From Housing Needs to Housing Rights: An analysis of the right to adequate housing under international human rights law

The right of all people to affordable, secure and healthy housing has been legally recognized since the adoption by the United Nations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. This report documents how governments in both the North and the South have failed to adopt the policies and legislation necessary to ensure their citizens' housing rights are respected. It describes the growing movement worldwide to press governments to respect the right to housing and advises on how to combat housing rights violations (eg opposing forced evictions and demanding action for the homeless) by showing where housing rights exist, which governments are bound by law to respect them and how such rights can be enforced and protected.