scholarly journals Facing financialization in the housing sector: A human right to adequate housing for all

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 94-114
Author(s):  
Ingrid Leijten ◽  
Kaisa de Bel
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Financial Markets ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Wealth Accumulation ◽  
Housing Conditions ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Social Good ◽  
The Right

Housing is increasingly seen as a vehicle for wealth accumulation rather than a social good. ‘Financialization’ of housing refers to the expanding and dominant role of financial markets and corporations in the field of housing, leading to unaffordable and insufficient housing and discrimination. Although clearly linked to the right to adequate housing, financialization and its effects are not often viewed from a human rights perspective. This article fleshes out this important link by illuminating the standards set in relation to the right to adequate housing enshrined in Article 11(1) ICESCR. It is shown that recently, human rights bodies have confronted the issue of financialization more directly, translating general requirements to this particular issue. Moreover, efforts at UN level are mirrored in initiatives at the local level, signalling the beginning of a shift towards a paradigm that complies with human rights. The financialization of housing and the response of human rights also allow for addressing a more general issue, namely the potential of majority protection in times of human rights backlash. In this regard, it is worth emphasising that human rights such as the right to adequate housing protect not only the extreme poor. In the context of financialization, this may contribute to better housing conditions as well as reconnect people to their human rights.

The Right to Health

2018 ◽  
pp. 231-264
Author(s):  
Sandra Fredman
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Reproductive Health ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Right To Health ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Personal Integrity ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Way

Is health a human right? Many would maintain that it is not. On this view health and ill-health are due to natural causes, not to State actions. Others are concerned that health raises too many polycentric problems to be dealt with through justiciable human rights. These contestations have shaped the way in which the right to health is understood. Section II sketches out the health context. Section III considers jurisdictions in which there is no express right to health, but a right has been derived from rights to life, personal integrity, or privacy. Section IV contrasts this approach with jurisdictions with an express right to health. Section V examines the role of the right to equality, while section VI focuses on reproductive health. The final section returns to the challenges of polycentricity and the extent to which a justiciable right can address systemic issues rather than individual rights to medication.

The Limits of Law

2020 ◽  
pp. 109-130
Author(s):  
Michelle Jurkovich
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Right ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Right To Food ◽  
International Human ◽  
The Right

This chapter considers the puzzling role of international law around the right to food and examines why the existing law has been unable to generate norms within the advocacy community. It explores the reasons why international anti-hunger organizations rarely legitimate the right to food in legal terms and how this case can challenge the understanding of the relationships between norms, human rights, and law. It also provides a conceptual discussion of the distinction between formal law and norms, underscoring the importance of not conflating the two concepts. The chapter argues that many international anti-hunger organizations still do not conceptualize food as a human right, making international human rights law less relevant. It looks at the hunger case that suggests there is nothing automatic about law generating norms among activists or society at large.

scholarly journals Transitional justice, victims and human rights in the light of international law and the inter-american system of human rights

2021 ◽  
pp. 300-327
Author(s):  
Florabel Quispe Remón
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Next Of Kin ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Origin And Evolution ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Right

The article begins by analyzing the origin and evolution of the concept "transitional justice", determining its characteristics, the context in which it was born and developed, as well as the role of the State in this process. Then it focuses attention on analyzing the development of this figure in the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Human Rights System, through the work that the Inter-American Court has been carrying out since its operation, interpreting in a broad way and always pro homini, the American Convention of Human Rights. Throughout its years of operation, it has ruled on the State’s obligation to protect and guarantee human rights and to carry out the pertinent investigations in the event of their violation; as well as the recognition of the status of victims to the victims’ families and their pronouncement of the right to the truth, not as an autonomous human right, but rather as a right of the victims and their next of kin. Undoubtedly, these are aspects that have gone beyond the American Convention.

OMBUDSMEN AS NATIONAL INSTITUTION FOR PROTECTION OF THE RIGHT TO EDUCATION IN UKRAINE

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 394-404
Author(s):  
Olga Melnychuk ◽  
Maksym Melnychuk
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Judicial System ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Right To Education ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
The Right

Under the conditions of an armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine the level of ensuring the fundamental human right to education is being reduced. Therefore there is a need to search for additional mechanisms of the protection of the right to education, among which must be singled out such an extra-judicial human rights mobile institution as an ombudsman. All this stipulates the purpose of the article: to find out the role of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, the Commissioner of Ukraine on the rights of the Child and the Educational Ombudsman to ensure the right to education in Ukraine. During the study, such methods as the analysis of scientific literature, normative legal acts in the field of the right to education and annual reports of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights were used. The research results of the Razumkov Center (Ukraine) regarding the attitude of citizens to the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rightshave been analyzed. As a resultit was discovered that the measures taken by the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights and the Commissioner on the rights of the Child for the right to education are active and effective. In the society the legislative introduction of the post of educational ombudsman as an additional human rights institution in the field of education in Ukraine is positively evaluated. The conducted study shows that subsidiary, non-judicial means of protection of the right to education in Ukraine have greater authority among Ukrainian citizens than the judicial system.

The Origins of Human Rights in Global Health

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence O. Gostin ◽  
Benjamin Mason Meier
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Global Health ◽  
International Law ◽  
Right To Health ◽  
Right To Health Care ◽  
Global Standards ◽  
The Right

This chapter introduces the foundational importance of human rights for global health, providing a theoretical basis for the edited volume by laying out the role of human rights under international law as a normative basis for public health. By addressing public health harms as human rights violations, international law has offered global standards by which to frame government responsibilities and evaluate health practices, providing legal accountability in global health policy. The authors trace the historical foundations for understanding the development of human rights and the role of human rights in protecting and promoting health since the end of World War II and the birth of the United Nations. Examining the development of human rights under international law, the authors introduce the right to health as an encompassing right to health care and underlying determinants of health, exploring this right alongside other “health-related human rights.”

Water for Life

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madeline Baer
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Water Policy ◽  
State Capacity ◽  
National Level ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Political Will ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
The Right

Chapter 5 provides a case study of the human rights-based approach to water policy through an analysis of the Bolivian government’s attempts to implement the human right to water and sanitation. It explores these efforts at the local and national level, through changes to investments, institutions, and policies. The analysis reveals that while Bolivia meets the minimum standard for the human right to water and sanitation in some urban areas, access to quality water is low in poor and marginalized communities. While the Bolivian government expresses a strong political will for a human rights approach and is increasing state capacity to fulfill rights, the broader criteria for the right to water and sanitation, including citizen participation and democratic decision-making, remain largely unfulfilled. This case suggests political will and state capacity might be necessary but are not sufficient to fulfill the human right to water and sanitation broadly defined.

Is There a Right to Free Movement across Borders?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Song
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Free Movement ◽  
Individual Freedom ◽  
Freedom Of Association ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Freedom Of Movement ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Right ◽  
Logical Extension

Chapter 6 examines three rights-based arguments for freedom of movement across borders. Three rights-based arguments have been offered in support of freedom of international movement. The first claims that freedom of movement is a fundamental human right in itself. The second adopts a “cantilever” strategy, arguing that freedom of international movement is a logical extension of existing fundamental rights, including the right of domestic free movement and the right to exit one’s country. The third argument is libertarian: international free movement is necessary to respect individual freedom of association and contract. This chapter shows why these arguments fail to justify a general right to free movement across the globe. What is morally required is not a general right of international free movement but an approach that privileges those whose basic human rights are at stake.

The Right to Avoid Procreation and the Regulation of Pregnancy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janne Rothmar Herrmann
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
European Convention ◽  
European Perspective ◽  
Legal Basis ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
European Consensus ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Right

This chapter discusses the right to avoid procreation and the regulation of pregnancy from a European perspective. The legal basis for a right to avoid procreation can be said to fall within the scope of several provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), an instrument that is binding for all European countries. Here, Article 12 of the ECHR gives men and women of marriageable age the right to marry and found a family in accordance with the national laws governing this right. However, Article 12 protects some elements of the right not to procreate, but for couples only. The lack of common European consensus in this area highlights how matters relating to the right to decide on the number and spacing of children touch on aspects that differ from country to country even in what could appear to be a homogenous region. In fact, the cultural, moral, and historical milieus that surround these rights differ considerably with diverse national perceptions of the role of the family, gender equality, religious and moral obligations, and so on.

scholarly journals What Constitutions Can Do (but Courts Sometimes Don’t): Property, Speech, and the Influence of Constitutional Norms on Private Law

2004 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Gerstenberg
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
Recent Attempt ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
The Right ◽  
Higher Law

In this paper I want to address, against the background of the ECtHR’s recent attempt to resolve the clash between property rights and the right to freedom of expression in its decision in Appleby v. UK, two questions, both of which I take to be related to the overarching theme of “social democracy”. First, there is the problem of the influence of “higher law”-of human rights norms and constitutional norms-on private law norms; second, the question of the role of adjudication in “constitutionalizing” private law, in other words, the question of the “judicial cognizability” of constitutional norms within private law.

scholarly journals Indigenous Education and Human Rights

2007 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noam Schimmel
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Indigenous Education ◽  
Cultural Continuity ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
The Social ◽  
Majority Culture ◽  
Educational Programmes ◽  
The Right

AbstractThe right to an education that is consonant with and draws upon the culture and language of indigenous peoples is a human right which is too often overlooked by governments when they develop and implement programmes whose purported goals are to improve the social, economic and political status of these peoples. Educational programmes for indigenous peoples must fully respect and integrate human rights protections, particularly rights to cultural continuity and integrity. Racist attitudes dominate many government development programmes aimed at indigenous peoples. Educational programmes for indigenous peoples are often designed to forcibly assimilate them and destroy the uniqueness of their language, values, culture and relationship with their native lands. Until indigenous peoples are empowered to develop educational programmes for their own communities that reflect and promote their values and culture, their human rights are likely to remain threatened by governments that use education as a political mechanism for coercing indigenous peoples to adapt to a majority culture that does not recognize their rights, and that seeks to destroy their ability to sustain and pass on to future generations their language and culture.

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