INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS IN ANTI-POVERTY AND

HOUSING STRATEGIES:MAKING THE CONNECTION

BRUCE PORTER

Lorenza Ferrari Vivaldi, Luca Lorenzini, Chiara Marte

Accademic year 2014/2015

INTRODUCTION

This article talks about the problem of poverty and homelessness, in particular in Canada, where governments, tried to solve it pondering over UN human rights framework that recognizes the rights to adequated housing and the rights to adequate standard of living.

Calls for a rights-based approach : what does it mean?

EVOLUTION ON RIGHTSFIRST GENERATION: freedom of speech,

right to a fair trail, freedom of religion, voting rights

SECOND GENERATION: economic, social and cultural rights to be employed, rights to housing and health care

THIRD GENERATION: group and collective rights, right to self-determination, right to natural resources…

COMMON UNDERSTANDING OF RIGHTS-BASED APPROACH1990s CESCR identified a need for a better

understanding of the role of human rights in poverty reduction strategies

2001 Committee requested to OHCHR to develop guidelines

2002 OHCHR published the Draft guidelines: A Human rights approach to poverty reduction strategies

2003 The Human Rights Based Approach to Development Cooperation: Towards a Common Understanding Among the UN Agencies ( Four key elements)

2006 Principles and Guideline for a Human Rights Approach to Poverty Reduction Strategies

INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHT NORMS RELEVANT TO ANTY-POVERTY AND HOUSING STRATEGIES IN CANADA

1)The right to effettive remedies for rights violationThe international Human Rights are not directly

applicable in Canada except through domestic law.In Canada poor people can address to these

international procedures to advanced claims that are not being heard by Canadian courts.

judicial and quasi-judicial mechanism should be integrated with effective informal and administrative procedures to respect the social rights under legislated housing and poverty reduction

2) Progressive Realisation and the obbligation to implement Strategies

Under both domestic and international law, key elements of economic and social rights are subject to «progressive realisation».Article 2 ICESCR requires a State party «to take steps…to the maximum of its available resources».ICESCR has highlighted that even if the full implementation of COVENANT rights cannot be achieved immediately. It is necessary to adopt a dettailed and clear plan targeted towards meeating the obbligations recognized in the Covenant.

3)The Reasonableness StandardThe Optional Protocol prescribes a standard

of «Reasonableness» to evaluate the adopted measures in order to reach the obiectives of the Covenant

Optional Protocol was taken from the famous «Grootboom» decision on the rights to adequated housing in Sought Africa.

RECOMMENDATION FOR HOUSING AND ANTI-POVERTY STRATEGIES IN CANADAThe CESCR recommends a strategy for

reduction of homelessness and poverty that integrates economic, social, and cultural rights.

The UN Special Rapporteur Miloon Kothari emphasized the same points of the CESCR. Kothari emphasized the need of «a comprehensive and coordinated national housing policy», and cooperation between Federal and provincial governments for the pursuit of a stable long-term strategy, and the integration of this plan in the Canadian legal system.

The Senate Subcommittee on Cities in its report In from the margins describes a complex of interrelated and mutually reinforcing deprivations, which impact on people’s ability to claim and access their civil, natural, economic political and social rights.

In 2010 the HUMA Committee held hearings and iussed a report on a federal reduction plan, emphasizing the need of a human rights framework and the duties of the government to enforce socio-economic rights, and the need of providing for engagements with all the actors public and private.

CONCLUSIONS: EMERGING SITES FOR SOCIAL RIGHTS PRACTICE IN CANADA PARTIAL FAILURE: important steps have been

made by provincial governments, but large parts of the plan remained within the older paradigm of social right as moral aspirations. The poorest categories have been marginalized and stigmatized by the decision-making sistems and policy.

Proposal for the future: the human rights will be targeted not only by govenments but also by commissions, curts, labour tribunals… To ensure that the government’s decisions will be consistent with rights.

THANK YOU