The The UN Standars on Adequate Housing for Civil Society Action

Abstract

The United Nations (UN), through its softlaw bodies of the global human rights system, built a paradigm on adequate housing for 22 years. Centro Dom Helder Camara (CENDHEC), as a civil society organization, has been working for 32 years in favor of the right to the city in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil. At that time, the UN outlined seven basic aspects of adequate housing combined with the principle of non-discrimination. CENDHEC was established from the construction of the new constitutional text of 1988 and the use of legal and administrative instruments for security of tenure. The problematization consists of questioning the contribution of the UN, during 22 years, from the work of the Committee of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) to the Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing for the work of the Dom Helder Center Camara, as a civil society organization active in the field of the right to the city. The general objective of the article is to explore the limits of the concept of adequate housing from the international and national system for the promotion and protection of human rights in Brazil. The specific objective, on the other hand, takes care of delimiting the axiological beacons of action by Cendhec, as an organization of organized civil society, open to international experience.