UN report: housing is a human right News
UN report: housing is a human right

A UN expert on Wednesday issued a report [UN report] criticizing the “hyper-financialized” housing market. Leilani Farha, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing, addressed the issue to the Human Rights Council in Geneva. She said, “[h]ousing has lost its social function and is seen instead as a vehicle for wealth and asset growth. It has become a financial commodity, robbed of its connection to community, dignity and the idea of home.” The report details how housing has come to represent almost half of all global assets and is currently more than twice the global GDP. It also points to the widespread deregulation of markets as a major factor in the current housing crisis. She went on the say that States should look at housing as a human right as opposed to a commodity:

Under the Sustainable Development Goals, States are required to ensure adequate housing for all by 2030. If they are serious about that commitment they will have to implement rights-based housing strategies and ensure integration of human rights standards and principles within housing markets and financial institutions.

Homelessness continues to be an issue that faced by many domestic and international cities. Last March a lawsuit [complaint, PDF] was filed against the city of Los Angeles for endangering the homeless [JURIST report]. Also last March the UN reported that homelessness will spread [JURIST report] globally due to general government inaction. In August 2015 the US government challenged [JURIST report] an Idaho ordinance that criminalized sleeping in public. The Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] released a condemnation [press release] of the law, claiming it acted as a criminalization of homeless status in violation of these citizens’ Eighth Amendment rights. JURIST guest columnist Azariah Jelks of Valparaiso University Law argued [JURIST op-ed] in December 2015 that affordable housing must become a reality, due to the mass increase in housing cost, forcing many people out into the street.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Pope Urban II sparks First Crusade

Pope Urban II threw his support behind what would become the First Crusade on November 27, 1095 during the Council of Clairmont. The Pope urged the council's participants to render aid to the Byzantine Empire, which was being attacked by the Seljuks. Pope Urban called for a wide coalition of rich and poor to combat the threat, which eventually resulted in the conquest of much of the Muslim-controlled Levant by the Crusaders and the establishment of the Crusader States. Read Pope Urban's address.  

Catholic Code of Canon Law revised

On November 27, 1983, the revised Code of Canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church went into effect. Learn more about the history of Canon Law from Professor Kenneth Pennington of the Catholic University of America's Columbus School of Law.

Alfred Nobel creates Nobel Prize in his will

On November 27, 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his will, creating the Nobel Prize. Learn more about the history of the Nobel Prize and the Nobel Commission.