January 26, 2024 On Friday morning, despite the blustery weather conditions, (almost) everyone met up bright and early for a guided tour of the Het Schip! Designed by Dutch architect Michel de Klerk, Het Schip is an iconic example of the Amsterdam School architectural style, which flourished in the early 20th century. We learnt about different features of the style and how to recognise it in the wild. Completed in 1921, Het Schip was originally a social housing complex commissioned by the housing association Eigen Haard (Own Hearth). It was built to provide affordable housing for the working-c ..read more

January 25, 2024 The EVICT conference kicked off with a bang as a storm swept through the Netherlands. Despite some flight cancellations and train problems, all our participants managed to make it to Het Schip on Friday. Prof. Dr. Malcolm Langford opened the floor with his keynote speech, discussing the meaning of the impact of the right to housing and how to measure it. Malcolm’s talk segued nicely into the first panel session of the day, which was on the international right to housing in a more general sense, looking at theory and methodology surrounding this issue. The session was chaired b ..read more

Emma Bowar Introducing the Right to Housing and Right to Health  The interconnectedness of human rights has long been recognized. As all rights relate to the inherent dignity and worth of a human being, there is an intrinsic logic to the conclusion that all rights must be provided for or protected in order for that dignity to be preserved. In addition to the overarching interdependence of human rights, a causal relationship sometimes exists between specific rights. In particular, it has been demonstrated that the right to housing contributes significantly to a person’s rights to health an ..read more

EVICT researchers Roos Wind, Berend Roorda and Michel Vols have published a paper on the right to housing and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Millions of children live on the street or in inadequate housing. The failure of authorities to address these problems violates the right to adequate housing, as laid down in, inter alia, Art. 11(1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Yet, deplorable living conditions make children even more vulnerable than adults, given the negative impact on their development. This calls for a child-specific ..read more

December 12th, 2023 In 2017, Canada adopted a human rights-based National Housing Strategy, and in 2019, the human right to housing was recognised in domestic law for the first time. However, in the decade prior, Canada had embraced Housing First as its response to chronic homelessness. Housing First has often been described as a “right-based” response to homelessness because it offers direct access to permanent housing with few conditions and understands housing as a universal human need and entitlement. Damien will discuss two studies his team conducted to understand if and how Housing First ..read more

Els Schipaanboord & Michel Vols Introduction Homelessness remains a significant societal issue throughout Europe. The Eighth Overview of Housing Exclusion in Europe, published in 2023 by FEANTSA and the Abbé Pierre Foundation, revealed that approximately 895,000 individuals are homeless in Europe.[1] This staggering number demonstrates that even one of the wealthiest continents worldwide struggles to effectively implement some fundamental aspects of the right to adequate housing, as outlined in Article 11 of the ICESCR and Article 31 of the Revised European Social Charter.[2] Approximatel ..read more

The dimensions of the right to private life The right to respect for private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) entails the right to be left alone in our privacy. Having privacy serves as the foundation for living our private lives, free from unwarranted State interference. The origins of the right to privacy are linked to property, but the right has evolved beyond the physical plane since then to include mental integrity, reputation, and social life of a person. However, the importance of spatial privacy should not be underestimated, which is evidenced by t ..read more

Bi-monthly Talk with Dr. Tünsmeyer and Dr. Bruijn Permissible Limitations of the Right to Culture and the Cultural Adequacy Dimension of the Right to Housing By Dr. Vanessa Tünsmeyer (University of Groningen) In her talk, Vanessa Tünsmeyer will share her plans for a new research project on the scope of permissible limitations of cultural rights held by indigenous peoples. She will briefly discuss the overall direction of the research project and the motivation behind it, before focusing on the connection of her proposal to the right to adequate housing. The right to housing and indigenous cul ..read more

Red card for forced evictions related to mega sports events The home is at the center of the actualization of many human rights. In the famous words of Sir Edward Coke, ‘[e]veryone’s house is his safest refuge’. Article 17 of the ICCPR stipulates that “[n]o one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence”, and further that “[e]veryone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks”. The origins of the right to privacy are said to lie with the right to property, which worked to demarca ..read more

EVICT Hybrid Seminar on access to housing   In this academic year (22/23), the EVICT project will organize a series of hybrid seminars on the different aspects of the right to housing: 1) access to housing; 2) rights in the home; and 3) exit rights. In the first seminar of the series on different aspects of the right to housing, Dr. Roxani Fragkou, Dr. Andrei Quintiá Pastrana, and Stefan van Tongeren, LLM, discussed access rights. The speakers each addressed obstacles and barriers certain groups and people faced on their road to adequate housing.   The post EVICT Hybrid Seminar on a ..read more