The Right to Housing: Law, Concepts, Possibilities

by Jessie Hohmann

Overview

A human right to housing represents the law's most direct and overt protection of housing and home. Unlike other human rights, through which the home incidentally receives protection and attention, the right to housing raises housing itself to the position of primary importance. However, the meaning, content, scope, and even existence of a right to housing raises vexed questions. Drawing on insights from disciplines that include law, anthropology, political theory, philosophy, and geography, this book is both a contribution to the state of knowledge on the right to housing, and is an entry into the broader human rights debate. It addresses profound questions on the role of human rights in belonging and citizenship, the formation of identity, the perpetuation of forms of social organization, and, ultimately, of the relationship between the individual and the state. Now available in paperback, the book addresses the legal, theoretical, and conceptual issues, providing a deep analysis of the right to housing within and beyond human rights law. Structured in three parts, the book: (a) outlines the right to housing in international law and in key national legal systems; (b) examines the most important concepts of housing: space, privacy, and identity; and (c) looks at the potential of the right to alleviate human misery, marginalization, and deprivation. The book represents a major contribution to the scholarship on an under-studied and ill-defined right. In terms of content, it provides a much needed exploration of the right to housing. In approach, it offers a new framework for argument within which the right to housing, as well as other under-theorized and contested rights, can be reconsidered, reconnecting human rights with the social conditions of their violation, and, hence, with the reasons for their existence. Shortlisted for the Peter Birks Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship 2013, the book is essential reading for all those working in the area of human rights. [Subject: Human Rights Law, Housing Law, Property Law, Public International Law, Legal Philosophy

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781849466578
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	07/01/2014
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	286
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.61(d)

About the Author

Jessie Hohmann is a lecturer in law at Queen Mary, University of London.

Table of Contents

Preface v

Introduction: The Right to Housing: Law Concepts Possibilities 1

I Assumptions Definitions Scope 3

A Law Concepts Possibilities or Concepts Law Possibilities a Note on the Structural Tensions 3

B Defining Housing House and Home 4

C A 'Right to Housing' versus 'Housing Rights' 5

D Categorising the Right to Housing: Economic Social or Cultural Right? 7

Part I Law

Introduction

1 The Right to Housing in the International Bill of Rights 15

I Introduction 15

II Universal Declaration of Human Rights 15

III International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights 17

A General Comments 4 and 7 and the Elements of the Right to Housing 20

i Legal Security of Tenure 21

ii Availability of Services Materials Facilities and Infrastructure 23

iii Affordability 24

iv Habitability 25

v Accessibility 26

vi Location 27

vii Cultural Adequacy 28

B Optional Protocol: New Opportunities for Enforcement and Interpretation 29

C Conclusions on the Interpretation of the Right to Housing under the ICESCR 31

IV International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 32

A Discrimination Unlawful Interference and Inhuman Treatment in Housing 33

B Socio-economic Conditions and the Enjoyment of ICCPR Rights 35

2 The Right to Housing in Subject-Specific International Conventions 38

I Introduction 38

II Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women 39

III Convention on the Rights of the Child 41

IV Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination 43

V Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment 46

VI Conclusion 48

3 The Right to Housing in Regional Covenants 49

I Introduction 49

II The Right to Housing in Europe 49

A Revised European Social Charter 50

i The Scheme of Rights Protection under the RESC 50

ii State Housing Policy and Vulnerability 54

iii Housing Restitution 57

iv Roma Rights 60

B European Convention on Human Rights 67

i The Scheme of Rights Protection under the ECHR 67

ii Article 8: Home Family Private Life and the Right to Housing 68

iii Protocol 1 Article and the Right to Protection of Property 71

iv Right to Life under Article 2 and Positive Obligations for a Right to Housing 72

v Destruction of Housing Destitution and Inhuman Treatment under Article 3 73

vi Conclusions on the Right to Housing under the ECHR 74

III African Regional Housing Rights 75

A The Scheme of Rights 75

B Implied Right to Housing and Shelter in the African Charter 76

C Conclusion 82

IV Inter-American Human Rights System 83

A The Inter-American Scheme of Human Rights Protection 83

B Implying a Right to Housing in the Americas: Three Methods 85

i Forced Evictions Expulsions and the Destruction of Housing 85

ii Housing and the Dignified Life 87

iii Remedies and Reparations including Material Goods 89

V Arab Charter on Human Rights 91

VI Conclusions on the Regional Protection of the Right to Housing 92

4 The Right to Housing as a Constitutional Right: South African and Indian Experiences 94

I Introduction 94

II A Justiciable Right to Housing: the South African Approach 94

A Crafting a South African Approach to the Right to Housing: the Grootboom Case 97

B Reasonableness and its Discontents 99

C Joe Slovo: Recovering the Social the Political and the Historical? 103

D Conclusions on the South African Approach to the Right to Housing 108

III The Right to Housing as a Right to Life: the Indian Approach 108

A Introduction 108

B The Right to Housing as a Right to Life and Livelihood 110

C Conclusions on the Indian Experience 118

5 The De-radicalised Right to Housing: An Assessment of Interpretive Failings 120

I Introduction 120

II Gaps and Weaknesses in the Legal Interpretation of the Right to Housing 121

A The Issue of Definition 122

B The Problem of Proceduralisation 129

i Procedural Interpretation of the Right to Housing 129

ii Programmatic Approach to the Right to Housing 131

C The Failure of the Legal Right to Housing in the Context of Human Rights Violation 134

III Conclusion 137

Part II Concepts

Introduction 141

6 Privacy 145

I Introduction 145

II Public/Private and the Operation of Law in the Creation of Homelessness 146

III Visible Homelessness of Street and Pavement Dwellers and Deprivation of the Private 148

IV Women's Essential Homelessness and Enforced Privacy 152

V Erasing the Public/Private Distinction and the Hidden Homelessness of Domestic Workers 159

VI Conclusion: Homelessness Rightlessness and the Right to Housing as Social Belonging 165

7 Identity 169

I Introduction 169

II Promoting Identity: Constituting Personhood and Community through Housing 173

A Housing and Personhood 173

B Housing and the Constitution of Community 178

III Constraining and Erasing Identities: Housing as Social Control 183

A Constraining Identities: Women Family and the Ideal of Home 184

B Erasure of Indigenous Identity: Forced Displacement and Acculturation through Housing Policy 189

IV Conclusion 196

8 Space 198

I Introduction: the Spatiality of Rights 198

II Housing as Social Control/Housing as Social Transformation 200

III Mumbai: Housing Rights Citizenship Space 201

IV Vision Mumbai and the Planning of Social Transformation 206

A Inclusion or Invisibility: City Beautification and Rights to Space 209

B Territory Rights and Control; Governing the Space of the City 217

V Conclusion: the Boundaries of Spatial Analysis and the Possibilities of the Right to Housing 223

Part III Possibilities

9 Possibilities Politics Law 231

I The Right to Housing: Illustrating Ambivalence in Human Rights for Social Transformation 231

II Institutional Mythologies and the Hidden Politics of Human Rights 233

A Institutional Mythologies 234

B The Hidden Politics of Human Rights 237

III The Ownership of Rights 239

A The Critique of Rights as Cooptation and False Promise 240

B Agency and the Ownership of Human Rights 241

C Law Politics and Possibilities: the Role of Legal Subjectivity 246

IV Conclusion: Human Rights Utopia and Fundamental Human Equality 249

Bibliography 251

Index 269

Editorial Reviews

"...a major mile-stone in human rights literature and adds considerably to discourse concerning the right to housing in the United Kingdom and beyond...As well as being of interest to those who engage with the right to housing within the legal regimes considered, the philosophical reflections on the right to housing, and its place within broader human rights discourse, offered by the text will undoubtedly interest academics and students alike. In summation The Right to Housing: Law, Concepts, Possibilities by Jessie Hohmann is a must-read text for those interested in human rights and the right to housing." --Cambridge Journal of International & Comparative Law, Volume 2. No.3

"Jessie Hohmann provides an insightful and sophisticated analysis of the meaning, content, scope and nature of housing rights...While rooted in a legal analysis, she draws on a range of disciplines including anthropology, political theory, philosophy, and geography, to create a major contribution to knowledge in this area...For anyone with any sustained interest in the right to housing this book is invaluable. Well-written, concise, well researched and structured, it is essential reading for lawyers, academics, advocates, and policy makers." --European Journal of Homelessness, Volume 7. No 2

"...Hohmann's work is a fitting introduction to the convoluted topic of housing as a human right. She adds insightful commentary to the concepts of housing and home..." --LSE Review of Books

"...I think this is an absolute bargain and would urge anyone who really wants to think about housing law (in the widest possible sense) to buy this book." --Nearly Legal Blog: Housing Law News and Comments

"There are significant, original elements to this book that make it an important read for anyone with a serious interest in the right to housing or housing-related rights (whether 'human rights' or otherwise). Crucially, Hohmann challenges the reader to consider how the right to housing has been conceptualised by different actors - and how these conceptualisations might and should be improved upon if the right is to have meaning for those to whom it is of greatest importance. As such, this is not merely a scholarly work providing a useful, detailed analysis of decisions by a set of bodies in order to advance abstract academic debate about the content of the right to housing. Rather, it is motivated, and enlivened, by a galvanising, persuasive concern with making the right to housing 'real'." --Human Rights Law Review, Vol 14, No 3, September 2014

"This is a rich and informative discussion, which is warmly welcomed." --The Edinburgh Law Review

"Hohmann's book is an excellent resource on the right to housing...[it] is immensely important." --The British Yearbook of International Law, 2014

"The Right to Housing: Law, Concepts, Possibilities is an important book for students of housing as well as beyond in law, urban studies, geography and sociology." --International Journal of Housing Policy, 2015

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