Why Human Rights Framework?

Q: There are many different ways to try to achieve housing rights for all. Some people try to do it by bringing about political change; others focus on development, or on grassroots struggle. Why do you advocate a rights-based approach to the housing rights issue? 

A: Scott Leckie, Executive Director of the Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE):

The most important argument for favouring a rights based approach is that it puts everything into a common legal framework. 

This framework creates legally binding obligations and duties upon one side (which is the state) and creates legally enforceable entitlements and rights on behalf of others (which are the people). Applying a rights framework says that every person in the world should have a right to basic minimum core requirements – a certain body of entitlements that must be provided in some way by the state. If they refuse to do that there are certain mechanisms and procedures in place that people can evoke very easily that should lead to governments changing their laws and policies so that they actually provide these things.

1.  A rights based approach transforms a beggar into a rights claimant. It’s the same person, but in a political or developmental context, that person is essentially asking for assistance based upon good faith, or maybe based upon good morals, maybe religion, maybe policies, but not based on their rights in national or international law.

2.  Second, a rights based approach creates a common, clear conceptual framework for addressing these wider issues. It forces governments to spend money if they take rights seriously and to do actions that are going to benefit the largest number of people rather than the elite or whatever groups may be affiliated with the government. And it creates a framework, a formula, for measuring if they actually are doing that.

3.  Third, it’s a way to hold governments accountable under law. It’s not simply saying, “The government didn’t perform well so we are going to vote it out so that more people get housing.” The rights based approach says, “The government has consciously done certain things or not done certain things and as a result of that it has violated the rights of its citizens”. These timeless universal standards place the individual in a very different role vis-à-vis the society, or the state, if you look at it through the lens of human rights or if you look at it through the lens of human development or pure politics

4.  fourth major reason for taking a rights based approach: it doesn’t matter who is in powerbecause the government (whether it is right wing, moderate or left wing) would have to apply the same principals. So this is a way of really keeping and strengthening the fact that everyone, from the minute they are born to the minute they die should have access to these basic requirements. Politics does change. Politics does favour some groups and not others. But human rights are so basic, so central to human life that you have to have them notwithstanding who’s in power. If you only have a political framework, many groups lose out if their party doesn’t win. The rights- based approach says: You will win no matter what.

The whole thing of being able to invoke human rights is also another major advantage of a rights based approach; it provides you with remedies that you would normally not have at all. If you were to be working in a purely political context, and you didn’t get housing or education or a job, there’s no one to turn to (or you could go to your Member of Parliament, maybe). Applying a rights based approach allows you to actually turn to official institutions and say “Hey, I know you have an obligation to see that this particular right of mine is protected, but I don’t have that protection! Something’s going wrong and we need an independent body to decide if you are doing something wrong and force you to do something about it.”