important and unique database on both the global situation and measures on how to address evictions. Development of tools to monitor and assess evictions
Monitoring acts of forced evictions is a key activity within AGFE’s mandate. To this end, in 2009, the AGFE Secretariat developed a technical proposal for a Global Eviction Database. The proposed database would be the first to enable international groups monitoring forced evictions to work collaboratively. The potential impact of a global database is threefold: • •
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to provide a one-stop shop for viewers to understand the status of different global forced evictions; to allow stakeholders, particularly policymakers, to gain easy access to aggregated data (e.g. based on regions, compensation paid, monitoring organizations, etc.) based on the creation of different views from the database; and to increase general awareness of forced evictions around the world.
AGFE in conjunction with the Secretariat developed several normative tools to assist in the monitoring and documentation of forced evictions: the “Due Process Quantitative Diagnostic Tool”, the “Eviction and Relocation Due Process Assessment Matrix” and the “Due Process Assessment Checklist.”17 These tools are an important first step to assist in the systematic documentation of the practice of forced evictions. UN-HABITAT should consider whether ‘due process’ is the most effective and appropriate term for these tools. On the one hand, it might be useful for States to understand forced evictions in light of procedural human
rights, given that ‘due process’ is a familiar enough legal term in different contexts. On the other hand, there is something ill-fitting and technical about the term. It creates distance between those affected by forced eviction and the act itself. In order to be effectively addressed, forced eviction must be understood as more than just a process that must meet particular human rights standards. It must be understood as a fundamentally life-altering, traumatic crisis that affects every member of the household and often entire communities. It may be the single most defining event in a person’s life. A human rights approach to addressing any social phenomenon requires that the impact on the individual be paramount and centre. The tools themselves are very good at ensuring this emphasis and focus, so the tools could simply be renamed: Eviction and Resettlement Human Rights Checklist. With respect to the Quantitative Diagnostic Tool and the Matrix, an analysis of the desirability and utility of ascribing numerical values to an assessment of whether human rights criteria were met is still required. The Matrix suggests that “a maximum of available resources” standard be applied, without any indication as to how that standard can best be understood. This standard does not appear in the Checklist. The Matrix also needs to be reviewed to ensure that it is not too prescriptive or restrictive, recognizing for example that what constitutes ‘adequacy’, ‘security’ or ‘reasonableness’ may differ depending on the context in which the forced eviction takes place. The eviction due process tools are intended to “assist UN-HABITAT staff to conduct a quick impact assessment of eviction and relocation processes driven by central and local government authorities in client countries.”18 The Due Process Assessment
These tools were developed in 2009 and 2010 in draft form. See Annex II. See: UN-HABITAT, Due Process Assessment Checklist for Development-Based Eviction and Relocation, Draft 4 August 2010. Annex II.
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