The right to adequate housing (as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living) is enshrined in many international human rights instruments. Most notably among these are the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (art. 25.1) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (art. 11.1). During the 1990s, the right to adequate housing gained further increasing recognition among the human rights community, and many governments adopted or revised housing policies to include various dimensions of human rights. The Second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) in 1996 harnessed this momentum. The outcomes of the Conference, the Istanbul Declaration and the Habitat Agenda, constitutes a framework where human settlements development is linked with the process of realising human rights in general and housing rights in particular. Subsequently, the Commission on Human Settlements (today the Governing Council of UN-HABITAT) adopted resolution 16/7 on ‘the realization of the human right to adequate housing’ in May 1997. The resolution recommended that UN-HABITAT and OHCHR elaborate a joint programme to assist States with the implementation of their commitments to ensure the full and progressive realization of the right to adequate housing. More recently, the Commission on Human Rights in April 2001 adopted resolutions 2001/34 and 2001/28. The latter, on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, requested the two agencies to strengthen their cooperation and to consider developing a joint housing rights programme. These resolutions constitute the main mandate for the establishment of the United Nations Housing Rights Programme.
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