Amartya Sen’s Position
The Human Rights-Based
Approach to Adequate Housing
Expert Group Meeting
UN-HABITAT
20-23 September 2011
If we found out that there
are nor human rights; then
it is high time that we
invent them!
Urban Jonsson
The Origin and Meaning
of Human Rights
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HUMAN RIGHTS
Human Rights =
THE MEANING OF HUMAN RIGHTS
VALID CLAIM
CORRELATIVE
DUTY
Claim (Right) Holder
Duty Bearer
(Subject)
Morality
+
Legality
DEFINITION OF HUMAN RIGHTS (3)
“Rights are claims that have
achieved a special kind of
endorsement or success; legal
rights by legal systems;
human rights by widespread
sentiment or an international
order”
(Object)
(content)
“A school-aged child has a valid
claim (right) to education – others
have duties (or obligations) to ensure
that the right is realized.”
Claim-Holders and Duty-Bearers are
ROLES
Claim(Right)-Holders and
Duty-Bearers are roles into
which individuals or groups of
individuals enter depending on
the context
Example
Tenant and Landlord
(James Crawford, 1988)
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PATTERN OF HUMAN RIGHTS (1)
 A tenant has the right to access
to drinking water
 The landlord has the (correlative)
duty to ensure the availability of
drinking water (primary dutybearers)
Human Rights Duties or
Obligations
 The landlord may not be able to
meet his duty, because his valid
claim on the water authority to
provide water is not is not
respected
PATTERN OF HUMAN RIGHTS (2)
 It is not respected because the
Water Authority does not meet its
duty (secondary duty bearer)
 However, the Water Authority
can not meet its duty, because
the Government has diverted all
drinking water to the wealthier
part of the city
 The ultimate duty-bearer is
therefore the State.
STATE OBLIGATIONS
 The obligation to respect
 The obligation to protect
 The obligation to fulfil
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HUMAN RIGHTS STANDARDS AND HUMAN
RIGHTS PRINCIPLES
A Human Rights-Based
Approach to
Development
Good
Human Rights Principles =
criteria for an acceptable
process
HUMAN RIGHTS PRINCIPLES (UN)
OUTCOME
B
Human Rights Standards =
the minimum acceptable level
of a desirable outcome
• Equality and Non-Discrimination
C
Bad
• Participation and Inclusion
A
Bad
D
Good
• Accountability and Rule of Law
PROCESS
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OUTCOME
(Human Rights Standards)
 Eradication of hunger and malnutrition
 Universal primary education
 Adequate housing for all
 MDGs
The United Nations and
Human Rights
 “Results”
PROCESS
(Human Rights Principles)
 Equality and Non-Discrimination
 Participation and Inclusion
 Accountability and Rule of Law
Bad
Good
OUTCOME
B
C
A
D
Bad
Good
“As the Secretary-General of the
United Nations I have made
human rights a priority in every
programme the United Nations
launches and in every mission we
embark on. I have done so
because the promotion and
defense of human rights is at the
heart of every aspect of our work
and every article of our Charter”
PROCESS
(Annan, 1999)
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ESSENTIAL AND UNIQUE CHARACTERISTICS
The UN Common
Understanding of a HRBA
• Assessment and analysis of the
capacity gaps of claim-holders
to be able to clam their rights
and of duty-bearers to be able
to meet their obligations.
(Capacity Analysis).
ESSENTIAL AND UNIQUE CHARACTERISTICS
• Situation Analysis to identify
immediate, underlying and basic
causes of the non-realization of
human rights (Causality Analysis)
The Right to Adequate
Housing
• Identification of key claimholder/duty-bearer relationship on
all levels of society (Pattern
Analysis)
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UDHR (1948)
International Declarations and Guidelines
“Everyone has the right to a
standard of living adequate
for the health and well-being
of himself and his family,
including food, clothing,
housing and medical care
and necessary social
services,..”
(Article 25)
International Treaties recognizing the Right to
Adequate Housing
 ICESCR
 ICCPR
 Vancouver Declaration on
Human Settlements (1976)
 Rio Agenda 21 (1992)
 Istanbul Declaration and The
HABITAT Agenda (1996)
 The Habitat Agenda (2000)
 The Millennium Declaration
and the MDGs (2000)
GENERAL COMMENT 4 (1991)
It is not just a roof over
one’s head, it is about
adequate housing
 ICERD
 CEDAW
 CRC
 ICRMW
 CRPD
“…it should be seen as the
right to live somewhere in
security, peace and
dignity”
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Adequate Housing (Fact Sheet 25)
1. The right to adequate housing
contains freedoms
2. The right to adequate housing
contains entitlements
3. Adequate housing must
provide more than four walls
and a roof – dignity
4. Protection against forced
evictions
FORCED EVICTIONS - DEFINITION
“The permanent or temporary
removal against their will of
individuals, families and/or
communities from the homes
and/or land which they occupy,
without the provision of, and
access to, appropriate forms of
legal or other protection”
HUMAN RIGHTS AND FORCED EVICTIONS
Forced Evictions
• Unlawful forced evictions most
often means the violation of
many rights at the same time! It
represents an a good example
of the indivisibility and the
interdependence of human
rights.
• The violation of this right is at
the same time one of the most
tolerated human rights
violations!
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FORCED EVICTIONS
• The new report, Forced
Evictions - Global Crisis, Global
Solutions (HABITAT, 2011),
affirms that to understand and
adequately address the practice
of forced evictions, analysis
must first and foremost be firmly
located within a human rights
framework.
VALUE ADDED IN HRBA TO DEVELOPMENT
1. In a HRBA to Development, the
individual is the subject of rights and
has valid claims on others, who have
duties and obligations. This is
different from ‘entitlement’ and
‘basic needs’ approaches where
there is no ‘duty-bearer’.
VALUE ADDED IN HRBA TO DEVELOPMENT
Value Added
with a
HRBA to Development
2. HRBA to Development requires
attention to both outcome and
process.
3. Human rights can be used to
challenge power
4. A HRBA to Development promotes the
rule of law (reduces impunity and
corruption, and increases access to
justice etc.)
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VALUE ADDED IN HRBA TO DEVELOPMENT
5. Gives more attention to exclusion,
disparity and injustice, and addresses
the basic (structural) causes of
problems
6. Gives more attention to legal and
institutional reforms and national policy
review
Some Observations and
Conclusions
7. There is an international monitoring
mechanism in place
VALUE ADDED IN A HRBA TO DEVELOPMENT
8. HRBAP implies clear accountabilities,
not just ‘promises’
8. Rules out some trade-offs, which are
acceptable in a Human Development
Approach
10. Development assistance no longer
means charity, but is an obligation of
the international community
UN HABITAT AND OHCHR (May 2001)
“While increasing housing
production and improving existing
housing stock are very important in
every society, these activities must
run parallel with actions that
specifically address and focus on
the human rights aspects”.
Why Parallel?
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Both a ESCR and a CPR!
The right to be protected
against forced evictions is
both an ESCR and a CPR.
Why has the civil right aspect
not been used much stronger
in the justiciability of this
right?
The MDGs
Like so many other UN
agencies UN-HABITAT has
dealt with the MDGs out of
the context of the Millennium
Declaration, which stipulates
a human rights-based
process For their
achievements
Human Rights = Legality?
“Evictions have not only a legal
dimension. Reducing evictions
to a right-based approach
bears very little probabilities to
stop evictions anywhere”
HUMAN RIGHTS
Human Rights =
Morality
+
Legality
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SOME CONCLUSIONS
The UN staff, in particular senior
staff, is often more reluctant than
government staff to adopt and use a
human rights-based approach to
development
UN, UN STAF AND HUMAN RIGHTS
• All United Nations Agencies
and staff must must adopt a
human rights approach
• There is no choice to avoid
that, only a choice how to do
it, as long as The UN
Common Understanding is
followed
Finally – The Good
News!
THE GOOD NEWS!
How much of a priority do you
believe that a human rights
based approach to
development should be given
in the thematic areas that UNHABITAT will focus on in the
coming years?
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75%
THANK YOU!
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