![]() ![]() The right to adequate housing should not be interpreted in a narrow or restrictive sense which equates it with, for example, the shelter provided by merely having a roof over one’s head or views shelter exclusively as a commodity. General Comment 7 deals with the ancillary issue of forced evictions. ![]() General Comment 4 is the first substantive General Comment on the right to adequate housing, and deals with the particular content of the right to adequate housing. ![]() The ESCR Committee, the quasi-judicial United Nations (UN) organ entrusted with the interpretation and administration of the provisions of ICESCR, has given content to the provisions of article 11(1) in two of its General Comments, General Comments 4 and 7. The States Parties to the present Covenant recognise the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions. ’ 25 of the provisions dealing with the right to adequate housing. is the most comprehensive and perhaps the most important. 23 According to the Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR Committee), 24 article 11(1) of ICESCR ‘. When the right to adequate housing as defined above is mentioned, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) is invariably the reference point in the category of applicable instruments on the international plane. 22 The focus of this article is, however, restricted to that aspect of the right that deals with access to one’s home, shelter or habitation. ![]() It encompasses the provision of adequate accommodation or shelter to vulnerable groups, such as children and prisoners, and the provision of enabling conditions for citizens to access land on an equitable basis. 21 The right to adequate housing is not restricted to access to one’s home or shelter. The recognition of the importance of the right accounts for its featuring prominently in international, 19 regional 20 and domestic bills of rights. The right, therefore, serves as a basis of sorts from which other rights are enjoyed by the individual. Without access to affordable, habitable and secure housing, a wide range of other human rights are sacrificed and consequently reduced in meaning as the struggle to gain housing rights takes on increasing importance to those without a place to live. For instance, a person with no access to adequate housing is likely to be homeless and wandering, exposed to the vagaries of weather and having his or her rights to dignity, privacy, family life, health, among others, violated. The right to adequate housing is pivotal to the enjoyment of not only other economic, social and cultural rights, but civil and political rights as well. Key words: Lagos State planning law the poor adequate housing socio-economic rightsĢ Content and scope of the right to adequate housing There must constantly be a pro-poor approach to laws and policies. It concludes that, for the fight against poverty to make any headway in Africa, poverty reduction must continually be mainstreamed. The article demonstrates the exclusionary and discriminatory operation and impact of the myth of the neutral application of law on the right of the poor to adequate housing through a progressive assessment of the Lagos State of Nigeria’s Urban and Regional Planning and Development Law, 2010, a supposedly neutral planning statute. This notion continues to pervade liberal societies, operates discriminately against the poor and less privileged members of society and impedes poverty reduction efforts. The notion of the neutral application of law is the very foundation of liberal societies, in spite of the fact that this notion has been debunked as a myth by a large body of scholarship. My gratitude goes to the anonymous reviewers of the African Human Rights Law Journal and other colleagues whose incisive comments and suggestions in no small way added value to the article. This article is an expanded form of a paper presented at the Poverty and Justice Seminar held at the University of Pretoria, 17-18 October 2012. This email address is being protected from spambots. Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Lagos, Nigeria doctoral candidate, Department of Public Law, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, South Africa ![]()
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