(English) UN extends mandate of Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing

(English) 1 October 2010

Reacting to the decision by the UN Human Rights Council currently meeting in Geneva, Switzerland to extend the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, COHRE today welcomed the move, saying that it demonstrated a commitment on the part of the international community to acknowledge the challenges the world still faces in terms of realizing the right to adequate housing for the worlds poorest.

The mandate of the Special Rapporteur has been extended for a period of three years, with a brief to promote the full realization of the right to adequate housing worldwide.

Raquel Rolnik, an architect and an urban planner with over 30 years experience in planning and urban land management has been the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing since 1 May 2008.

Negotiations that led to the final resolution highlighted governments different perspectives on the right to adequate housing, including some states opposition to the notion of adequate housing being a human right at all.

While it is a positive signal that the world recognises the need for a UN special expert on housing, governments must remember that adequate housing is a right, as declared by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and as recognised in several UN resolutions, said Salih Booker, Executive Director of the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions
(COHRE), based in Geneva.

The right to adequate housing has its foundation in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and has been repeatedly reaffirmed in international and regional treaties, and UN resolutions. The UN General Assembly recognized the right to adequate housing as early as 1986, and repeatedly reaffirming that it is such a right on numerous occasions, COHRE called on the Special Rapporteur to in the context of the full realisation of the right to adequate housing play a key role in the next phase of the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by strengthening the focus on adequate housing for the one billion people living in slums, and to do so from a human rights perspective.

The Special Rapporteur was mandated among other things, to identify best practices in housing rights, give emphasis to practical solutions to housing rights problems; apply a gender perspective to the realization of the right to adequate housing; pay special attention to the needs of people in vulnerable situations; and continue working on the basic principles and guidelines on development-based evictions and displacement.

An estimated 1 billion people currently live in slums and other sub-standard housing around the world that is one in seven people,? said Salih Booker. Hundreds of millions of these people live in truly dire conditions without water and sanitation, public infrastructure or security of tenure.

We hope that all UN member states will fully cooperate with and support the Special Rapporteur in the discharge of her mandate and ensure appropriate follow-up to her recommendations regarding housing rights challenges in their countries so that these crucial human rights problems can be addressed.

The position of UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing was created in 2000. The Rapporteur examines, monitors, advises and reports on the right to housing across the world, provides technical assistance to governments, and promotes dialogue between residents and their governments to ensure better housing conditions. She also encourages dialogue between UN bodies and relevant international organizations on housing rights issues.

Source:
COHRE

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