CRAFTING A RIGHT TO HOUSING IN EUROPE: THREE INTERPRETATIONAL WEAKNESSES?

Dr. Jessie HohmannUniversity of Cambridge

What is the Right to Housing?

Three Interpretational Weaknesses:

•Lack of Definition or Normative Content

•Overly Procedural and ‘Programmatic’

•Failure to connect to Conditions of Suffering and Deprivation

1. Lack of Definition or Normative Content

•No definition of the right

•Lack of clarity about:▫ Content of State obligations? ▫ What constitutes a violation?

2. Overly Procedural and‘Programmatic’ Right

•Procedure not substance

•Undue privileging of State action

•Means at the expense of ends

3. Failure to Connect to Conditions of Suffering and Deprivation

•An Abstract Right

•Lack of connection with systemic deprivation and discrimination

•Failure to address underlying structural causes of violation

How Does the Right to Housing in Europe fit this Picture?

•The work of the European Committee on Social Rights provides

▫a meaningful… ▫but partial…

• response to these problems

1. Definition and Normative Content under the RESC

•Defining the Right

• Adequate housing means:• A dwelling which is

▫ safe from a sanitary and health point of view▫ structurally secure, not overcrowded

• With secure tenure supported by law

(FEANTSA v France)

•What are States’ Obligations?

• States must Show: ▫ a reasonable timeframe for action▫ measureable progress towards realisation ▫ evidence of financing consistent with State’s maximum

available resources

(Autism Europe)

•What Constitutes a Violation?

▫Discrimination (ERRC v Italy)▫Denial of Dignity (DCI v Netherlands)▫ ‘Retrogressive’ measures (COHRE v Italy)

▫ ‘Aggravated’ violations (COHRE v Italy)

2. Procedure v Substance and the Role of the State

•The RESC does not impose an obligation of ‘results’ (ADT v France)

•Enforcement ‘issues’

•Principles of ‘autonomy’ and ‘solidarity’ and the role of the State

3. Connecting the Right to Suffering and Deprivation

•Specific Attention to:

▫The vulnerable

▫Historical disadvantage

▫Linking the Right to Housing with: social inclusion civil and political rights

Conclusions:

•The work of the European Committee on Social Rights Shows:

▫The potential to move beyond lasting controversies about the ‘workability’ of the right to housing

▫The enduring role of politics

▫The necessary balance between autonomy and solidarity in the realisation of the right to housing

Forthcoming December 2012Hart Publishing