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Goal 3: Advocacy at all levels (multilateral, regional, national and local)
Goal
3: Advocacy at all levels
The housing rights framework arguments, monitoring tools,
methodologies and materials are applied and further developed
in forums where HIC-HLRN members meet with governments and
other forces impeding or violating HRAH. The training, information,
strategy exchanges and monitoring tools are intended to
assist the members to ensure more-effective self-representation
and problem solving. Thus, the first two goals are designed
to provide services that lead to successful advocacy at
every level.
The multilateral level
HLRN MENA Program's advocacy efforts address the multilateral-level
forums and institutions concerned with HRAH, in particular,
and ESCR, in general. HLRN representatives serve as representatives
of HIC at UN ECOSOC bodies where appropriate. The HLRN coordinator
serves as the principal HIC representative registered at
the UN Geneva, who bears the responsibility (in cooperation
with HIC General Secretariat) for ensuring HIC member credentials
to participate in the UN Human Rights System as necessary.
This allows for direct HLRN officer and member access to
the UN forums, as well as the occasion to report international-level
activities back to the HIC general membership and HIC Board.
HLRN and its members intervene in the legal bodies of the
UN treaty-monitoring system, as well as the political bodies
such as the Commission on Human Rights and ECOSOC, in order
to develop soft-law standards that advance the specificity
of the human right to adequate housing in general, as well
as for vulnerable groups, in particular. Within its long-term
objectives, HLRN pursues eventual international recognition
of the human right to land, not least by demonstrating its
vital importance through the elucidating violation examples.
HLRN also seeks to develop norms elaborating states' obligation
uphold progressive realization of ESCR in "international
cooperation," as a matter of bilateral or multilateral relations;
and promotes the obligation, authority and capacity building
of local authorities to uphold housing rights within their
state context. Also HLRN and HIC members, as well as others
in the larger human rights community, will be able to use
the consequent soft-law instruments locally in a variety
of actions, ranging from public education to litigation.
III.A United Nations: Political Bodies
Promote and support political will to uphold the human rights
legal regime;
Develop legal specificity of HRAH standards, including the
right to land;
Influence multilateral decisions and commitment accordingly.
HIC-HLRN in the MENA region also addresses the policy and
standard-setting mechanisms of a more-specific nature. These
include contributions to "days of discussion" with the treaty
bodies to deliberate and draft General Comments, and develop
standards pertaining to the right to development, corporate
accountability, structural adjustment programs and ESCR,
as well as forums concerned with developing new mechanisms,
such as the Open-ended Working Group on the ICESCR Option
Protocol. HLRN seeks to engage MENA members in these processes.
III.B United Nations: Legal Bodies
Uphold and further develop international minimum standards
on HRAH,
Develop soft law and jurisprudence to advance and specify
HRAH,
Improve performance of State duty holders to respect, protect,
promote, fulfill and monitor HRAH.
HLRN puts great stock in advocacy efforts before the legal
bodies of the multilateral system, particularly for their
more-neutral nature and, therefore, greater predictability
of the outcomes uncompromised by the political interests
of State delegations. Legal outcomes can be authoritatively
applied in their local context, often in support of civil
society positions and proposed solutions. The results of
HIC-HLRN representation to the legal bodies contributes
to the development of soft law (lex feranda) that can be
influential toward rationalizing the political will so necessary
for human rights implementation.
As elaborated under Goal II, HLRN supports its members to
represent themselves through parallel reports to the UN
treaty-monitoring bodies will allow members raise cases-from
claims, to violations, to possible solutions-applying the
asset of State obligations under international human rights
agreements. HLRN personnel will provide guidance and technical
direction, as well as material support for members presenting
effective parallel reports. (See sample parallel reports
on www.hlrn.org and www.hic-mena.org
under "Documents.")
The Global Program support HLRN members to participate in
the review of their countries before the UN treaty bodies,
focusing on HRAH implementation problems and solutions.
The selection criteria for representation under the HLRN
Global Program will be (1) the scheduled review of the country
before the relevant treaty body, (2) the members' production
of a parallel report applying the HRAH framework and (3)
need for support that is not provided through another HLRN
Regional Program. Opportunities for representations by HLRN
MENA members to the treaty-monitoring bodies, pending availability
of resources and member initiatives, in 2004-06 are presented
in the Annex to this program description.
III.C United Nations: Factual Mechanisms
Cooperate with urgent actions/complaint mechanisms,
Contribute to country-specific assessments of HRAH,
Cooperation with thematic ESC rights and country-specific
Special Rapporteurs, especially the SR on adequate housing,
Monitor multilateral agreements on specific groups (e.g.,
indigenous peoples, refugees).
The principle UN factual mechanism with which HLRN's Global
Program cooperates is the UN Commission on Human Rights
Special Rapporteur (SR) on adequate housing as a component
of the right to an adequate standard of living. In addition,
HLRN Global Program also has cooperated with various other
SRs as appropriate, especially on matters related to housing
and land rights, eviction and population transfer, compensation
and restitution, the right to food (and water), the option
al protocol to ICESR, and freedom of religion and belief,
as well as country-specific rapporteurs as their mandates
also cover housing and land rights issues. In the MENA region,
this cooperation may involve direct consultation, delivering
testimony on country missions, providing written information,
distributing SR reports, or mounting Arabic-language versions
of SR reports and related resolutions on the HIC-MENA website.
III.D United Nations: Implementation Bodies
Promote integration of the human rights framework in development
projects in the field,
Monitor programs and projects with HRAH methodology and
criteria,
Cooperate in activities and campaigns conditionally within
HRAH principles.
In its relations with the multilateral system, HLRN's central
and overarching objective is to ensure that the United Nations
be a forum for people consistent with the opening sentence
of the UN Charter. Therefore, HLRN and its member consult
and engage as appropriate with the UN implementing bodies,
such as UNDP, the Economic and Social Council of Western
Asia (ESCWA), UN Habitat, etc.). The subject of that engagement
and consultation typically focuses on the integration of
the housing and land rights (HLR) framework in institutional
methods and practical operations, including monitoring of
the Millennium Development Goals and the UN Habitat's two
ongoing regional campaigns on "Secure Tenure" and "Urban
Governance".
III.E Multilateral Financial Institutions
Establish the primacy of HR regime;
Monitor policies/agreements regarding HRAH (land, water,
energy, sanitation, resettlement, population transfer, migration,
etc.);
Support preventive and remedial struggles.
In all monitoring of, and relations with the international
finance, trade and investment institutions, HLRN and its
members advance the legal and normative position that states'
international public law obligations, including human rights,
supersede private law commitments. Therefore, development
and commercial considerations must be subject to the primacy
of human rights. Thus multilateral institutions,
though the States that constitute and direct them, are subject
to these prior obligations, in particular, ensuring the
"progressive realization of economic, social and cultural
rights." Thus, agents of economic globalization, these institutions
are the growing subject of HLRN advocacy, as much as they
are arising as frequent subjects in the conduct of HLRN
training, monitoring, fact-finding and research.
In international and local forums, HLRN MENA representatives
and members already have contributed this approach notably
to the discourse on globalization, particularly with a view
to the consequences for housing and land that arise from
the state's withdrawal from regulation duties in favor of
private actors. To the extent possible, HLRN seeks to engage
community voices to ensure that the case-based and comparative
perspectives of the affected population inform the discourse
on globalization, particularly on matters arising from World
Bank Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, the legacy of structural
adjustment, "trade-related intellectual property" deregulation
of markets affecting land and housing, and the privatization
of services. Thus, the IFIs are a subject of all the foregoing
MENA Program activities, integral to the training, action
research, publications and alliance building that make up
the other substantive goals.
Transnational Corporations (TNCs):
Promote human rights guidelines/obligations,
Expose HRAH violations.
The conduct of transnational corporations (TNCs) has a direct
and obvious effect on the living conditions of workers and
consumers, as well as the natural environment. Within the
globalization context, TNCs seek the withdrawal of public
authorities from their regulatory roles and assume more
decisive roles in determining living conditions. In fact,
the patron-client relationships come into higher relief
with public institutions relying more heavily on private
finance capital for operations and services.
HLRN is dedicated to the monitoring, study and needed advocacy
to ensure that TNCs also behave as citizens with responsibilities
to uphold human rights norms, on the one hand, and that
public authorities retain and sustain both the authority
and capacity to ensure human rights primacy. This monitoring
and advocacy focuses on promoting and contributing to the
draft TNC code of conduct as considered in the UN Subcommission
on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and other
international forums. It is also exemplified by its role
in the critical campaign against Caterpillar Corporation
sales to Israeli forces conducting house demolitions in
Palestine.
III.D At the regional level:
Regional Development Banks: Monitoring projects;
Arab League consultative status;
Trade blocs: Monitoring, assessing impacts, and addressing
the deprivation arising from new blocs.
Especially through its regional programs in South Asia,
sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Middle East/North
Africa, HLRN experience has taught that the regions provide
the most-effective level of strategic cooperation and concerted
action. In such cases, HLRN seeks to encourage and support
HIC members and allies to undertake advocacy work in those
regions as opportunities arise.
In addition to cooperating with the efforts of the HLRN
Global Program in the MENA region, the Cairo Coordination
office is pursuing possible consultative relations with
the department of civil society relations of the League
of Arab States as a channel for member engagement in relevent
regional-level deliberations.
III.E The "Glocal" Level: Urgent Actions
Rally practical solidarity and support for victims,
Bond members into mutual and reciprocal support activities,
Denounce violations,
Proffer alternative solutions,
Institutionalize reciprocal alliances with other supportive
networks.
In 2002-03, the HLRN Global Program developed an Urgent
Action (UA) system encompassing a methodology, trainings,
and a UA case database. As detailed in the first two goals,
the raison d'être of this system was to advocate against
housing and land rights violations through practical and
effective expressions of solidarity and participant protests
against violations in a broad network, with HIC-HLRN members
at its core.
The UA system provides the arguments and methodology in
brief that are available in the more-elaborated HLRN "Toolkit."
It can be used to rally support for victims in cases involving
individuals or groups, community or national scale issues,
denunciations of violations and encouragement of problem-solving
alternatives. The UA methodology and user's guide has been
published and distributed throughout the network in four
languages (Arabic, English, French and Spanish), and has
been mounted on the HLRN Global and Regional Program websites.
The UA system already has covered several cases of forced
eviction in MENA countries, as well as coordinated solidarity
in the event of official repression of HLRN member organizations
in the region, house demolitions and West Bank barrier construction.
III.F National-level Support
Law reform/legislation (legislative power);
Monitoring policies, programs, budgets, projects, and implementation
instruments (executives);
Litigation/case law;
Policy and law reform;
Cooperation with National Institutions for Human Rights
and local commissions;
Monitoring international cooperation and country positions
at multilateral levels;
Advocacy campaigns.
HIC and HLRN do not establish national offices, conduct
country-specific programs from centralized structures, nor
does HLRN intervene independently in any national context.
Those options remain the domain of local members.
The national-level activities that HLRN can support are
the subject of individual, joint or collective initiatives
by members of the country concerned. In certain cases, these
initiatives and campaigns can benefit greatly from HIC-HLRN
endorsement, adding an international-solidarity dimension.
Moreover, material support is often needed to lunch or sustain
national-focus campaigns at opportune times. MENA members
of HLRN are eligible for support for national housing and
land rights campaigns under the HLRN Global Program's "national
focus grant" program. (See www.hlrn.org.)
For further information, please also contact:
Rabie Wahbe
MENA program officer
E-mail: rwahba@hic-mena.org
or
Joseph Schechla
Coordinator
E-mail: jschechla@hlrn.org
Housing and Land Rights Network
MENA Program
7 Muhammad Shafiq Street, No. 8
Miuhandisin
Cairo, Egypt
Telefax: +20 (0)2 347-4360
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