Adequate housing: seeking justiciability through the right to property

Abstract

Housing rights are associated to peoples’ standard of living, and measure states’ social awareness. Therefore, the request for housing rights’ justiciability has long been claimed and is gradually gaining grounds at international tribunals. This paper takes issue of the generic relevance of housing to civil rights, and analyses the right to housing in conjunction with the right to a private life (protection of home) and the right to property. It argues that housing is a justiciable right, because it constitutes a positive obligation emanating from the right to property, and offers insights from international jurisprudence and UN documentation. It asserts that housing and property partly overlap. Finally, it probes into the current economic crisis and its impacts on the enjoyment of housing rights, and attempts to identify the flaws of national housing policies.