Land and the right to adequate housing

In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context, advocates a perspective on land that is rooted in the perspectives and experiences of communities, moves beyond exclusivist forms of property and land and promotes democratic approaches to land use and management. The right to adequate housing imposes obligations on States in relation to both publicly and privately owned resources. It is therefore important to distinguish between different holdings of land property, specifically, between property held for personal residential use and property held as an investment, particularly when the investor is a corporation and/or owns multiple properties. A human rights-based approach to land calls for interventions in the private sector to curb speculative practices related to land value and to ensure that housing remains affordable, especially for marginalized groups. The right to adequate housing places limits on the use of eminent domain and land acquisition. Nonetheless, under certain circumstances, expropriations may be justified and necessary, provided they include fair and just compensation, especially when aimed at promoting equitable land reform and expanding access to housing. The poor are disproportionately affected by the commodification of land. It is therefore crucial to recognize a diversity of land tenures, focus on securing access to land, formalize land use rights and protect communal land tenure. Land sovereignty is a form of public power, and community control should serve as a foundation for the realization of the right to adequate housing.

For many people all over the world, land means identity, culture, belonging and roots. However, the history of economic development in the past two centuries shows that land has been instrumentalized as an economic asset and as a mere lever for growth, often in an unsustainable manner and at the expense of a clean and healthy environment. Economic development has oriented human settlements towards urban settings. While urbanization has, in many cases, contributed to human development, commerce, technological innovation and access to transportation and public services, it has also, in too many instances, resulted in social exclusion, segregation, the concentration of land in a few hands and the financialization of housing.

Through the present report, the Special Rapporteur aims to contribute to the reinterpretation of land from a human rights perspective and specifically from the perspective of adequate housing. Previous mandate holders have stressed the connection between land and housing. In a report of 1995, a previous mandate holder saw “land as being a basic housing resource” and viewed “land and housing rights as congruent entitlements” (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1995/12, para. 54). In 2007, another previous mandate holder called for the “recognition in international human rights law of land as a human right” (A/HRC/4/18, para. 31). In a report of 2013 (A/HRC/25/54), a previous mandate holder presented guiding principles on security of tenure for the urban poor, which entailed a set of relationships with respect to housing and land. In a report of 2010 (A/65/281), the then Special Rapporteur on the right to food addressed the issue of traditional communal land use, with a particular focus on the situation of Indigenous Peoples, land-cultivating smallholders and herders, pastoralists and fisherfolk.

As observed by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in its general comment No. 26 (2022) on land and economic, social and cultural rights, “secure and equitable access to, use of and control over land for individuals and communities can be essential to eradicate hunger and poverty and to guarantee the right to an adequate standard of living” (E/C.12/GC/26, para. 1); in particular, “as access to land provides space for housing, the enjoyment of the right to adequate housing depends largely on having secure access to land” (ibid., para. 7). While these are key observations, a re-examination of land through the prism of adequate housing requires consideration of tenure pluralism, the limits and role of eminent domain and land acquisition, the scope of compensation for land acquisition, the regulation of land ownership and its management in light of the social function of property, and the value of localized communal forms of tenure that can enable communities to flourish.

The present report is organized into the following sections: (a) land, territory, property and sovereignty; (b) land tenure and adequate housing; (c) groups at heightened risk due to the denial or lack of protection of land rights; (d) good practices in land management towards the right to adequate housing; and (e) conclusions and recommendations.

To inform the report, the Special Rapporteur is grateful to have received more than 50 written submissions. He carried out extensive research and conducted consultations with civil society groups on 29 May 2025 (with more than 80 people in attendance) and with other experts on 24 June.

Property and sovereignty have been closely interwoven in history. With roots in Roman law, the system of rules of property – dominium – has been codependent with the system of rules of government and sovereignty – imperium. Writing in the early seventeenth century, the Dutch philosopher Hugo Grotius declared that “sovereignty … belongs to princes and property to individuals”.¹ Property in its private form played a central role in the expansion of empires and colonialism. Martti Koskenniemi alluded to the historical interdependence between sovereignty and property as “the yin and yang of European power”.²

1. Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, including the Law of Nature and of Nations (Walter Dunne, 1901), p. 103. ↩
2. Martti Koskenniemi, To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth: Legal Imagination and International Power, 1300–1870 (Cambridge University Press, 2021), p. 959. ↩

The philosophical justification of the original acquisition of property through land labour, epitomized by John Locke, was instrumentalized as an ideological justification for land dispossession where native people had not asserted exclusive ownership of the land in a manner that European settlers regarded as legally meaningful. This principle became fundamental to the evolution of both jurisdiction and private property in the United States of America, especially following the judicial acknowledgment of the “discovery doctrine” (United States Supreme Court, Johnson v. McIntosh, 1823). Under this doctrine, any territory unfamiliar to Europeans was deemed terra nullius – no one’s land – and thus subject to the myth of first occupation.

Land dispossession over colonial history manifests itself to this day, especially across the formerly colonized world in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Land acquisition laws drafted by former colonial powers are still used in many countries, including Pakistan,³ while many countries suffer from the legacy of land dispossession and commodification during the colonial era, as the Special Rapporteur learned during his recent country visit to Guatemala. Land dispossession due to colonial history plays out across generations, devastating Indigenous and rural communities, as the former mandate holder documented during her country visit to New Zealand (see A/HRC/47/43/Add.1). In a recent decision concerning the Maya peoples in Guatemala, the Human Rights Committee determined that the forced uprooting of Indigenous Peoples from their ancestral land can result in transgenerational harm decades after a conflict when children born in displacement are irremediably stripped of their cultural identity.⁴

3. See https://kpcode.kp.gov.pk/uploads/THE_LAND_ACQUISITION_ACT_1894.pdf. ↩
4. See CCPR/C/143/D/4023/2021-4032/2021. ↩

Territory represents the physical space for the exercise of sovereignty and includes not only land but also water and airspace. Territory is also an essential precondition for the exercise of sovereignty and the right to self-determination and States’ permanent sovereignty over natural resources (article 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights), which are the grounds for the realization of all other human rights. No other situation proves the relevance of territory and peoples’ free disposition of their natural wealth and resources than that of the State of Palestine. As underlined by the International Court of Justice in its advisory opinion of 19 July 2024, the decades-long occupation and denial of Palestinians’ self-determination has occurred through violations of their rights, including the confiscation and requisitioning of land, the demolition of homes and the plundering of natural resources, in contravention of international law.⁵ The deliberate mass destruction of homes during armed conflict, not only in Gaza in the State of Palestine, but also in Myanmar, the Syrian Arab Republic and Ukraine, is a distinct crime under international criminal law (see A/77/190) and should be seen for what it plainly is: an attempt to take land and occupy territory, which leads to violations of the right to self-determination and sovereignty.

5. Legal Consequences Arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024, I.C.J. Reports 2024, paras. 103–243. ↩

Comparative research tracing land ownership in cities and territories around the world shows that a large amount of land in various countries is in fact publicly owned.⁶ As recognized in international human rights law, States have direct obligations to realize the right to adequate housing through all appropriate means, including by mobilizing public land to that end. Among other things, States are required to develop and maintain a public housing stock, to encourage public and communal forms of land tenure and to develop and implement comprehensive plans to guarantee the right to adequate housing for low-income persons, with indicators and benchmarks to assess the success of such plans.⁷ States must also gather and share meaningful data to assess needs, resources and outcomes, carry out impact assessments, establish time frames to assess progress and pay particular attention to the effects of policy on the most vulnerable groups and individuals.⁸ Like other socioeconomic rights, the right to adequate housing is subject to progressive realization, with concrete, targeted and measurable milestones to hold authorities to account.⁹

6. See www.its-material.com/2025/02/13/who-owns-land/; and www.dignitybydesign.org/lifecycle/land/land-acquisition-is-carried-out-with-meaningful-consultation-and-following-due-process. ↩
7. E/C.12/61/D/5/2015, para. 21 (d). ↩
8. European Committee of Social Rights, European Federation of National Organizations Working with the Homeless (FEANTSA) v. France, Complaint No. 39/2006, Decision on the Merits, 5 December 2007, paras. 53 and 54. ↩
9. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 3 (1990) on the nature of States parties’ obligations, paras. 2–4. ↩

The right to adequate housing also imposes obligations with regard to privately owned land and housing. In this respect, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has called for better protection of the procedural rights of homeowners facing foreclosure¹⁰ and has established that independent assessments of the proportionality of evictions must be conducted in the private rental sector.11 Such 4 See CCPR/C/143/D/4023/2021-4032/2021. 5 Legal Consequences Arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024, I.C.J. Reports 2024, paras. 103–243. 6 See www.its-material.com/2025/02/13/who-owns-land/; and www.dignitybydesign.org/lifecycle/land/land-acquisition-is-carried-out-with-meaningfulconsultation-and-following-due-process. 7 E/C.12/61/D/5/2015, para. 21 (d). 8 European Committee of Social Rights, European Federation of National Organizations Working with the Homeless (FEANTSA) v. France, Complaint No. 39/2006, Decision on the Merits, 5 December 2007, paras. 53 and 54. 9 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 3 (1990) on the nature of States parties’ obligations, paras. 2–4. 10 E/C.12/55/D/2/2014, para. 13.6. 11 E/C.12/61/D/5/2015, para. 15.1. assessments require consideration of not only the personal circumstances of the family facing an eviction, but also the financial position of the landlord seeking it, including whether the landlord is a corporation.¹² The Committee has reminded States of the obligation to regulate the business of private actors operating in the housing sector in order to prevent abuses and other foreseeable negative effects.¹³ 13

10. E/C.12/55/D/2/2014, para. 13.6. ↩
12. E/C.12/66/D/37/2018, paras. 10.1 and 11.5. ↩
13. E/C.12/70/D/61/2018, para. 11.5. ↩

In international human rights law, and in international law in general, the meaning of property goes beyond private property. The General Assembly, in its resolution 45/98, recognized the existence of many forms of property: in addition to private property, there are also communal, social and State or public forms. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights have been proactive in recognizing the land rights of Indigenous Peoples as a matter of culturally specific communal property. Particularly noteworthy is the case of Indigenous Communities of Lhaka Honhat (Our Land) Association v. Argentina, in which the Inter-American Court of Human Rights drew an explicit connection between, on the one hand, the right to communal and traditional property of Indigenous Peoples and, on the other hand, the rights to food, water, cultural identity and diversity, and a healthy environment – all of which draw from land rights.¹⁴

14. Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Indigenous Communities of Lhaka Honhat (Our Land) Association v. Argentina, Judgment, 6 February 2020, paras. 92–98 and 202–254. ↩

Property is recognized as a right in the regional human rights systems of Africa, the Americas and Europe and as a prohibited ground of discrimination in various United Nations treaties. In addition, property is recognized as an institution under private and public law and should not be seen merely as an economic institution but rather should be regulated by public authorities in line with its social function. The social function of property is affirmed in constitutions, legislation and national case law all over the world – sometimes under other names, such as social obligation, social norm, social responsibility or public benefit or purpose. In essence, the social function of property refers to the notion that private property serves public and community interests and not merely the interests of the holder of property rights. In other words, the social function requires a balance between individual and collective values and interests concerning rights, freedoms and responsibilities.¹⁵ Viewing property as an institution that grants specific rights and obligations on the basis of the social function is consistent with international human rights standards. In the case of Salvador Chiriboga v. Ecuador, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights observed that, because of the social function of property, the State can limit or restrict the right to property in the name of public welfare and collective rights, or in order to preserve individual rights.¹⁶ Already in the Declaration on Social Progress and Development of 1969, the General Assembly resolved that development required “the establishment, in conformity with … the social function of property, of forms of ownership of land and of the means of production which preclude any kind of exploitation of man, ensure equal rights to property for all and create conditions leading to genuine equality among people”.

15. Koldo Casla, “The right to property taking economic, social, and cultural rights seriously”, Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 45, No. 2 (May 2023), pp. 195–199. ↩
16. Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Salvador Chiriboga v. Ecuador, Judgment, 6 May 2008, para. 60. ↩

In his 2024 report on resettlement, the Special Rapporteur expressed concerns about the unchecked use of eminent domain for purported national interest projects, which often leads to displacement and lack of proper resettlement (A/79/317, para. 11). The Special Rapporteur highlighted the case of the colonial-era Land Acquisition Act of Pakistan of 1894, which has been used to carry out forcible evictions with minimal procedural safeguards.¹⁷ Another example is India, where the lack of implementation of and changes to the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act of 2013 have resulted in weakened protections and the removal of procedural safeguards for the exercise of land acquisition. It has been estimated that over 65 million people in India, approximately 40 per cent of whom belonged to tribal or Indigenous groups, were internally displaced through so-called development projects between 1950 and 2005.¹⁸ Broadly speaking, in many middle- and low-income countries, the scope of eminent domain has been significantly broadened in the name of development and now not only encompasses land acquisitions for public purposes or benefits directly related to the public, but also allows for land acquisitions in favour of private enterprises under the vague justification of promoting economic development for the public.¹⁹

17. Communications PAK 6/2021 and PAK 7/2022; and Human Rights Watch, “‘I escaped with only my life’: abusive forced evictions in Pakistan”, 28 May 2024. ↩
18. Submissions from Land Rights Network; Landstack; and Information and Resource Centre for Deprived Urban Communities. ↩
19. Olivier De Schutter and Balakrishnan Rajagopal, eds., Property Rights from Below: Commodification of Land and the Counter-Movement (London, Routledge), p. 224. ↩

The Special Rapporteur recalls that, to be consistent with international human rights law, the grounds for evictions must be legally established, and evictions must serve a legitimate public interest and not lead to the worsening of the rights of those who are evicted. They should be conducted only as a last resort and exclusively when no less burdensome alternatives are available, while respecting the rights of those evicted, including their rights to tenure security and resettlement. Evictions should not be carried out at night, during winter, in severe weather conditions, from shelters or if they will lead to homelessness. Alternative housing must be provided to those in need, and procedural safeguards should be observed, including active participation or, as appropriate, free, prior and informed consent, adequate notice, judicial oversight, access to legal aid and the availability of remedies. In addition, just and fair compensation is required for all losses sustained due to evictions.²⁰

20. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 7 (1997) on forced evictions, paras. 14–16; and Emma N. Nic Shuibhne, Michelle Bruijn and Michel Vols, “Deconstructing the eviction protections under the revised European Social Charter: a systematic content analysis of the interplay between the right to housing and the right to property”, Human Rights Law Review, vol. 23, No. 4 (December 2023), pp. 9 and 12. ↩

In accordance with international law, peoples are entitled to permanent sovereignty over their natural resources, including land, in exercise of their right to self-determination. In accordance with national sovereignty, States may control or acquire sectors and companies that are deemed to be strategic to the public interest. They may also limit the ability of legal entities and foreign individuals who are not residents to acquire certain types of property, including land, provided such measures comply with the prohibition of discrimination under international law. States may resort to public takings of land and other forms of property as a shield to protect the rights of the population, particularly the most vulnerable groups and individuals, but not as an exclusivist claim to benefit State officials or wealthy private actors.

As indicated above, the unrestricted use of eminent domain deserves scrutiny and criticism when it is intended to benefit a wealthy minority at the expense of the public interest. At the same time, however, States can use their powers of expropriation and control if doing so is truly for the common good, including to realize the right to adequate housing. Such interventions require a re-evaluation of the role and value of compensation for public takings of property and land when aimed at broadening access to adequate housing in the public interest.

That is the spirit of the Constitution of South Africa of 1996, in which it is declared that the amount of compensation in the case of expropriation should have regard to not only the market value, but also the current use of the property, the history of its acquisition and use (given the history of apartheid), the extent of public investment and the purpose of the expropriation.²¹ As an expression of the constitutional goal of transformation, the Expropriation Act of 2024 introduced the possibility of zero compensation in certain truly exceptional circumstances, such as the abandonment of land when it is not being used except for speculative purposes, or when the value of the State’s direct investment or subsidy is equivalent or greater than the value of the land.²²

21. South Africa, Constitution of 1996, chap. 2, sect. 25 (3). ↩
22. South Africa, Expropriation Act No. 13 of 2024, Government Gazette, vol. 715, No. 51964 (24 January 2025), sect. 12 (3). ↩

Another noteworthy example is a law adopted in 2022 in Catalonia, Spain, on the basis of which public authorities can expropriate residential properties kept deliberately empty for at least two years when the owners are corporate landlords or landlords owning multiple properties. The Constitutional Court of Spain deemed the Catalan law to be compliant with the right to property in the Constitution because of the principle of the social function of property.²³

23. Spain, Constitutional Court, Judgment 25/2025 of 29 January 2025, Boletín Oficial Del Estado, No. 51 (28 February 2025). ↩

The Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland plans to grant local authorities the power to acquire land – if necessary, through compulsory purchase – at prices close to the land’s current use value, excluding the “hope value” (attributable to the prospect of planning permission being granted on the land in the future), which can artificially inflate the price of a parcel of land.²⁴ If used properly, this new power could allow local authorities to orient development towards truly affordable housing, reducing the dependence on private developers.

24. See www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-planning-and-infrastructure-bill/guide-to-the-planning-and-infrastructure-bill. ↩

The social function of property can confront the financialization of housing by establishing the principle that the primary goal of residential property should be, first and foremost, to secure adequate housing for everyone.

All over the world, rising housing costs are the product of speculative practices in relation to land’s value. Such practices often emerge from marriages of convenience between predatory foreign investors and corrupt governmental elites at the expense of the rights and interests of local communities. As observed by the Special Rapporteur in his 2023 report on the affordability of housing, the financialization of housing has resulted in increased housing costs, evictions, land-grabbing, gentrification and social segregation (A/78/192, para. 90). It is estimated that, in urban areas, the cost of land can account for up to 70 per cent of overall housing costs (ibid.). It is of paramount importance and urgency for States to take decisive action to revert decades of policymaking against the social function of residential property, in the form of the lack of investment in public housing, blind faith in the private market, insecure tenancies, the growing presence of financial corporations as landlords and acute speculation about land value.

In 2021, when the real estate corporation Evergrande went bankrupt and failed to repay hefty investments received from international banks and asset managers, thousands of apartments were left unfinished in China, shattering the dreams of thousands of families. Sometimes States are directly involved in land speculation in foreign countries. The Built Environment Observatory in Egypt identified that sovereign wealth funds and/or State-owned companies from Kuwait, Norway and the United Arab Emirates had been heavily involved in real estate investments in Cairo.²⁵

25. See https://marsadomran.info/en/2022/09/2642/. ↩

States should consider land-based wealth taxes as levers to confront speculation, reduce inequalities and obtain resources to invest in public housing. In this spirit, the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights has urged States to tax wealth instead of income to discourage unsustainable production and consumption (A/HRC/56/61, para. 54.). In a statement on taxation made in 2025, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights called for greater tax cooperation and exchange of information among States to “contribute to the effective mobilization of resources and redistribution of wealth” (E/C.12/2025/1, para. 16).

Great stress on land access is being generated due to the impact of climate change on land and housing. In his 2022 report on the climate crisis and the right to housing, the Special Rapporteur highlighted the disproportionate impact of deregulation, unsustainable practices and the financialization of housing and nature on marginalized people and groups, including people experiencing homelessness, children, racial minorities, migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, persons in detention, people suffering sociospatial segregation, and Indigenous Peoples and peasants (A/HRC/52/28, para. 26–31). As observed by the Special Rapporteur in that report, climate change is intensifying desertification, flooding and other processes, which will cause greater land degradation and loss and will have a severe impact on the right to adequate housing.

For example, Aboriginal populations in Australia are disproportionately exposed to climate extremes in terms of rain, rainfall and drought, which are predicted to worsen with climate change in the coming years and decades, with negative effects on their health and well-being.²⁶ Coastal cities such as Dar es Salaam in the United Republic of Tanzania are highly susceptible to climate change impacts, including flooding and rising sea levels, which exacerbate housing challenges.²⁷ Evidence from India indicates that informal settlements are often situated in high-risk zones such as floodplains and riverbanks, increasing their susceptibility to disasters. The lack of safe land and secure tenure leaves those communities excluded from climate adaptation initiatives and more vulnerable to evictions driven by drastic changes in the natural environment, not only jeopardizing their housing rights but also weakening long-term urban resilience and inclusive climate strategies.²⁸

26. Jeffrey C. Standen and others, “Aboriginal population and climate change in Australia: implications for health and adaptation planning”, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, vol. 19, No. 12 (2022). ↩
27. Submission from Habitat for Humanity. ↩
28. Submission from Urban Transformation Platform, India. ↩

Not all holdings of property in land are the same and deserve the same level of protection under human rights law. There is a fundamental distinction between land or housing owned by individuals to live in and land or housing held by individuals or corporations for profit. As observed by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the case of Maribel Viviana López Albán v. Spain: “Analysing the proportionality of an eviction entails examining not only the consequences of the measures for the evicted persons but also the owner’s need to recover possession of the property. This inevitably involves making a distinction between properties belonging to individuals who need them as a home or to provide vital income and properties belonging to financial institutions.”²⁹

29. E/C.12/66/D/37/2018, para. 11.5. ↩

Legislation and case law from various jurisdictions is consistent with the principle that the protection of land interests and private property rights should be adjusted on the basis of the needs of and consequences for both residents and landlords. The Right to Housing Act of Spain of 2023, together with similar laws adopted in various regions of the country, imposes additional obligations on landlords owning multiple properties in relation to rent caps, embedding the proportionality test in eviction proceedings and requiring landlords to offer affordable rent to economically vulnerable tenants before seeking an eviction. In Denmark, a 2020 law commonly referred to as the “Blackstone Act” strengthened energy-efficiency standards, mandated prior certification from local authorities for house improvements, barred corporate landlords from paying tenants to vacate their units and prohibited landlords from raising rents for several years after acquiring a building for investment purposes.³⁰ The Constitutional Court of South Africa ruled, in the case of City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality v. Blue Moonlight Properties 39 (Pty) Ltd and Another, that private landowners can be expected to have to wait longer to repossess a property when they purchased it for commercial rather than residential purposes, and when they knew that the property was occupied, even if such occupation was unlawful.³¹

30. Kath Scanlon, “Private renting in Denmark: foreign investors in the crosshairs”, in Private Renting in the Advanced Economies: Growth and Change in a Financialized World, Peter A. Kemp, ed. (Bristol University Press, 2023); and Hettie O’Brien, “The Blackstone rebellion: how one country took on the world’s biggest commercial landlord”, The Guardian, 29 September 2022. ↩
31. Constitutional Court of South Africa, City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality v. Blue Moonlight Properties 39 (Pty) Ltd and Another, Case No. CCT 37/11, Judgment, 1 December 2011, para. 40. ↩

Taking land seriously from a human rights approach compels States and policymakers to recognize de facto rights of use, irrespective of title, derived from actual possession and labour of land. In this respect, in the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169) of the International Labour Organization, the rights of those peoples to “ownership and possession” over their traditional lands are recognized as two distinct legal categories (art. 14). Similarly, it is established in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007 that Indigenous Peoples have the right to “own, use, develop and control the lands, territories and resources that they possess by reason of traditional ownership” (art. 26, para. 2). In some countries, including Guatemala, the use and possessory rights of Indigenous Peoples often form the sole basis for their land rights, creating a direct conflict with formal property rights established through and under colonial rule.

The importance of protecting land use and access to land regardless of ownership goes beyond the situation of Indigenous Peoples. The poor, whether they are urban or rural, are disproportionately affected by the commodification of land. Emphasizing land titling tends to favour those who already possess or have access to land, thereby making it harder for others to enter land markets. In this way, land titling can be viewed as a transfer of wealth away from the landless in many contexts. It is therefore crucial to focus on ensuring access to land in addition to formalizing property rights that have previously gone unrecognized.³² As observed by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in its general comment No. 26 (2022), States should adopt laws and policies to guarantee that titling programmes are not implemented solely to support the sale of land and the commodification of land tenure (E/C.12/GC/26, para. 31). In land sales, capital-rich buyers tend to be favoured over efficient land users, often leading to land being held as speculative investments, reducing productivity and increasing rural landlessness. The idea that individual titling reduces poverty assumes that land can be used as collateral for credit. However, the poor, for whom land is a vital social safety net, may be hesitant to mortgage their land. Moreover, titling alone does not guarantee better access to credit. For the poor, security of tenure and protection from land sales can be more crucial. Strengthening customary land tenure systems through low-cost, local tools for recording land or use rights can enhance security of tenure without necessarily establishing full private ownership (see A/65/281).

32. De Schutter and Rajagopal, Property Rights from Below, pp. 223 and 224. ↩

A lack of legal recognition of communal and collective use of property can result in forms of “hidden expropriation” through corporate land grabs and State-led economic development and/or militaristic projects.³³ For example, federal and municipal authorities have characterized the clearance activities in Addis Ababa and peri-urban Oromiya in Ethiopia as legitimate urban renewal and infrastructure initiatives aimed at reducing informal settlements, alleviating congestion and encouraging investment. However, civil society groups have highlighted significant negative impacts on the right to adequate housing, and residents have reported receiving little or no advance warning, thus undermining security of tenure.³⁴ The Habitat International Coalition denounced a case of corporate land grab of more than 300,000 hectares in farmland in the western Gambela region in Ethiopia.³⁵ Habitat for Humanity reports that 65 per cent of the urban population in Uganda and 70 per cent in Zambia live in informal settlements, where lack of documentation and recognition makes communities susceptible to all forms of manipulation and insecurity.³⁶

33. Ting Xu, “Hidden expropriation in globalization and soft law protection of communal property rights”, in Rethinking Expropriation Law II: Context, Criteria, and Consequences of Expropriation, Björn Hoops and others, eds. (The Hague, Eleven International Publishing, 2015). ↩
34. Submission from Habitat for Humanity. ↩
35. Submission from the Housing and Land Rights Network of the Habitat International Coalition. ↩
36. Submission from Habitat for Humanity. ↩

In Islamabad, the official designation of informal settlements (katchi abadis) is instrumentalized to legitimize demolitions and forced removals, whereby the authorities seek to avoid the need to offer compensation or resettlement, leaving marginalized communities vulnerable to exploitation and financial losses.³⁷ A significant portion of the urban population in India live in informal settlements. It is estimated that over 20 per cent of the population of Delhi live on 0.5 per cent of the city’s land, and 40 per cent of the population of Mumbai live on 8 per cent of the land; as many of these areas remain legally unrecognized, residents lack legal security of tenure and access to basic services.³⁸

37. Submissions from Sobia Ahmad Kaker and Alliance for Urban Rights; and Aasim Sajjad Akhtar and Rashid Ammar, “Dispossession and the militarized developer State: financialization and class power on the agrarian-urban frontier of Islamabad, Pakistan”, Third World Quarterly, vol. 42, No. 8 (2021). ↩
38. Submission from Urban Transformation Platform, India. ↩

In contrast to the model of exclusionary private property, a human rights-based approach to land calls for tenure pluralism and greater recognition and protection of communal property. The commodification of property results in the allocation of use rights being determined by purchasing power rather than actual need. Under the exclusivist private property model, it is those who own more, not those who need more, who determine the allocation of resources.³⁹ This is despite the fact that it is not certain whether private property always yields better outcomes than communal ownership. In this respect, it is helpful to think of communal property as a process rather than a static state of affairs, using the gerund form “commoning” to emphasize active participation and the governance of collective decision-making and to avoid overemphasis of the commons as an end goal.⁴⁰ The key principles of a human rights-based process of co-governance of communal property include the following: (a) communities should have access to and standing in courts; (b) remedies should be available; (c) communal property should be recognized as equally valuable as private property; (d) the interests of local communities may differ from broader societal interests; and (e) communities should have the resources to have their collective rights recognized, protected and enforced by the State.⁴¹

39. De Schutter and Rajagopal, Property Rights from Below, p. 8. ↩
40. David Bollier and Silke Helfrich. eds., Patterns of Commoning (The Commons Strategies Group, 2015). ↩
41. Alison Clarke, “Property, human rights and communities”, in Property and Human Rights in a Global Context, Ting Xu and Jean Allain, eds. (Hart, 2015), pp. 37–39. ↩

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples affirms the collective right to own, use, develop and control land, including the obligation of the State to recognize that right, as an expression of self-determination in the form of autonomy and self-government (arts. 2, 3, 4 and 26). In their case law, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights have linked land and property with the economic sustenance, spiritual life and cultural identity of Indigenous Peoples.⁴² According to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, traditional possession should have “the same effects” as legal title, and Indigenous Peoples are entitled to have their ownership recognized and registered by the State, which “must delimit, demarcate and grant collective title to the lands”.⁴³ The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has urged States to “adopt policies and laws that secure the rights of Indigenous populations/communities to own, control and manage their ancestral lands in the forests and protected areas”.⁴⁴ The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has recognized the principle of “no contact” as an integral manifestation of the right to self-determination and the survival of Indigenous Peoples in voluntary isolation.⁴⁵

42. Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Mayagna (Sumo) Awas Tingni Community v. Nicaragua, Judgment, 31 August 2001; Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Yakye Axa Indigenous Community v. Paraguay, Judgment, 17 June 2005; Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Sawhoyamaxa Indigenous Community v. Paraguay, Judgment, 29 March 2006; African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Centre for Minority Rights Development (Kenya) and MRG International on behalf of Endorois Welfare Council v. Kenya, Communication No. 276/2003, Decision, 2010; and African Court on Human Right and Peoples’ Rights, African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights v. Republic of Kenya, Application No. 006/2012, Judgment, 26 May 2017. ↩
43. Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Xákmok Kásek Indigenous Community v. Paraguay, Judgment, 24 August 2010, para. 109. ↩
44. African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, resolution on Indigenous populations/ communities in Africa, ACHPR/Res. 334(EXT.OS/XIX)2016. ↩
45. Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Tagaeri and Taromenane Indigenous Peoples v. Ecuador, Judgment, 4 September 2024. ↩

Despite the existence of an international protection regime, Indigenous Peoples suffer multiple violations of their housing rights in rural and urban contexts (see A/74/183). Bedouin have faced forced evictions in the State of Palestine without proper consultation in villages unrecognized by the Israeli military authorities.⁴⁶ Together with other special procedure mandate holders, the Special Rapporteur has raised concerns about the plans for resettlement, forced evictions and home demolitions affecting 82,000 people, the vast majority of whom are Indigenous Maasai pastoralists, from their ancestral lands in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in northern United Republic of Tanzania.⁴⁷ The Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples has expressed concerns about the continued use by Brazil of the controversial marco temporal (“temporal framework”) legal interpretation to revoke the legal foundation for Indigenous land demarcation and annul the demarcation of Indigenous territories.⁴⁸

46. See www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/05/israel-opt-over-300-palestinian-bedouin-face-forced-evictions-following-mass-home-demolitions-in-negev-naqab/. ↩
47. Communication TZA 3/2021. ↩
48. See www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/06/brazil-must-abandon-marco-temporal-doctrine-once-and-all-says-un-expert. ↩

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas of 2018 asserts the right of peasants to land, water bodies and fisheries, individually and collectively, and their right to have access to and use sustainably the natural resources in their communities (arts. 5 and 17). Nevertheless, the situation remains dire for land rights defenders, peasants and rural workers. In his 2023 report on affordability, the Special Rapporteur raised concerns about the criminalization of solidarity and mutual aid mechanisms among members of rural low-income communities (A/78/192, para. 63).

In Brazil, the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement has been employing a strategy of “occupations” to highlight that vast areas of land owned by large landholders remain unused and unproductive. The Movement is calling for agrarian reform and argues that such neglect undermines the social function of property as outlined in the 1988 Constitution of Brazil.⁴⁹ Since 2020, Brazilian campaigners have also been maintaining and developing a praiseworthy information- and advocacy-sharing platform to track and respond to land conflicts and threats of forced evictions in urban areas.⁵⁰ The Special Rapporteur received deeply concerning information about the level of persecution against peasants and land rights defenders in Honduras, one of the most dangerous countries for land activists with one of the highest murder rates per capita.⁵¹ On the island of Barbuda, Antigua and Barbuda, land defenders have been campaigning against the enclosure of large stretches of the coastline to build “luxury developments” since Hurricane Irma devastated the island in 2017.⁵²

49. Sérgio Sauer and Luís Felipe Perdigão de Castro, “Land and territory: struggles for land and territorial rights in Brazil”, in Property Rights from Below, De Schutter and Rajagopal. ↩
50. See https://landportal.org/blog-post/2024/05/data-against-forced-evictions-brazil-zero-evictions-campaign. ↩
51. Submission from the Center for Gender and Refugees Studies of the University of California. See also https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/land-and-environmental-defenders/standing-firm/. ↩
52. See www.glanlaw.org/barbuda. For background, see also communication ATG 1/2021. ↩

Women are disproportionately affected by limited access to and control over, and poor governance of, land, which threatens their right to adequate housing and other socioeconomic rights and may result in discrimination, including intersectional discrimination. Land plays a crucial role in enabling women to participate equally in decision-making, helps to reduce the risk of gender-based violence and generally contributes to improved welfare for children.⁵³ The equal right of men and women to enjoy the right to adequate housing and other socioeconomic rights “requires that women have a right to own, use or otherwise control housing, land and property on an equal basis with men, and to access necessary resources to do so”.⁵⁴

53. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 26 (2022), paras. 13 and 14. ↩
54. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 16 (2005) on the equal right of men and women to the enjoyment of all economic, social and cultural rights, para. 28. ↩

However, evidence brought to the attention of the Special Rapporteur from multiple locations, including Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia, confirms yet again that women are systematically disadvantaged in terms of access to land property and land use.⁵⁵

55. Submissions from Habitat for Humanity; Cubalex; Urban Transformation Platform and Housing and Land Rights Network (India); Landstack; and Information and Resource Centre for Deprived Urban Communities. ↩

Communities experiencing discrimination based on work and descent report being trapped between a rock and a hard place, where customary systems reinforce discriminatory social hierarchies and official or statutory legal frameworks undervalue communal and informal forms of tenure. Addressing the housing and land needs of Roma and other communities requires the adoption of an intersectional perspective. Indeed, the European Court of Human Rights, in the case of Yordanova and Others v. Bulgaria, noted: “In general, the underprivileged status of the applicants’ group must be a weighty factor in considering approaches to dealing with their unlawful settlement and, if their removal is necessary, in deciding on its timing, modalities and, if possible, arrangements for alternative shelter.”⁵⁶

56. European Court of Human Rights, Yordanova and Others v. Bulgaria, Application No. 25446/06, Judgment, 24 April 2012, para. 133; and European Committee of Social Rights, European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) v. Greece, Complaint No. 15/2003, Decision on the Merits, 8 December 2004, para. 19. ↩

Evidence presented to the Special Rapporteur highlighted the long-lasting caste-based prejudice and discrimination against Dalits in South Asia (India and Nepal), the systemic barriers affecting Roma people in informal settlements without legal status and with no or limited access to essential services in Europe (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, France, Italy, North Macedonia, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia) and the slow and contested land titling processes affecting Afrodescendent Quilombola communities in Brazil.⁵⁷ As observed by the Special Rapporteur during his 2023 visit to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, nomadic groups, such as caravan dwellers and Roma communities, face their own challenges due to the loss of access to traditionally roamed lands, leading to forced changes in lifestyles and livelihood, with significant impacts on the right to adequate housing (A/HRC/55/53/Add.1, para 57).

57. Submissions from Global Forum of Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent; and World Roma Federation. ↩

The Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act of South Africa of 1998 elaborates on the constitutional prohibition of arbitrary evictions. The Act requires an assessment of the circumstances surrounding the occupation of the land, the impact that an eviction may have on vulnerable occupiers and the availability of alternative accommodation. In applying the Act, South African courts seek a balance between housing rights and property rights. In the Blue Moonlight case, the Constitutional Court of South Africa declared: “Of course a property owner cannot be expected to provide free housing for the homeless on its property for an indefinite period. But in certain circumstances an owner may have to be somewhat patient, and accept that the right to occupation may be temporarily restricted.”⁵⁸

58. City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality v. Blue Moonlight Properties 39 (Pty) Ltd and Another, para. 40. ↩

Since 2003, Scotland has been undergoing a process of land reform. The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016 introduced a community right to buy land to further sustainable development.⁵⁹ Under the Act, Scottish ministers are required, in considering a decision in response to a community application to buy land, to have due regard not only to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights) and the right to property set out in Protocol No.1 thereto, but also to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The Scottish Parliament is currently considering a land reform bill that would mandate landowners to create land management plans, address access requests from community members and establish procedures for rent reviews in agricultural contexts, among other provisions.

59. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016, part 5. ↩

With more than 1 million units spread across 24 towns and 3 estates, public housing in Singapore is often seen as a major positive model, covering 80 per cent of the resident population, of whom about 90 per cent own their home (A/78/192, para. 76).

In Austria, the Vienna Land Procurement and Urban Renewal Fund (known as “Wohnfonds Wien”) is a not-for-profit, financially autonomous organization chaired by the city council. It acquires and disposes of land on the open market to support development in line with the strategic metropolitan plan for Vienna. The Fund manages a dynamic and highly effective public-interest land bank, putting empty and neglected properties back to productive use and actively facilitating affordable building and renovation projects throughout the city.⁶⁰

60. See www.housing2030.org/project/wohnfonds-wien-a-land-bank-for-the-public-good/. ↩

Promising practices are also found in other places, including Montevideo, Barcelona (Spain), Vancouver (Canada) and Mexico City, where public authorities are intervening successfully in the private residential market through taxation and/or by reclaiming vacant and deteriorating properties for the purposes of social housing for vulnerable populations.⁶¹

61. Submission from United Cities and Local Government. ↩

Community land trusts are not-for-profit organizations that focus on the development of affordable housing in disadvantaged communities, with restricted housing values to limit the equity gain and ensure that housing remains affordable in the future. They are often run by or together with residents themselves.⁶² In 2023, there were some 350 community land trusts in England and Wales, providing affordable homes to more than 1,700 households, with the expectation that the offering will be increased substantially in the years to come.⁶³ There are more than 260 community land trusts in the United States, and their number is growing in many local jurisdictions, offering promising alternative land management models for ensuring affordable housing.⁶⁴

62. Rob McMorran and others, Review of International Experience of Community, Communal and Municipal Ownership of Land (Scottish Land Commission, 2020), pp. 31–35. ↩
63. Community Land Trust Network, “State of the community land trust sector 2023”, 2023. ↩
64. See https://catalog.results4america.org/programs/community-land-trusts. ↩

Waqf is an institution under Islamic law that functions as a religious endowment, through which buildings or plots of land are donated for charitable purposes. Waqf is used for agricultural land in places such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the State of Palestine and can be used in urban settings as a cooperative housing model to provide affordable housing.⁶⁵

65. Submissions from State of Palestine; Saudi Arabia; and Housing Justice Network (Egypt). See also Muhammad Kashif Khan, Siti Zaleha Abd Rasid and Barjoyai Bardai, “Waqf Cooperative Housing Model (WCHM) as an innovative solution for affordable housing”, International Journal of Innovation and Business Strategy, vol. 12, No. 2 (2019). ↩

The Jaga Mission in Odisha, India, is a transformative initiative through which land rights are granted to slum dwellers in over 100 towns, giving them access to housing upgrades, civic services and infrastructure. Through satellite mapping, community engagement and legal recognition, the Mission has delivered tenure certificates to thousands of urban poor households, making it one of the largest slum land titling initiatives globally.

The World Roma Federation reported that, in the Irish municipalities where statutory traveller accommodation programmes had been implemented, forced evictions had declined by 38 per cent between 2018 and 2023. As part of a pilot project of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) in Recife, Brazil, “recognition certificates” were issued to 3,500 families of African descent, protecting them from eviction during a port expansion, as the certificates were accepted by courts for the purposes of compensation valuation. 66 61 Submission from United Cities and Local Government. 62 Rob McMorran and others, Review of International Experience of Community, Communal and Municipal Ownership of Land (Scottish Land Commission, 2020), pp. 31–35. 63 Community Land Trust Network, “State of the community land trust sector 2023”, 2023. 64 See https://catalog.results4america.org/programs/community-land-trusts. 65 Submissions from State of Palestine; Saudi Arabia; and Housing Justice Network (Egypt). See also Muhammad Kashif Khan, Siti Zaleha Abd Rasid and Barjoyai Bardai, “Waqf Cooperative Housing Model (WCHM) as an innovative solution for affordable housing”, International Journal of Innovation and Business Strategy, vol. 12, No. 2 (2019). 66 Submission from World Roma Federation. 18/19

It is necessary to reframe land as an essential component of adequate housing. This requires moving away from the idea of land as a commodified asset for investors to speculate over or an exclusive asset to do with as State elites wish. Land ownership and use should be regulated to ensure that property serves the social function of securing adequate housing for all who need it. This is an appeal for a new understanding of property from below, anchored in communal, non-exclusivist and democratic forms of land use and management. This also requires States to abandon the idea that eminent domain and land acquisition are unrestricted aspects of their sovereignty. State sovereignty over land is a public power, to be used to benefit the public and to ensure the right to self-determination and all other human rights that rest on it, including the right to adequate housing.

As a general rule, international human rights law prohibits discrimination in relation to tenure status and mandates equal access to property.⁶⁷ However, there is no right to private property in international human rights law. Where such a right exists, for example, in regional jurisdictions such as Europe, it protects existing possessions and does not guarantee the right to acquire new possessions.⁶⁸ By definition, ownership is the dividing line between those who have and those who do not. In a world of rampant wealth inequalities, the social function of property calls for a democratic approach to ensure that everybody participates in the decision-making process concerning ownership on the basis of equality, with the involvement of those who own and those who do not own property. Indeed, it reinforces the message that tenure security and possessory rights are more important than ownership of land.

67. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, arts. 15 (2) and 16 (1) (h); Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, art. 12 (5); Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 2 (1); and International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, art. 5 (d) (v). ↩
68. European Court of Human Rights, Plenary Court, Marckx v. Belgium, Application No. 6833/74, Judgment, 13 June 1979, para. 50. ↩

States should respect and regulate tenure pluralism, including through land tenure assessments that encompass traditional, customary, informal and Indigenous rights, as well as formal ownership rights. In particular, they must ensure that cadastral systems recognize use rights, including the collective and communal rights of Indigenous Peoples. States should ensure legal security of tenure for all those who do not have formal titles to the homes in or land on which they are living.

States must encourage community mapping and other participatory methods to more accurately record land rights, and ensure that land tenure assessments are conducted for all policies, laws and project approvals before final decisions are taken.

States should invest resources in alternative models of affordable housing that transcend the sole paradigm of homeownership, including land banks, community land trusts, waqf and cooperative housing.

States should empower local and subnational governments to take action to ensure affordable housing, including through the regulation of land use, the prevention of speculation, the protection of renters and taxation measures.

States should regulate land ownership and land use, curb the role of speculation and explore the use of public land banks. Property rights must be limited, while the scope of obligations and measures to promote the social function of land and housing must be increased.

States should regulate the institution of property for residential purposes, making a distinction between properties belonging to individuals who need them as a home or to provide vital income and properties belonging to financial institutions.

States must ban all illegal or unauthorized evictions and establish a clear legal framework for all legal evictions. Land rights rest on avoiding evictions as far as possible. Where evictions are necessary, they must be carried out in accordance with the standards set out in international human rights law, including those relating to legality, legitimate interest, last resort, proportionality, judicial oversight, the provision of alternative housing to prevent homelessness and the availability of remedies and compensation.

States should intervene in the private sector, when necessary, through tax measures or sanctions and/or by reclaiming vacant and neglected properties for social housing purposes, to ensure that access to housing is affordable, particularly for marginalized communities.

States should avoid the criminalization of poverty and homelessness, and support and protect land and human rights defenders.

States should consider implementing a land-based wealth tax as a tool to combat speculation, address inequalities and generate resources for investing in public housing.