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International Developments

Studying the Global Tenure Insecurity Crisis

At the core of debates over what housing is formal or informal, planned or socially produced, authorized or “illegal” lies the criterion of secure tenure, which the SR HRAH alerts is a crisis of global proportions. One indicator of the hazards of this crisis are the forced evictions that victimize millions of people annually. The difference between secure tenure and punitive, often violent removal is reduced to a piece of official paper. However, a study carried out within the SR’s mandate sheds light on the complexities and subtleties of the range of tenure arrangements, and recommends a correspondingly more-nuanced and enlightened global approach.

The political economy of land deeply influences processes of development affecting housing. Power relations dominate processes such as land speculation, competition over scarce resources, large-scale acquisitions and urbanization. The tension between unplanned and exclusionary urbanization has obvious impacts on tenure security, and authorities often ally with the formal sector in ways that ultimately undermine the livelihoods of the most vulnerable and impoverished.

The dynamics that accompany the liberalization of land markets increasingly squeeze urban and rural low-income inhabitants out of the market, where resources for housing do not reach the lowest income groups. Communities are under threat of dispossession, while their right to adequate housing, including tenure security, is unprotected. Meanwhile, accounting for such development rarely records the losses, costs and values at stake for the uprooted. When the UN midpoint review dropped the “secure tenure” indicator for measuring the progress toward MDG 7’s projected “improving of living conditions for 100 million slum dwellers” raises questions as to the extent and the durability of the putative global achievements.

The lack of secure tenure affects many more people than only the world’s one billion slum dwellers. It can affect a wide range of vulnerable categories of persons, from widows to refugees, bonded laborers and indigenous peoples. The SR has observed that “Those with less economic status tend to enjoy a lesser degree of security of tenure in practice.” Those with insecure tenure are more likely also to suffer related forms of stigma and discrimination.

Precisely measuring the extent of the crisis is complicated by a lack of sufficient data, as the SR admits. This is partly because tenure security is a matter of perception and context, highly dependent on political, economic and cultural specificity, as well as law.

Housing and land tenure globally form a wide spectrum. Classifications can encompass statutory law or customary, collective, religion-based, informal or hybrid arrangements. However, despite the great variety of tenure systems and arrangements worldwide, most models of urban planning, land management, development and legal regimes favor one particular form: individual freehold. The SR sees this preference as a “common fixation,” supported by the predominant economic doctrine of reliance on private property and market forces.

She introduces a contrapuntal approach to tenure concepts that can help reveal bias. It reconsiders “public domain,” “social function of property” and human rights dimensions of local authorities.

The present report [Arabic] culminates three consultations with experts in land management, urban planning and human rights law and litigation, and representatives of humanitarian action and community-based organizations. Two similar convocations will take place in May 2013: at Quito, Ecuador for Latin America on the 11th, and for Africa at Johannesburg on 27–28 May. The study will continue until the end of the SR’s mandate in 2014.

 

 

 

 

 

 


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