OHCHR - Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

It is the leading UN entity mandated to promote and protect human rights for all.

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Urbanization is one of the most important global trends of the 21st century. In many places this trend towards rapid urbanization goes hand in hand with the creation of more slums, more people in inadequate living conditions and lacking secure tenure of their housing and land, and greater disparities, inequalities and discrimination. 

Urbanisation processes that respect and promote human rights have the ability to change this phenomena from one in which people's rights are too frequently overlooked or rejected into one that positively impacts the lives of the majority of the world's population. This is the vision captured in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in which governments commit to ‘make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’ (Goal 11) and in the New Urban Agenda. They further commit to leave no-one behind, envisaging “a world of universal respect for equality and non-discrimination”, including gender equality, and reaffirm the responsibilities of all States to “respect, protect and promote human rights, without discrimination or distinction of any kind”.

As a cross-cutting theme throughout the New Urban Agenda, human rights are the cornerstone of sustainable urban development. As such, all the activities of OHCHR directly or indirectly impact the various objectives of the New Urban Agenda (e.g. paras. 12, 13(a), 13(c), 14(a), 26, 28, 31, 34, 90, 105, 126, 155 and 158).

OHCHR’s strategic framework includes a specific thematic result and output to strengthen efforts to support national, regional and local authorities to uphold and integrate human rights standards in developing and implementing laws, policies and strategies on land and housing.

Over the past years, OHCHR has been closely working with UCLG and, in particular, the Committee on Social Inclusion, Participatory Democracy and Human Rights. The common work will include a wide range of activities, including establishing a dedicated space of dialogue between local governments, OHCHR, human rights mechanisms and other stakeholders to promote cross-fertilization, sharing of experiences and mutual learning and a promoting a common vision of localizing human rights.

OHCHR has been co-organizing the annual World Human Rights Cities Forum in Gwangju (Republic of Korea). The Forum in October 2021 focused on the need for a “new social contract” as called by the Secretary-General and crucial to any progress in the New Urban Agenda, in particular when it comes to combating inequalities, racism and discrimination as well as post-pandemic recovery and building forward fairer societies.

The right to adequate housing a fundamental human right recognized by international law. The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing is a position appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate and report on issues related to the right to housing globally. The Special Rapporteur's work focuses on promoting and protecting the right to live in safety and dignity in a decent home.

The Special Rapporteur carries out country visits to assess the situation of the right to housing and provides recommendations to governments and other stakeholders to improve the situation. They also issue thematic reports on various housing-related issues, such as the impact of evictions on human rights, the right to housing for women, and the role of public policies in ensuring the right to housing. Additionally, the Special Rapporteur engages in advocacy and awareness-raising activities to promote the right to housing, including through public statements, speeches, and participation in relevant international forums. The current Special Rapporteur is Mr. Balakrishnan Rajagopal, who assumed his function as on 1 May 2020.

cover right to adequate housing fact sheetInternational human rights law recognizes everyone’s right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate housing. Despite the central place of this right within the global legal system, well over a billion people are not adequately housed. Millions around the world live in life- or health-threatening conditions, in overcrowded slums and informal settlements, or in other conditions which do not uphold their human rights and their dignity. Further millions are forcibly evicted, or threatened with forced eviction, from their homes every year. 

This Fact Sheet starts by explaining what the right to adequate housing is, illustrates what it means for specific individuals and groups, and then elaborates upon States’ related obligations. It concludes with an overview of national, regional and international accountability and monitoring mechanisms.

Every year, millions of people around the world are threatened by evictcover fact sheet no 25ions or forcibly evicted, often leaving them homeless, landless, and living in extreme poverty and destitution. Forced evictions commonly result in severe trauma and set back even further the lives of those that are often already marginalized or vulnerable in society. Forced eviction occurs throughout the world, in developing and developed countries alike, in the context of development or emergencies and reconstruction. 
Accelerating urbanization, climate change and globalization, financial and other global crises have contributed to making forced evictions even more acute and complex. Forced evictions constitute a distinct phenomenon under international law. Many of their consequences are similar to those of arbitrary displacement and other practices involving the coerced and involuntary displacement of people from their homes, lands and communities.

The international community has repeatedly stated that forced evictions are a gross violation of human rights, in particular the right to adequate housing. Evictions are not an inevitable side-effect of urbanization, development and reconstruction. They are the result of human interventions.

This Fact Sheet examines the prohibition on forced evictions under the international human rights framework, specific obligations of States and others to refrain from and prohibit forced evictions, and how, when violations of rights and obligations do occur, there can be accountability and remedies.

At its thirty-ninth session, the Human Rights Council adopted resolution A/HRC/RES/39/7 in which it requested the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to prepare a report “on effective methods to foster cooperation between local government and local stakeholders for the effective promotion and protection of human rights at their level through local government programmes, including raising awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals, and to indicate the major challenges and best practices in this regard”.

In line with this resolution, OHCHR conducted multi-stakeholder consultations including local governments. The report (A/HRC/42/22) was submitted to the 42nd session of the Human Rights Council in 2018.

In its resolution A/HRC/RES/45/7 of 9 October 2020, the Human Rights Council requested the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to prepare a report, in consultation with all stakeholders including local government, on “the challenges faced in the promotion and protection of human rights, including in relation to the right to equality and non-discrimination and the protection of persons in vulnerable and marginalized situations, with a view to identifying possible elements of principles guiding local and national governments in this regard”. The report will be submitted the fifty-first session of the Human Rights Council in 2022.