Ending impunity for severe housing rights violations – should domicide be recognized as an international crime?
Virtual side event – 77th session of the UN General Assembly 27 October 2022, 13:15-14:30 EST
Massive violations of the right to adequate housing continue in unprecedented fashion during and after violent conflict. The attacking, bombing and shelling of civilian targets and the destruction of entire cities and villages – displacing millions into homelessness – have continued unabated despite the development of modern human rights and humanitarian law. While international law outlaws all forms of arbitrary destruction of housing, arbitrary displacement, forced evictions and other serious and large-scale violations of the right to adequate housing, there is an alarming continuity of gross violations of the right to adequate housing in times of conflict. Those severe human rights violations have been largely met with impunity.
In his report to the General Assembly of the United Nations, the Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Mr. Balakrishnan Rajagopal (A/77/190) argues to recognize systematic or widespread violations of the right to adequate housing as domicide, a crime against humanity of its own standing. The Special Rapporteur urges the international community to enhance its efforts to prevent and respond to such egregious human rights violations. Gross violations of the right to adequate housing should be investigated and prosecuted with similar effort as any other systematic or widespread human rights violation irrespectively where they take place. Similarly, Mr. Rajagopal suggested to ban the use explosive weapons with wide-area effects in populated areas through a binding international treaty.
This side event provides will discuss his recommendations to prevent domicide and explore opportunities for ending impunity of severe housing rights violations.
Register here!
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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on the Family, please visit ngofamilyny.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Social Development, please visit ngosocdev.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Disarmament, Peace, and Security, please visit ngocdps.wordpress.com. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, please visit facebook.com/NGOCoRIP.
