Housing Rights

Though widely recognized throughout international human rights law, few universal rights are enjoyed less universally than housing rights. While housing rights have long been a firm feature of international human rights law, with all national legal systems recognising at least some of the core elements of this composite set of guarantees, the recognition of these aspirations as legal rights forms only part of far more complex series of factors that may or may not lead to the full satisfaction of housing rights by 'everyone' - as stipulated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While accurate figures on the global scale of nonenjoyment of housing rights are notoriously unavailable, the UN Center on Human Settlements (Habitat) regularly refers to one billions persons as inadequately housed.