EVICT Talk with Dr. Hector Simon – The Potential Impact of Fundamental and Human Rights in Eviction Proceedings and the Right to Property: What are the Limits?

Watch the previous EVICT talk with Dr. Hector Simon:

The potential impact of fundamental and human rights in eviction proceedings and the right to property: what are the limits?

The trend towards the financialisation of housing since the 1980s and the global financial crisis exposed a dramatic lacuna in the legal protection of the right to housing. Yet, the right to housing features national and international human rights instruments, such as the European Convention of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. These rights are increasingly finding expression in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (drawing on the Charter, the CJEU’s interpretation of EU consumer law is moving towards a recognition of housing rights as inherent components of consumer protection) or in the communications of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (which take into consideration the legal position of both tenants and squatters), as well as in national legislation due to the Covid-19 pandemic (eg. in Spain, even squatters have benefited from protection against evictions). The issue at stake is how to strike a balance between the interests at stake: the right to property and the right to housing, ie. between the housing as an asset and housing as a human right. This also raises another question: how can property law rules be adapted to such growing influence of fundamental and human rights?

The EVICT Monthly Talk Series takes place every third Thursday of the month. For the next talk, please see https://www.eviction.eu/events/ for further information.