Can people-centred justice stop forced evictions?
Justice systems play a fundamental role in housing and land conflicts. A people-centred justice approach can help prevent forced evictions, uphold human rights and advance housing justice – even before courts are involved.
The evictions graffiti project is internationally recognized as a symbol of Favela do Metrô's slow and brutal eviction, which began in November 2010 to make way for what was rumored to be a car park to accompany a stadium, and left residents in the dark over what will happen to the neighborhood for a long time (Photo: Comunidades Catalisadoras (ComCat), via Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
During the pandemic, many governments brought in eviction moratoriums, along with the call to ‘stay at home’, in an attempt to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Such actions recognised the centrality of housing as social infrastructure for individuals and households to resist and recover from shocks.
Unfortunately the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and to every other crisis since, has not put an end to forced evictions. They affect both individual tenants and collectives living under insecure tenure, who face distinctive challenges when engaging with the justice system. In this insight, we share lessons emerging from collective experiences of evictions.
Forced evictions are recognised as ‘a gross violation of human rights’ by international law. Even when domestic legal frameworks might allow certain forms of evictions to be ‘lawful’, they qualify as a human rights violation if they fail to comply with international law standards. These broadly define forced eviction as ‘the permanent or temporary removal against their will of individuals, families and/or communities from the home and/or land which they occupy, without the provision of, and access to, appropriate forms of legal or other protection’.
Although accurate numbers are difficult to obtain, expert and civil society observatories estimate that millions of people are threatened by or suffer from forced evictions every year. They disproportionately affect some of the most marginalised groups in society, with multifaceted impacts that exacerbate cycles of poverty, vulnerability and risk.
When people’s rights are violated, they often turn to legal pathways to resolve disputes. Housing and land disputes, including those that lead to forced evictions, are among the most common justice problems people face. They are also at the intersection between key UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) such as 16.3 (justice for all) and 11.1 (adequate housing).
Yet the ways in which different groups experience access to justice are dramatically unequal. Those holding legal rights over land and property have greater resources and power, along with access to legal support, political influence and to authority over the use of violence to forcibly evict residents. As a result, these disputes expose some of the deepest tensions between prioritising the right to private property and the protection of fundamental rights – including to adequate housing and a dignified life.
Towards a people-centred approach
How can existing justice systems allow these violations to continue? Stopping forced evictions requires reforming justice systems to prioritise the safeguarding of housing rights.
The Justice Action Coalition, a multi-stakeholder group of 19 countries and 23 organisations, is working to promote a people-centred approach to justice systems reform to make them more accessible and responsive to people’s needs.
What does a people-centred justice approach to stopping forced evictions look like?
The four components
Each of these components (reflecting the principles promoted by the Justice Action Coalition) can be applied to anti-eviction and housing justice struggles:
- ‘People-centred’ justice means just that. It begins by recognising and incorporating diverse forms of knowledge produced by people defending their right to housing – including more flexible methods of gathering data and evidence – as well as recognising potentially-affected people as the protagonists. It also means establishing protocols, training and other mechanisms that promote cultural shifts to renounce the use of police violence while upholding human rights and international law.
- Focusing on outcomes is critical. Justice processes should have the goal of preventing forced evictions. This includes establishing cross-sectorial and technical mechanisms whose aim is long-term solutions which guarantee the right to adequate housing. To this end, it is critical to dismantle the hierarchies that prioritise property rights over the right to adequate housing and other economic, social and cultural rights. The focus on prevention should be accompanied by reparation for previous housing rights violations. Importantly, this implies integrating the potential impacts of forced evictions as considerations in decision-making around conflict resolution.
- Justice systems should empower people and simplify processes. When it comes to housing and land rights, we must start by addressing the uneven challenges that people face when interacting with justice institutions. This can be addressed by guaranteeing a fair distribution of resources, information, legal support and tools for the defence of communities facing threats of evictions. Such support is important throughout the entire dispute process, the earlier the better, and not only offered when eviction is imminent. Working with ‘popular’ or community lawyers (PDF), paralegals, solidarity networks and the public attorney is crucial. Supporting and investing in the capacities of legal empowerment of grassroots groups is vital to shift the underlying power imbalances that drive housing injustices.
- People-centred justice recognises the need to work across sectors beyond the justice system. For housing and land disputes, this means looking beyond the courts and promoting adequate and inclusive spaces for conflict resolution with diverse actors, including community leaders, using traditional mediation practices. It also encourages collaboration across legal, planning and other governance actors, to collectively challenge discrimination that constrains rights. This includes regulating private initiatives and their impacts on human rights. Across sectors, it requires capacity-building so that technical, professional and support staff understand the complexity and depth of the impacts of forced evictions.
People-centred justice works
In Brazil Despejo Zero (Zero Evictions), a coalition of grassroots groups, universities, human rights lawyers and support organisations, was born out of the COVID-19 pandemic to prevent a catastrophic wave of evictions. But the campaign became much more than that.
Beyond the collection of data, and coordination for advocacy and legal work, its efforts led to a ruling by the supreme federal court that made it unconstitutional to evict people during a health crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. This was followed by a mandate to establish committees at federal and state levels for land conflict resolution, providing a space for stakeholders to negotiate and reach consensus on housing and land conflicts.
Despite uneven progress and results across different states, the establishment of these committees demonstrates the importance of creating spaces to resolve eviction cases to advance justice for usually-marginalised people.
The Brazilian experience is just one example that demonstrates how justice systems can adapt to deal with the complexity of forced evictions. Other experiences, in Kenya for example, show how planning tools can be adapted to establish special or exceptional zones to facilitate the advancement of housing rights in marginalised areas.
In South Africa, a court ruling has led to the introduction of binding requirements for the upgrading of existing, informal settlements to secure housing – enforcing guidelines contained in the National Housing Code.
In Nigeria, paralegal community members, working with grassroots media to provide evidence, have opened new avenues to interact with the formal justice systems in highly-contested eviction processes.
These demonstrate that addressing people’s housing justice issues requires deploying different levers – involving formal and informal actors – as well as within and outside justice structures.
In a context in which many housing issues become ‘judicialised’, advancing a people-centred approach to justice is of vital importance for achieving positive outcomes for individuals and their communities. Building pathways towards SDG 16.3 (equal access to justice for all) can help ensure everyone’s right to an adequate home and a dignified life is fulfilled.
David Satterthwaite’s suggestions for further reading
Article: “This is no longer the city I once knew” Evictions, the urban poor and the right to the city in millennial, Gautam Bhan, Environment and Urbanization (April 2009)
Article: Beyond evictions in a global city: people-managed resettlement in Mumbai, Sheela Patel, Celine d’Cruz, Sundar Burra, Environment and Urbanization (April 2002)
Article: Eviction trends worldwide and the role of local authorities the right to housing, Joel Audefroy, Environment and Urbanization (April 1994)
This insight was produced as part of the ongoing collaboration between IIED’s housing justice team, and the Pathfinders Justice for All team at CIC-NYU. The content was produced by Camila Cociña, Paula Sevilla and Alexandre Apsan Frediani.
A full report with insights about the connection between people-centred justice and forced evictions will be available in September 2026.
