In October 2014, at the invitation of civil society organisations, I visited Detroit with the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to water and sanitation. We met with people whose water had been shut off, and with many others struggling to pay expensive bills to avoid losing their water supply. Emerging from bankruptcy and still heavily indebted, the city of Detroit stopped providing water to people who couldn’t pay their bills.
The right to safe drinking water and sanitation, and to adequate housing are enshrined in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Detroit visit underscored for me the importance of local governments in protecting these rights. But how often are city authorities actually brought into human rights discussions? And how can these local governments be made more accountable when they ignore rights? In a report presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva this month, I examine these questions.
In the last few decades, some initiatives began to engage local, municipal governments on the right to housing, in particular through the concepts of the 'human rights city', and 'the right to the city'. In the last few decades, some initiatives began to engage local, municipal governments on the right to housing, in particular through the concepts of the “human rights city”, and “the right to the city”. These efforts come out of recognition that local governments have critical responsibilities, not only in preventing forced evictions, but also to take positive steps to realize the right to adequate housing: infrastructure development, land-use planning, upgrading of slums, and so on.
