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The current UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, MIT DUSP Professor Balakrishnan Rajagopal, will offer reflections on his work, as it draws to a close, to advance housing as a critical component of the “Right to an adequate standard of living” (Article 11) in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in 2020, Prof. Rajagopal’s efforts have shone a light on forced evictions and more just approaches to land governance and resettlement, on the worrying persistence of discrimination and spatial segregation, and increasing criminalization of homelessness, as well as the importance of developing strategies towards affordable housing and migration so that all human beings can live in security and dignity. By engaging with a diverse array of UN Member States, international agencies, local governments, civil society groups and businesses, he has also called attention to the deliberate and widespread destruction of homes or ‘domicide’ during violent conflicts (including in Gaza, Myanmar, Sudan and Ukraine) and the imperative of defending a right to adequate housing as part of a new climate-resilient and carbon-neutral approach to tackling the climate crisis.
Hosted by the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning, join us for a lunchtime Q&A session with the Special Rapporteur. Lunch will be provided!
This event is co-sponsored by the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning and the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School.