Beyond the Politics of the Possible: Corporations and the pursuit of social justice
In the social responsibility discourse promoted in the corporate world, the issue has largely been civility and noblesse oblige, rather than fundamental rights and justice for all.
A Place to Live: Women’s Inheritance Rights in Africa
This short book is written so that common women and men in Africa can read about women's rights to housing and land, and what COHRE and other people fighting for these issues think should happen to make things better for women. It includes references to African countries, international agreements on women's housing rights and a glosary of terms frequently used while defending housing rights.
Women’s Right to Adequate Housing
While international and national laws increasingly recognize women’s right to adequate housing, considerable gaps still exist between such recognition and the reality of large-scale denial of this right. Study by the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, Miloon Kothari.
Indigenous Peoples’ Right to Adequate Housing
This study was undertaken within the framework of the United Nations Housing Rights Programme – a joint initiative of UN-HABITAT and the OHCHR. The study includes a review of relevant literature, identification of case studies, the collection of primary data through direct contacts with organizations/networks of indigenous peoples and the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
Election of Anglophone Africa Representative to HIC Board
Process for the election of the new representative for the 78 Anglophone Africa HIC members to the HIC Board. For more info contact: mazinst@mitsuminet.com
Proposal for a Charter for Women’s Right to the City
The women gathered at the World Women’s Forum
Request that the points raised in this Charter be considered in the “World Charter for the Right to the City” and the Local Agenda 21 of Culture (to be approved at the Forum of Local Authorities for Social Inclusion). Both initiatives will be presented at the World Urban Forum (Barcelona, September 2004)
Appeal for Housing Rights in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights
We are convinced that the most important rights, including the right to housing, must be an integral part of this Charter as an important step towards the construction of a Europe of and for all the people.
Urban Policies and the Right to the City
This paper aims to explore the notion of the “Right to the City,” a concept first developed by Henri Lefebvre in 1968 in Le droit à la ville. While not exhaustive in its examination of the subject, the present discussion paper is intended to examine the notion as it has evolved conceptually and as it has manifested, either explicitly or implicitly, in urban policies and practices in cities and regions worldwide over the past few decades. It will also provide the reader with an inventory of recent developments in research and policy practice and, finally, with the potential theoretical and practical limitations to the “Right to the City” concept.
Social Housing in Russia
According to the Housing Privatisation Law almost 50% of the national housing stock was privatised. The majority of Russians have very few chances to improve their housing conditions in near years. But the most painful position the homeless refuges and forced migrants have.
CSD 13: The Slums must help themselves
Expectations that CSD 13 would correct the almost total failure of the Johannesburg-Summit regarding settlements and local development were bitterly disappointed. CSD 13 again failed to deal with the problems of the cities in the north or the east (environment, traffic, financial, social) as well as with the urban consequences of economic globalisation, privatisation, sub-urbanization, population changes.
Housing on the Defensive
Prices are escalating, unaffordability is rising, with people paying more and more of their incomes for housing problem; segregation is not declining and often increasing; security of tenure is a problem not only in the Third World but also in Canada and the United States, where foreclosures and evictions are increasing; housing is in short supply absolutely almost everywhere. Even in developed countries homelessness is a continuing problem and there are cut-backs in social provision. What explains this situation, 85 years after the first publicly-built housing in the United States, 70 years after the New Deal’s housing programs, more than a century of social welfare programs featuring housing in most developed countries, decades of declarations and setting of ambitious housing goals by international agencies and the United Nations? Peter Marcuse proposes a radical back-to-basics review of the housing situation, what explains it, and what can be done about it.
Privatization of Clifton Beach
Where would the common man be in the glittering world of five-star hotels, private lagoons, shopping plazas, high-rise buildings and other urban monstrosities? What happens to the traditional donkey cart races, the congregation of youths on New Year's Eve and lakhs of common visitors who go to the Clifton beach for innocent enjoyment of sea breeze, the sandy beach and a view of the immemorial Arabian Sea. Extract from V. A. JAFAREY's letter to the daily Dawn Karachi See below details of this letter and other news items on Clifton Beach's privatization.