Towards a Preventative Agenda for Land and Housing Rights Violations - An ISHR Student-Faculty Conversation Series

Over the past two years, Professor Jackie Dugard has been the Land & Housing Rights Workstream leader for the UN Prevention Project coordinated by Professor Pablo de Greiff (former UN Special Rapporteur for the promotion of truth, justice, reparation, and guarantees of non-recurrence). Between January and August 2024, Johanna Wassong assisted the project’s work via an ISHR Human Rights Research Award. 

 

Against the backdrop that more than a billion people around the world continue to experience inadequate access to land and housing, the Land & Housing Rights Workstream has been examining the root causes of everyday violations such as forced evictions, unaffordable housing, insecure tenure and land dispossession. Centered on “upstreamed” preventative measures, the Prevention approach goes beyond the traditional redress function of human rights to identify ex ante problems and best practice for addressing them before they lead to downstream violations. The Project is wrapping up, and the Land & Housing Workstream will publish its report towards the end of the year. In this student-led discussion, Johanna and Jackie will discuss their work on this Project and the findings of the Workstream as related to upstream securing of land and housing rights.