag, Berlin;

•Tibet Information Network (1990) TIN Housing Supplement 9th November 1990: Reconstruction in the Old City of Lhasa, Tibet Information Network, London.

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••• India •Das, S.K. (1992) “Evaluation of Relocation Programmes in Bombay with Particular Focus on Inner-City Areas” (paper presented at Expert Meeting on Urban Relocation: Policy and Practice, Rotterdam, 12-15 February 1992); •Informal Consultative Group (1991) “Draft Note on Rehabilitation Policy”, Informal Consultative Group, Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi; •Iyer, Justice V.R. Krishna (1988) Law and the Urban Poor in India, B.R Publishing Corp., Delhi; •Kothari, Smitu (1988) “Displaced” in The Illustrated Weekly of India, 24 April; •National Campaign for Housing Rights (1992) The Housing Rights Bill (draft), NCHR, Bombay; •Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (1991) Encroachment on Civil Rights: A Report of an Investigation on the Madhya Pradesh Governments’ Anti-Encroachment Drive in Bhopal, PUCL, Madhya Pradesh, June;

——— (1983) The Shunned and the Shunted: Slum and Pavement Dwellers of Bombay, PUCL, Bombay; •Slingsby, M.A. (1992) “An Approach to Relocation in the Integrated Slum Improvement, Health and Community Development Project, Vijayawada, India” (Paper presented at ‘Expert Meeting on Urban Relocation: Policy and Practice’, Rotterdam, 1215 February); •Srinivasan, Kannan (1983) “Bombay Slum Dwellers Case: What Happened in Court?”, in Business India, December 5-18, pp. 116-123; •Sundaram, P.S.A. (1992) “Relocation Experience in India” (paper presented at the Expert Seminar on Urban Relocation: Policy and Practice, 12-15 February 1992, Rotterdam), Institute of Housing Studies; •Unnayan (1992) In the Public Interest?: The Evictions at Satyanagar, Bhubaneswar, December 1988, Calcutta; ——— (1985) The Supreme Courts View of the Eviction Rights of Pavement and Slum Dwellers, July, Unnayan, Calcutta; •Youth for the Unity of Voluntary Action (YUVA) (1994) Evictions and Riots: A Case Study of Jogeshwari East, Bombay 1974-1993, YUVA, Bombay; (tentative

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title, forthcoming).

Bangkok •Anwer Khan, Shared (1994) " Attributes of Informal Settlements Affecting their Vulnerability to Eviction: a Study of Bangkok", in Environment and Urbanisation, vol.6, no. 1 pp. 25-39; •Blij, Janssen, Meijer, et al (1992) Slum Eviction and Relocation in Bangkok, Centre for International Cooperation and Appropriate Technology, Delft, Netherlands; •Boonyabancha, Somsook (1992) “Urban Relocation in Bangkok: With a Case Study on Ruamjai Samakki Resettlement Project” (Paper presented at ‘Expert Meeting on Urban Relocation: Policy and Practice’, Rotterdam, 12-15 February); ——— (1983) “Causes and Effects of Slum Eviction in Bangkok”, Land for Housing the Poor (Angel, et al., eds.), pp. 254- 283; •Smucker, Philip (1989) “‘Let My People Stay’: Bangkok Squatters Fight for Housing Rights” in Development and Cooperation, April, pp. 17-18.

••• Resistance to Forced Eviction •Angel, Shlomo and Boonyabancha, Somsook (1988) “Land Sharing as an Alternative to Eviction: The Bangkok Experience”, Third World Planning Review, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 107-127; •Bapat, Meera (1989) “Slum Improvements: Who Benefits?” in Development and Cooperation, April;

——— (1986) “Resisting Eviction Disguised as ‘Rehabilitation’: The Case of a Struggle of Squatters in Pune, India”, (Paper presented at the World Sociology Congress, New Delhi (India), 18-22 August); ——— (1985) “Resettling Shanty Dwellers: the Official Scheme and the People’s Anxieties” in Community-Based Housing Development (Bapat, Baross and Tjondrasugianto, eds.), Institute of Housing Studies, Rotterdam; •Hardoy, Jorge and Satterthwaite, David (1989) Squatter Citizen: Life in the Urban Third World, Earthscan Publications Ltd., London; •Hartman, Keating and Gates (1982) Displacement: How to Fight It, Legal Services Anti-Displacement Project, Washington DC; •National Working Group on Displacement (1989) “A Draft National Policy on Developmental Resettlement of Project-Affected People” in Development, Displace-

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ment and Rehabilitation (Fernandes and Ganguly Thukral, eds.) Indian Social Insti-

tute, New Delhi; •Niyom, Boonyabancha and Chuayklieng (1990) “From Eviction Struggle to Incremental Resettlement Processes by People in Ruamjai Samakki Resettlement Project”, Human Settlements Foundation (ESCAP), Bangkok; •Oliver-Smith, Anthony (1991) “Involuntary Resettlement and Political Empowerment” in Journal of Refugee Studies vol. 4(2), pp. 132-149.

••• Organizations such as the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), Habitat International Coalition (HIC) and the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR) regularly monitor and publish global survey’s of the practice of forced evictions which aim both to expose the massive dimensions this act takes, as well as revealing the quantitative levels of people and communities affected by the practice each year. The ACHR instigated an “Eviction Watch” project in 1993 which will result in the publication of annual reports outlining the extent of forced evictions in ten Asian countries.

COHRE has published five global reports on forced evictions, including the following: •Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions & Habitat International Coalition (1994) Forced Evictions: Violations of Human Rights #6, June, Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, Utrecht. (Discusses forced evictions in: Argentina, Austria, Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Cambodia, China, Costa Rica, Croatia, Dominican Republic, France, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Kenya, Lesotho, Malaysia, Mexico, Nepal, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Sengeal, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Tibet (occupied by China), Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Viet Nam, Zambia and Zimbabwe); ——— (1993) Forced Evictions: Violations of Human Rights #5, June, Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, Utrecht. (Discusses forced evictions in: Brazil, China, Dominican Republic, France, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel/Palestine, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, United States and Zambia); ——— (1992) Forced Evictions: Violations of Human Rights #4, August, Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, Utrecht. (Discusses forced evictions in: Argentina, Bhutan, Brazil, China, Dominican Republic, India, Indonesia, Iran, Philippines, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States and Zimbabwe); ——— (1992) Forced Evictions: Violations of Human Rights #3, February, Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, Utrecht. (Discusses forced evictions in: Brazil, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, India, Israel, Kenya, Malaysia, Morocco, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, South Africa, South Korea, Sudan, Thailand, Tibet, Viet Nam, United States and Zimbabwe).

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••• Additional Publications •Achunine, Basil (1992) Evaluation of Relocation Programmes in Nigeria—With Particular Focus on Inner City Areas, Rotterdam, Institute for Housing Studies (Expert Meeting Paper Collection); •Batley, R. (1983) “Urban Renewal and Expulsion in Brazil” in Power through Bureaucracy: Urban Political Analysis in Brazil (Bately, ed.), Aldershot, Gower, pp. 154-179; •Campaign for Bedsit Rights (1994) Law and Order in private Rented Housing: Tackling Harassment and Illegal Eviction, CBR, London; •Fernandes, Kenneth (1994) "Katchi Abadis: Living on the Edge" in Environment and Urbanisation, vol.6, no. 1 pp. 50-58;

•Goktug, M. (1992) “Relocation Experience with Particular Focus on Istanbul Inner City Areas” (paper presented at Expert Meeting on Urban Relocation: Policy and Practice, Rotterdam, 12-15 February 1992); •Hendriks, Aart and Leckie, Scott (1991) AIDS and Housing Rights in Western Europe: A Comparative Study of the Netherlands, Spain and the UK, National AIDS Trust, London; •Hunya, Gabor (1989) “The Village Resettlement Plan” in Külpolitika (Foreign Policy), Budapest; •Institute of Policy Studies Working Group on Housing (with Dick Cluster)(1989) The Right to Housing: A Blueprint for Housing the Nation, Institute of Policy Studies, Oakland; •Jules-Rosette, B. (1988) “A Zambian Squatter Complex: Cultural Variables in Urban Relocation” in Slum and Squatter Settlements in Sub-Saharan Africa (R.A. Obudho & C.C. Mhalanga), Praeger, New York; •Kothari, Miloon (1994) "Tijuca Lagoon: Evictions and Human Rights in Rio de Janeiro" in Environment and Urbanisation, vol.6, no. 1 pp. 63-73; •Marquartdt, Mark A. (1991) Settlement and Resettlement: Experience from Uganda’s National Parks, Game Reserves and Forest Reserves (paper presented at the African Conference on Environment and Resettlement, October, Kampala; •Murphy, Denis and Anana, Ted (1994) "Evictions and Fear of Evictions in the Philippines", in Environment and Urbanisation, vol.6, no. 1 pp. 40-49;

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•Murphy, Denis (1990) A Decent Place to Live: Urban Poor in Asia, Asian Coalition for Housing Rights, Bangkok; •Marulanda, L.S. (1992) “‘Relocation’ Sufficiently Dealt With?: An Analysis of Four Cases in Jakarta” (paper presented at Expert Meeting on Urban Relocation: Policy and Practice, Rotterdam, 12-15 February 1992); •Sánchez de Carmona, Luis (1992) “Evaluation of Relocation Experience in Mexico City with Particular Focus on Inner-City Areas” (Paper presented at ‘Expert Meeting on Urban Relocation: Policy and Practice’, Rotterdam, 12-15 February); •Sarin, Madhu (1983) “The Rich, The Poor and the Land Question”, in Shlomo Angel et. al., (Eds.) Land for Housing the Poor, Select Books, Bangkok; •SUR (1992) Processos de Expulsion de Habitantes de Bajos Ingresos del Centro de Santiago, 1981-1990, report prepared for IDRC & HIC, September, (available from SUR, IDRC or HIC); •Tyler, Patrick E. (30 April 1989) “Iraq Targets Kurds for Relocation” in The Washington Post;

•Wertheim, Perola (1992) “Resettlement Plan for Relocation in Rio de Janeiro” (Paper presented at ‘Expert Meeting on Urban Relocation: Policy and Practice’, Rotterdam, 12-15 February).

2. Conceptual Research •Audefroy, Joël (1994) "Eviction Trends Worldwide-the Role of Local Authorities in Implementing the Right to Housing" in Environment and Urbanisation, vol.6, no. 1 pp. 8-24; •Cernea, M. and Guggenheim, S. (1993) Anthropological Approaches to Involuntary Resettlement: Policy, Practice and Theory, Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado; •Colchester, Marcus (1986) The Social Dimensions of Government-Sponsored Migration and Involuntary Resettlement: Policies and Practice (paper prepared for the Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues), Geneva; •Gans, J. (1968) People and Plans: Essays on Urban Problems and Solutions, Basic Books, New York; •Kool, Verboom and van der Linden (1989) “Squatter Settlement Improvement and Displacement: A Review of Concepts, Theory and Comparative Evidence”, Habitat International, vol. 13(3), pp. 187-199; •Luciano, Francisco (1989) Eviction in Third World Cities (Master’s Thesis), Cent-

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re for Infrastructure Planning, U. of Stuttgart; •Perlman, J. (1980) “The Failure of Influence: Squatter Eradication in Brazil” in Politics and Policy Implementation in the Third World (Grindle, M.S., ed.), Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp. 250-278; ——— (1979) The Myth of Marginality: Urban Poverty and Politics in Rio de Janeiro, University of California Press, Berkeley; •Robben, Pieter (1984) “Improvement and the better-off: displacement as a consequence of squatter settlement upgrading”, geographische en Planologische Notities No. 24, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam; •Scudder, Thayer and Colson, Elizabeth (1981) “From Welfare to Development: A Conceptual Framework for the Analysis of Dislocated People” in Involuntary Migration and Resettlement: The Problems of Dislocated People (Art, Oliver-Smith and Hansen, eds.), Westview Press, Colorado; •Softestad, Lars T. (1991) “Anthropology, Development and Human Rights: The Case of Involuntary Resettlement” in Ethnologie im Wiederstreit: Kontroserven über macht, Geschäft, Geschlecht in fremden Kulturan, Trickster, Bonn.

3. Development Projects & Dam Displacement •Alvarez, C. and Billorey, C. (1987) “Damming the Narmada: The Politics Behind the Destruction” in The Ecologist, Vol. 17, No. 2/3, pp. 62-74; •Bartolome, L. (1984) “Forced Resettlement and the Survival Systems of the Urban Poor” in Ethnology, vol. 23(3), pp. 177-192; •Cernea, Micheal (1988) Involuntary Resettlement in Development Projects: Policy Guidelines in World Bank Financed Projects, World Bank Technical Paper No. 80, Washington, DC; •Cook, C.C. and Aleki, Mukendi (1992) Involuntary Resettlement in Bank-Financed Projects: Lessons from Sub-Saharan Africa, World Bank, Washington DC; •Committee for the Right to Housing (CRH) (1988) Development Displacement: A Study of the Majaswadi Village Community, Jogeshwari, Bombay, Published for CRH by YUVA, Bombay; •Cultural Survival (1988) “Resettlement and Relocation, Parts I & II” in Cultural Survival Quarterly vol. 12, no. 3/4, pp. 2-40;

•Cummings, Peter A. (1990) Dam the Rivers, Damn the People, Earthscan Publica-

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tions Ltd., London; •Drucker, C. (1984) “Dam the Chico: Hydro Development and Tribal Resistance in the Philippines” in The Social and Environmental Effects of Large Dams (Goldsmith and Hildyard, eds.); •Fernandes, W. (1992) Displacement as a Process of Marginalization, Electrobras, Florianopolis, Brazil; ——— (1991) “Power and Powerlessness: Development Projects and Displacement of Tribals” in Social Action, vol. 41(3), pp. 243-270; ——— and Thukral, E.G. (1989) Development, Displacement and Rehabilitation: Issues for a National Debate, Indian Social Institute, New Delhi; •Goldsmith, E. and Hildyard, N., eds. (1984) The Social and Environmental Effects of Large Dams, Wadebridge Ecological Centre, Camelford, UK; •Guggenheim, S. (1990) “Development and the Dynamics of Displacement” in Rehabilitation of People Displaced by Development Projects, T.C. Shah Aloysious Fernandes, Bangalore; •International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (1986) “Dams in Central India Threaten Over One Million Adivasi” in IWGIA Newsletter, No. 46, July, pp. 68-77; •Le Moigne, Rangeley and Mermel (1991) “Dam Planning, People and the Environment: World Bank Policies and Practices” in Transactions of the International Commission on Large Dams, vol. 1, pp. 617-634; •Morse, Bradford and Berger, Thomas (1992) Sardar Sarovar: A Report of the Independent Review, Resources Futures International, Ottawa; •Panos Institute (1993) Forced to Move: Large Development Projects and Forced Resettlement, Panos, London; •Partridge, William (1989) “Involuntary Resettlement in Development Projects” in Journal of Refugee Studies vol. 2(3), pp. 373-384; •Paul, James C.N. “International Development Agencies, Human Rights and Humane Development Projects” in Denver Journal of International Law and Policy, vol. 17, No. 1, 1989, pp. 67-120; •Pokharel, J.C. (1985) Large-scale Resource Development Projects and the Problem of Displacement Compensation and Resettlement, December; •Robinson, S. (1991) “The Politics of Resettlement: Dams and Campesino Resistance

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to State Encroachment” in Mexico’s Second Revolution? (Howard & Ross, eds.), Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, pp. 113-124; •Ryder, Grainne (1991) Damming the Three Gorges: What Dam Builders Don’t Want You to Know, Probe International, Toronto; •Schechla, Joe (1993) The Price of Development: Housing, Environment and People in India’s Narmada Valley, HIC Housing Rights Subcommittee and Habitat and Environment Working Group; •Vaswani, Kalpana (1992) “Rehabilitation Laws and Policies: A Critical Look” in Big Dams, Displaced People: Rivers of Sorrow Rivers of Change (Ganguly Thukral, Enakshi, eds.), Sage Publications, New Delhi, Newbury Park and London.

4. International Events and Forced Evictions •Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (1991) “Report on Evictions in Bangkok Prior World Bank and IMF Meetings”, ACHR, Bangkok; ——— and Habitat International Coalition, The Urban Poor Federation of Korea and Urban Poor Research Institute Korea (1989) Report on the Meeting “A Place To Live: Asian People’s Dialogue”, Seoul, Korea 14-20 June 1989 (September); ——— (1989) “Evictions in Seoul, South Korea”, Environment and Urbanization, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 89-94; ——— and Third World Network (1989) Battle for Housing Rights in Korea, Asian Coalition for Housing Rights, Bangkok; •Catholic Institute for International Relations (1988) Disposable People: Forced Evictions in South Korea, CIIR, London;

•CEDAIL (1988) La Remodelacion Urbana, los Desalojos y Las Leyes, Paper presented at the ‘Seminario Internacional Sobre Remodelacion Urbana’, Santo Domingo (available from COHRE); •Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (1995) Forced Evictions and International Events, COHRE, Utrecht (forthcoming); •Hyung-Kook Kim (1992) Korean Experiences of Eviction: The Case of Seoul, report prepared for the International Development Research Centre and Habitat International Coalition, August; •Lee, D.Y. The Evolution of the Evicted People’s Movements in the Urban Rede-

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velopment Area: A Case Study of Mok Dong, Yonsei University, Yonsei (disserta-

tion); •Morel E., Mejia M., and Brea, R. (1992) Remodelacion Urbana y Desalojos En La Ciudad De Santo Domingo: La Conception Presente en los Discursos y Proyectos del Gobierno, los Factores que la Determinan y Sus Consecuencias para los Pobladores, Report prepared for the International Development Research Centre &

Habitat International Coalition, July; •Olds, Kris (1992) Hallmark Events, Evictions and Housing Rights: The Canadian Case, Report prepared for the International Development Research Centre & Habitat International Coalition, July; ——— (1989) “Mass Evictions in Vancouver: The Human Toll of Expo ‘86”, Canadian Housing, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 49-52;

•Park, Y.M. (1989) The Analysis of Anti-Eviction Movements in Sang Kye Dong (dissertation), Seokang University, Seokang; •Schütz, E. (1988) “Para festajar el dia....Actualmente son Desolojadas miles de familias en Santo Domingo”, Medio Ambiente y Urbanizacion, no. 25, pp. 78-81.

5. Eviction-Related Fact-Finding Mission Reports • Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (1991) Urban Poor Housing Rights in South Korea and Hong Kong: Fact Finding and Assessment Mission Report on Urban Poor Housing Rights (7-18 September 1990), Bangkok, Asian Coalition for Housing Rights; ——— Third World Network (1989) Battle for Housing Rights in Korea: Report of the South Korea Project of the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights, Bangkok, Asian Coalition for Housing Rights; •Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (1993) Prima Facie Violations of Article 11(1) of the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by the Government of the Philippines, November, Utrecht, COHRE;

•Habitat International Coalition and Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (1995) Forced Evictions in the Dominican Republic (forthcoming); •Habitat International Coalition (1995) Targeting the Home: Violations of the Right to Housing by the Government of Israel, Mexico, HIC (forthcoming); ——— and CODEHUCA (1992) Report on the Verification Visit of the Habitational Situation in Panama, (13-16 November 1992), Mexico, HIC;

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——— (1988) Investigation into the Eviction of the Residents of the Baghbazar Municipal Yard, Calcutta, India (27 March 1988); •Ruiz & Florian (1989) Fact-Finding Mission to the Dominican Republic, Fedevivienda, Bogota.

6. International Law, Human Rights and Forced Evictions •COHRE (1994) Sources # 4: Legal Provisions on Housing Rights: International and National Approaches, (November), Utrecht; •Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) [1993] Sources #3: Forced Evictions and Human Rights: A Manual for Action (June), Utrecht; •COHRE (1992) Sources # 1: Legal Sources of the Right to Housing in International Human Rights Law, February, Utrecht; •COHRE (1992) How to Use the Resolution on Forced Evictions, May, Utrecht; •COHRE (1992) Forced Evictions and Human Rights: The Work of COHRE and HIC, September, Utrecht; •COHRE (1992) General Comment No. 4 on The Right to Adequate Housing (adopted by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on 12 December 1991), April, Utrecht; •Kothari, Miloon (1993) “U.N. and Forced Evictions”, Seminar, No. 405, pp. 54-58; ——— and Kothari, Ashish (1993) “The Displaced People: Forced Evictions and Human Rights”, Frontline, 21 May, pp. 74-75; ——— (1991) “Forced Evictions and the United Nations”, Lokayan Bulletin, vol: 9:5, Delhi, pp. 73-79; ——— and S. Leckie (1991) “UN Condemns Evictions”, (November), Third World Resurgence, No. 17, pp. 43-45; •Leckie, Scott (1992) From Housing Needs to Housing Rights: An Analysis of the Right to Adequate Housing Under International Human Rights Law, IIED (Human Settlements Programme), London; ——— (1991) “Eviction’s no Fiction”, Whole Earth Review, No. 72, Fall, pp. 88-89.

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7. United Nations Documents •Forced Evictions: Analytical Report Compiled by the Secretary -General and Submitted Pursuant to Commission on Human Rights Resolution 1993/77 (UN doc: E/CN.4/1994/20, dated 7 December 1993), Considered during the 50th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights (31 January-11 March 1994, Geneva); •Second Progress Report on the Right to Adequate Housing, prepared by the UN Special Rapporteur on Housing Rights, Justice Rajindar Sachar (August 1994), UN doc: E/CN.4/Sub.2/1994/20 (available from the UN Centre for Human Rights and COHRE in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian and Chinese); •First Progress Report on the Right to Adequate Housing, prepared by the UN Special Rapporteur on Housing Rights, Justice rajindar Sachar (August 1993), UN doc: E/CN.4/Sub.2/ 1993/15 (available from the UN Centre for Human Rights and COHRE in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian and Chinese); •Working Paper on the Right to Adequate Housing, prepared by UN Special Rapporteur on Housing Rights, Justice Rajindar Sachar, (August 1992), UN doc: E/CN.4/Sub.2/1992/15 (available from the UN Centre for Human Rights and COHRE in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian and Chinese); •United Nations Centre for Human Rights, Human Rights Fact Sheet on the Right to Adequate Housing (1993).

8. Guidelines and Views on Relocation and Resettlement •Cernea, Micheal M. (1992) “The Urban Environment and Population Relocation”, (Paper presented at ‘Expert Meeting on Urban Relocation: Policy and Practice’, Rotterdam, 12-15 February); ——— (1991, ed.) “Involuntary Resettlement: Social Research, Policy and Planning”, Putting People First: Sociological Variables in Rural Development, World Bank,

Oxford University Press, Oxford; ——— (1990) Poverty Risks From Population Displacement in Water Resources Development, Development Discussion Paper No. 355, Harvard Institute for International Development, Harvard University, Boston; ——— (1990) From Unused Social Knowledge to Policy Creation: The Case of Population Resettlement, Development Discussion Paper No. 342, Harvard Institute for International Development, Harvard University, Boston; ——— (1990) “Internal Refugee Flows and Development-Induced Population Displacement”, Journal of Refugee Studies, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 320-339;

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——— (1989) “Metropolitan Development and Compulsory Population Relocation: Policy Issues and Project Experience”, Regional Development Dialogue, vol 10(4); ——— (1988) “Involuntary Resettlement and Development”, Finance and Development, no. 9, September; •Davidson, Rodell and Zaaijer (1993) Relocation and Resettlement Manual, Institute for Housing Studies, Rotterdam; •Guggenheim, Scott (March 1994) Involuntary Resettlement: An Annotated Reference Bibliography for Development Research, Environment Department, World Bank; •Leckie, Scott (1992) “Relocation Strategies: Mitigating Human Suffering or Justifying It?” (Paper presented at ‘Expert Meeting on Urban Relocation: Policy and Practice’, Rotterdam, 12-15 February); •OECD (1991) Guidelines for Aid Agencies on Involuntary Displacement and Resettlement in Development Projects, Development Assistance Committee, Paris; •United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (1991) Evaluation of Relocation Experience, UNCHS, Nairobi;

•United Nations Global Strategy for Shelter to the Year 2000 (GSS), adopted by United Nations General Assembly resolution 43/181, 20 December 1988; •World Bank, (Environment Dept, 1994) Ressettlement and Development: the Bankwide Review of Projects Involving Involuntary Resettlement 1986-1993, Washington DC; •World Bank, (1991) World Bank Urban Policy and Economic Development: An Agenda for the 1990s, World Bank, Washington, DC; ——— (1990) Operational Directive 4.30 on Involuntary Resettlement (29 June); ——— (1989) “Coping With Involuntary Resettlement”, Urban Edge, vol. 13, no. 2, (March). (Article argues that involuntary resettlement is the price of progress and development).

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Annex 5: Useful Contacts Regional & International Networks •SAARC Region Rural Displacement Network, c/o YUVA, 8 Ground Floor (Mhatre Bldg.), 33L Mugbhat Cross Lane, Bombay 400 026, India, tel: 91.22.3888811/ fax: 91.22.2044223; •Eviction Watch Project, c/o Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR), PO Box 2474 Klongchan, Bangkapi, Bangkok, 10240, Thailand, tel: 66.2.5380919/ fax: 66.2.5399950; •Habitat International Coalition (HIC) and The Dialogue for Human Progress (DPH) Eviction Data Base, c/o HIC, Cordobanes No. 24, Col. San José Insurgentes, Mexico DF 03900, Mexico, tel: 52.5.6516807/ fax: 52.5.5935194.

Asia •Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (HIC Focal Point), PO Box 24-74 Klongchan, Bangkapi, Bangkok, 10240, Thailand, tel: 66.2.5380919/ fax: 66.2.5399950; •Society for Community organization (SOCO), 52 Princess Margaret Road, 3rd Floor, Kowloon, Hong Kong, tel: 852.7139165/ fax: 852.7613326; •Centre for People’s Movement, Madras Slum People’s Organization, Plot No. J-146, M.M.D.A. Colony, Madras-600 106, India; •Children’s Housing Rights Network, Flat No. 117, Bldg. No. 8, 1st Floor, Dr. Baliga Nagar, Jasmine Mill Road, Mahim (East) Bombay 400 017, India, tel: 91.22.4070623/ fax: 91.22.2044223; •Committee on the Right to Housing (CRH): Co-ordination Centre, C/o Bandra East Community Centre, 341-A, Siddharth Colony, Bandra (E), Bombay, 400051, India, tel: 91.22.4070623; •Multiple Action Research Group, 113-A, Near Asiad Village, New Delhi 110016, India, tel: 91.11.6467483;

•Narmada Bachao Andolan, c/o ‘Parivartan’ Nimbalkar Chambers, Dandia Bazar, Baroda 390 001, Gujarat, India, tel: 91.265.4070623, fax: 91.265.851963; •National Campaign for Housing Rights (NCHR), Flat No. 117, Bldg. No. 8, 1st Floor, Dr. Baliga Nagar, Jasmine Mill Road, Mahim (East) Bombay 400 017, India, tel: 91.22.4070623/ fax 91.22.2044223 (c/o NCHR); •UN Special Rapporteur on Housing Rights (Justice Rajindar Sachar), A-19, New Friends Colony, New Delhi-110065, India, tel: 91.11.6847786;

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•Unnayan, 36/1A Garcha Road, Calcutta 700 019, India, tel: 91.33.4750162/ 747017; •Youth for Voluntary Action (YUVA), 8 Ground Floor (Mhatre Bldg.), 33L Mugbhat Cross Lane, Bombay 400 026, India, tel: 91.22.3888811/ fax: 91.22.2044223; •Al-Haq (International Campaign to Halt Israeli Destruction of Palestinian Homes in the Occupied Territories), PO Box 1413, Ramallah, West Bank, via Israel, tel: 972.2.956421; •Arab Association for Human Rights, HRA, P.O. Box 215, Nazareth 16101, Israel, tel: 972.6.561923/ fax: 972.6.564934; •Association of the Forty, 9 Hanadiv Avenue, Haifa 34611, Israel, tel: 972.4.348876/ fax: 972.4.348878; •Association for the Support and Defense of Bedouin Rights in Israel, P.O. Box 5212, 37 Hativat Hanageb Street, B’ir Sa’ba, Israel, tel/fax: 972.5.731687; •Palestine Human Rights Information Centre, Housing Rights Project, P.O. Box 20479, Jerusalem, Israel, tel: 972.2.287077/ fax: 972.2.287070; •Urban Resource Centre, D-30 Paradise Palace Apts., 255 Sarwar Shaheed Road, Karachi 74200, Pakistan, tel: 92.21.5682120; •Urban Poor Associates, 80-A Malakas St., Bgy Pinyahan, Quezon City, Philippines, tel: 63.2.966755/ fax: 63.2.987001; •Housing Rights Center, 18-C Semira Apts, Juna Avenue, Matina, Davao City 8000, Philippines, tel: 63.82.74651/ fax: 63.82.63135;

•Saligan (Alternative Legal Assistance Center), Ground Floor, Hoeffner Building, Social Development Complex, Ateneo De Manila, Loyola Heights, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines, tel: 63.2.9244601/ fax: 63.2.961469; •Korean Coalition for Housing Rights, UPRI, Sogang University, CPO Box 1142, Seoul, South Korea, tel: 82.2.7733158/ fax: 82.2.7020622.

Africa •Mazingira Institute (HIC Focal Point Anglophone Africa), PO Box 14564, Nairobi, Kenya, tel: 254.2.47066/ fax: 254.2.740524;

•ENDA (HIC Focal Point Francophone Africa), Rue Carnot 54, Dakar 3370, Senegal, tel: 221.220942/ fax: 221.222695; •Shelter Forum, PO Box 39493, Nairobi, Kenya, fax: 254.2.442108;

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•Housing Rights Unit (Lawyers for Human Rights), PO Box 5156, Johannesburg 2000, South Africa, tel: 27.11.3313465/ fax: 27.11.3316860; •Legal Resources Centre, National Office, PO Box 9495, 2000 Johannesburg, South Africa, tel: 27.11.8388071/ fax: 27.11.8331747;

•Organisation of Civic Rights (OCR), PO Box 4787, Durban 4000, South Africa, tel: 27.31.3046451/ fax: 27.31.3010026; •Peoples’ Dialogue on Land and Shelter, Century Insurance Building, 4th Floor, 49 Kruis St., Cnr Kruis & Market Streets, Johannesburg 2000, South Africa, tel: 27.11.3335097/ fax: 27.11.3337810; •Planact, PO Box 93540, Yeoville 2143, Johannesburg, South Africa, tel: 27.11.6486117/ fax: 27.11.6486919; •Zimrights, PO Box 4111, Harare, Zimbabwe, tel: 263.4.796586/7, fax: 263.4.796589; •ZWOSAG/LUDC, PO Box 350136, Chilamga, Lusaka, Zambia.

Latin America •Fedevivienda (HIC Focal Point), Avenida 39, No. 14-75, AA 57059, Santafé de Bogota, Colombia, tel: 57.1.2324246/ fax: 57.1.2871941; •Movimiento de Ocupantes e Inquilinos de Capital Federal, Independencia 766, CP 1099, Buenos Aires, Argentina, tel: 54.1.9436205/ fax: 54.1.274419; •ANSUR, R. Dr. Gabriel Piza No. 464, Santana 02036-011, Sao Paulo, Brazil, tel: 55.11.2672664//fax: 55.11.2995330; •Brazilian Movement in Defense of Life, Caixa Postal no. 64077, Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro-RJ, Brazil 22012-010, tel: 55.21.5421385; •POLIS, Rua Joaquim Floriano 462, Itaim Bibi, CEP 04534-002, Sao Paulo SP, Brazil, tel: 55.11.8202945/ 55.11.8206572/ 55.11.8298213/ fax: 55.11.8205279; •COPADEBA/Ciudad Alternativa, Calle 14, #3 (altos), Ens Espaillat, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, tel: 809.6882440;

•Casa y Ciudad, Calzada de Tlalpan 1025, Col. Americas Unidas, Mexico, D.F., Mexico, tel: 52.5.5392087, fax: 52.5.6742135; •Habitat International Coalition (HIC), Cordobanes No. 24, Col. San Jose Insurgentes, Mexico D.F. 03900, Mexico, tel: 52.5.6516807/ fax. 52.5.6512371;

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•Movimiento Comunal Nicaraguense, Hospital Velexz Paiz, 4 cuandras arriba Rpto.

Belmonte, Managua, Nicaragua, tel: 505.2.52167/ fax: 505.2.50931; •CONADEHUPA, Apdo. Postal No. 6-567, El Dorado, Panamá, Rep. de Panamá, fax: 507.690670.

Europe •Habitat et Participation (HIC Focal Point), 1, Place du Levant, 1348 Louvain-laNeuve, Belgium, tel: 32.10.472314/ fax: 32.10.473043; •FEANTSA, 1 rue Defacqz/17, B-1050 Brussels 1, Belgium, tel: 32.2.5386669/ fax: 32.2.5394174; •Syndicat des Locataires, Square Albert I,32, Brussels 1070, Belgium, tel: 32.2.5229869/ fax: 32.2.5241816; •Campaign for Bedsit Rights, 5-15 Cromer Street, London WC1H 8LS, England, tel: 44.71.2780598; •Ecologist, Agriculture House, Bath Road, Sturminster Newton, Dorset DT10 1DU, England, tel: 44.258.473476/ fax: 44.258.473748; •Food First International Action Network (FIAN), PO Box 102243, D-6900 Heidelberg, Germany, tel: 49.6221.50108/ fax: 49.6221.830545; •Unione Inquilini-Centro Nazionale, c/o Casa Dei Diritti Sociali, Via Farini 62, 00185 Roma, Italy, tel: 39.6.4882374/ fax: 39.6.4820974; •Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), Havikstraat 38bis, 3514 TR Utrecht, Netherlands, tel: 31.30.731976/ fax: 31.30.721453.

North America •Rooftops (HIC Focal Point), 2 Berkeley St., Suite 207, Toronto M5A 2W3, Canada, tel: 1.416.3661711/ fax: 1.416.3663876; •Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation (CERA) 517 College St., Suite 408, Toronto M6G 1A8, Canada, tel: 1.416.9440087/ fax: 1.416.9441803; •Probe International, 225 Brunswick Ave., Toronto, Ont M5S 25G, Canada, tel: 1.416.9648239/ fax: 1.416.9648239; •National Housing Law Project, 2201 Broadway, Suite 815, Oakland, CA 94612, USA, tel: 1.510.2519400/ fax: 1.510.2510600; •National Law Centre on Homelessness and Poverty, 918 F st., NW, Suite 412, Washington DC 20004, USA, tel:1.202.6382535.

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