Meaningful Engagement in Housing Law: Québec’s New Approach to Informal Settlements?
The city of Montreal is facing a growing crisis of homelessness. Individuals who are unhoused face several social and economic challenges, including the constant threat of displacement. In March 2023,...
Upholding the Right to Shelter: The Need for a Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy in Eviction and Demolition Drives in India
The Supreme Court of India stayed the Order of the Uttarakhand High Court directing removal of occupants from lands claimed by the Railways in Haldwani, noting “…there cannot be uprooting...
Ogentoto v Ogentoto: Kenya’s Supreme Court Judgment on Equality and Fairness in the Division of Matrimonial Property
For over a decade now, Kenya has made important steps towards fair division of matrimonial property through its progressive 2010 Constitution and the enactment of the Matrimonial Property Act (MPA)...
Houses Without Land: The Strange Property Rights Phenomenon in the Kenyan Coastal Region and its Effect on coastal communities’ right to housing
The common law maxim cujus est solem ejus et usque ad coelum et ad inferos affirms that whoever owns a piece of land owns it all the way up to...
Financialisation of Housing: Balancing Commercial Interests with Human Rights
Image description: Multicoloured houses seen from above The right to adequate housing is considered to be a basic human right. It is fundamental to an individual’s sense of security and...
How Evictions Law Has Been Implemented in the Lower Courts in South Africa
Image description: A poster with the text, ‘decent, low-cost housing is a basic right; no more evictions; people before profit.’ The South African judicial structure begins with the lower courts,...
Spotlight on an Understudied Institution: Evictions and the Magistrate’s Court in South Africa
TRANSCRIPT: Spotlight on an understudied institution: evictions and the Magistrate’s Court in South Africa (Recorded August 2019) Rishika Sahgal (0:11) Welcome to RightsUp! RightNow, a podcast at [the] Oxford Human...
Demolitions in Muslim neighborhood in Delhi are unconstitutional
Image description: Bulldozers demolishing buildings in Kolkata, India in January 2020. On 20 April 2022, the homes and shops of people in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood in Delhi began to...
Thubakgale: Obscuring the Right to Access to Adequate Housing
There is a housing crisis in South Africa, which is largely due to the State’s failure to carry out its constitutional mandate to provide access to adequate housing. However, the...
Indian Supreme Court’s Eviction Order Puts Thousands at the Risk of Homelessness
On 7th June, 2021, the Indian Supreme Court passed a controversial order directing a municipal corporation in the state of Haryana to remove “encroachments” on forest land and “forcibly evict”...
Keeping a Roof Over Your Head: Diverging Approaches to Pandemic Evictions in Brazil and the US
On April 28, 2020, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing issued a guidance note calling on states to ‘[d]eclare an end to all evictions of anyone,...
Setting the Record Straight on Socio-Economic Rights Adjudication: Kenya Supreme Court’s Judgment in the Mitu-Bell Case
On 11 January 2021, the Kenyan Supreme Court delivered the judgment in Mitu-Bell Welfare Society. The case concerned the unlawful eviction and demolition of the homes of over 3,000 families...
