A/66/270
Report of the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a
component of the right to an adequate standard of living
Summary
The present report focuses on the realization of the right to adequate housing in
post-disaster settings. The report assesses human rights standards and guidelines
relevant to an approach to disaster response based on the right to adequate housing
and discusses some existing limitations. It elaborates upon key challenges relating to
the protection and realization of the right in disaster response: inattention to or
discrimination against vulnerable and disadvantaged groups; the overemphasis on
individual property ownership and the associated difficulty to recognize and address
the multiplicity of tenure forms equally in restitution and recovery programmes; the
risks of approaching post-disaster reconstruction predominantly as a business or
development opportunity that benefits only a few; and limitations in existing
frameworks for reconstruction and recovery. The report concludes by outlining the
fundamentals of an approach to disaster response that deliberately and
comprehensively integrates the right to adequate housing.
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