Adequate Housing as a Component of the Right to an Adequate Standard of Living proposed by Germany and Finland (2nd draft).

Informal Consultations
28th November 2007

This Resolution is part of Item 3 of the 6th Human Rights Council: Promotion and Protection of all Human Rights, Civil, Political, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Including the Right to Development.

This was the second consultation since the draft resolution was proposed. Germany and Finland didn’t really present the draft resolution. They just commented on the several changes from draft 1 to draft 2 which were done at the request of the delegation at the first informal meeting in September. These changes are in bold on the text.

Comments made on the paragraphs:
PP5:
- Philippines strongly ask a reference to the Convention of Migrant Workers and on the Conventions of Disabled persons.
- Argentina, Brazil and Mexico totally agrees with this proposition and the latter adds that the word “Recalling” is not strong enough.
PP11:
- UK thinks that the sentence is too long and proposes to separate it in 2 parts, the bold and the un-bold part of the sentence. For the new second sentence he adds the following amendment at the beginning “And noting that it views are expressed” in general …in that way it will be clear that these are the views of the Council.
- Philippines, Algeria, Argentina, Mexico… support UK on this change.
OP3:
- India thinks it’s not appropriate to introduce “challenges caused by climate change and pollution” in this mandate. There are a lot of theories on this issue but we should let them to the specialist of climate. The concerns of the SR should be the consequences of the climate change, not the climate change itself.
- Mexico reminds that natural disaster have a link with housing.
- Belgium expresses his will to keep the reference on climate change, stating that it’s important.
OP4
op4a
- India is not comfortable with urging the states to give indicators.
- UK delegate informs that he doesn’t think that his capital would agree to be urged to develop indicators.
- Mexico on the contrary wants to keep this reference to the indicators.
op4g
- UK asks what is meant by “equal access to public housing programmes”? It is physical access to people with disabilities?
op4h
- Bangladesh thinks the issue of women is too often expressed in the text; it’s not a resolution on women. On these paragraph he asks why “especially those who faced violence”?
- Cuba proposes to change the mention of the word “women” by “all persons”. This amendment is agreed by all delegations.

OP5
op5a
- Mexico proposes to add at the end of the sentence: “in accordance with existing provision”
op5d
- Belgium proposes to qualify the assistance to make it more realistic.
op5f
- India asks why the Special Rapporteur should submit a report to the GA?
op5g
- India: the SR will already give a considerable contribution so he shouldn’t be the one to finalise the work.
- UK asks whether their will be consultations?
- Bangladesh proposes to change “finalise the” by “continue to”, that would be more neutral.

Answers by Germany and Finland
- PP5: answering to Mexico, the German’s delegate explained that his country has neither signed nor ratified both Conventions. The position of Germany is that they estimate that the Convention of Migrant Workers would attract illegal immigration. Thus, for the credibility, they are opposed to insert this Convention, but not opposed to the notion itself.
- OP3: Germany and Finland explained that they anticipated. They are sure that in the future the climate change will have more consequences.
- OP4a: they are aware that countries can not provide indicators if those have not been finalised yet.
- OP4g: Finland reminded that the “equal access to public housing programmes” was proposal from Mexico.
- OP4h: answering to Bangladesh, the chairs say that women are the one who faces bigger problem on housing rights and that the aim is to ensure these women a house if they are thrown away by males.
- OP5f: they estimated that the SR should submit a report to the GA because of the cruciality of the mandate.
- OP5g: the chairs reminded that this is already the case of the 2004 mandate and that Bangladesh proposal was interesting and that it would be considered for the next coming draft.


Ismaila Pedro FAYE