Instruments for Advocacy and Strategic Litigation on Housing Rights in Europe

 

Today we are pleased to share our new publication Instruments for Advocacy and Strategic Litigation on Housing Rights in Europe: A Handbook for Practitioners and NGOs. This publication was generously supported by Fondation Abbé Pierre. 

 

The aim of the handbook is to introduce non-legal professionals working on advocacy in the housing or homeless sector to existing legal mechanisms at European and international level that can be used to hold states accountable for their positive human rights obligations to protect and promote the right to housing and related rights. 

 

The handbook is split into three main sections. The first section provides an institutional overview of where the legal provisions for housing fit within the UN, the Council of Europe, and the EU’s work on fundamental and social rights. It then provides a brief introduction to strategic litigation, what it is, how it is used, and a review of existing strategic litigation mechanisms available, corresponding to the provisions outlined in section one. Section two also explains who can make use of them, when, and how. Section three makes the bridge back to advocacy, showing how strategic litigation and advocacy are interdependent in that any strategic litigation efforts must be accompanied by advocacy to maximise impact, and that advocacy efforts can be strengthened by resorting to strategic litigation in addition to other tools. 

 

We hope the handbook will be useful for housing activists and grassroots organisations who do not necessarily have a legal department or much legal background. Our ultimate goal in publishing this is two-fold: firstly, we want to encourage a wider use of strategic litigation mechanisms in areas or countries where these may be under-utilised, or at least raise awareness as to the place legal instruments can occupy in an advocacy organisation’s toolkit. Secondly, we also wish to encourage wider use of the legal provisions for the right to housing that exist at European and international level, especially when those established at national level may not exist or are insufficient to ensure that human rights are protected.  

 

Some of the content in this handbook may not be new to those who have a legal background - our aim was rather to pool together useful resources, which are usually quite spread out across different spaces, in a user-friendly and structured way. 

 

Lastly, but importantly, strategic litigation has many limitations. The processes are often long and require patience and persistence. That being said, they are also less technically complex than it might seem. We aimed to strike a balance between these two important considerations, in order to encourage NGOs and practitioners not to be intimidated by what might seem like a daunting process if they have a good case on their hands, whilst maintaining realistic hopes and expectations about the possible outcomes.  

 

We hope this may be a useful tool for your organisation and look forward to hear from you and support you in making progress on the right to housing in your local context.