1. BACKGROUND
Amnesty International welcomes the initiative by the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on adequate
housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination
in this context (hereafter the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing) to prepare guidance for states on
designing and implementing effective human rights-based housing strategies to realize the right to housing
and to fulfil commitments made under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the New Urban
Agenda. Amnesty International recognizes that the success of the 2030 Agenda and the New Urban Agenda
lies in their implementation at the national and the local level. As governments, financial institutions, donors,
philanthropic entities and the private sector align their investments towards the SDGs and the New Urban
Agenda, there needs to be an equally strong alignment between resources, social policies and human rights
obligations.
Amnesty International provides the following submission in response to the request for contributions from the
UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing towards preparation of the above mentioned guidance.1 The
submission draws on Amnesty International’s research and advocacy on the right to adequate housing in
several countries around the world. It elaborates some fundamental issues that governments must address
in order to ensure that they comply with their commitment to respect, protect and fulfil the right to adequate
housing. The submission also outlines key requirements necessary to ensure that housing strategies comply
with international human rights law.
2. LACK OF LEGAL SECURITY OF TENURE
Worldwide, it is estimated that over a billion people live in slums or informal settlements.2 In most cases,
people living in slums lack security of tenure which increases their vulnerability to forced evictions. The
failure of governments to provide every person with a minimum degree of security of tenure is one of the
main barriers to achieving the right to adequate housing for all. Any human rights-based housing strategy
must therefore prioritize putting in place a legal framework that confers, at the very least, a minimum degree
of security of tenure in order to protect people from forced evictions, harassment and threats.
Given the huge financial and human cost of resettlement, Amnesty International has consistently called for,
as far as possible, the provision of security of tenure, in-situ. Only in exceptional circumstances and after
genuine consultation with affected people and application of other safeguards should eviction and
resettlement be considered as an option for achieving security of tenure.
As an example of provision of security of tenure, Amnesty International notes that in Afghanistan, many
international aid workers pointed to the positive, albeit small-scale experience from Maslakh camp in Herat.
Since 2014, UN-Habitat and UNHCR have worked with local authorities on a pilot project to regularise
Maslakh camp as a way of granting security of tenure to the residents and to provide essential services. The
project had not been completed at the time of Amnesty International’s research, but it points to the
possibility of providing security of tenure in-situ where residents preferred to integrate locally rather than
return to their places of origin.3
However, in most other cases Amnesty International has found that governments have done little to meet
their immediate human rights obligation of providing security of tenure and in some cases made it very
difficult for people to obtain it. For example, in Lagos, Nigeria, security of tenure remains elusive to the vast
majority of the estimated 70% of people in Lagos living in slums or informal settlements. Lagos land law
experts told Amnesty International that the process of obtaining a minimum degree of security of tenure is
cumbersome, lengthy, fraught with corruption and too costly for the urban poor.4
This is in addition to the submission to the UN Special Rapporteur (Index number: IOR 30/7341/2017) focussing on Mongolia.
UN Habitat and APCO, ‘Slum Almanac 2015/2016: Tracking Improvement in the Lives of Slum Dwellers’, October 2016
https://unhabitat.org/slum-almanac-2015-2016/
3
For details, see Amnesty International, ‘My Children Will Die This Winter: Afghanistan’s Broken Promise to the Displaced’, 2016, Index
number: ASA 11/4017/2016
4
For details, see Amnesty International, ‘The Human Cost of a Mega City: Forced Evictions of the Urban Poor in Lagos, Nigeria’, 2017 Index
number: AFR 44/7389/2017
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EFFECTIVE HUMAN RIGHTS-BASED HOUSING STRATEGIES
SUBMISSION TO THE UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON ADEQUATE HOUSING AS A COMPONENT OF THE RIGHT TO AN ADEQUATE STANDARD OF LIVING, AND ON THE
RIGHT TO NON-DISCRIMINATION IN THIS CONTEXT
Amnesty International
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