2019 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 1(2) CHALLENGES TO ENJOYING THE RIGHT TO ADEQUATE HOUSING FOR STATELESS PERSONS AND FURTHER LEGAL PROTECTIONS FOR STATELESS INDIVIDUALS For stateless persons or those at risk of statelessness, enjoying the internationally protected right to adequate housing and each component of this right as elaborated by the CESCR (legal security of tenure; availability of services, materials, facilities and infrastructure; affordability; habitability; accessibility; location; and cultural adequacy) brings its own set of challenges. Stateless persons are often barred from renting or owning property due to outright discrimination or logistical hurdles stemming from their lack of identity documents, which can be required of tenants and potential buyers. They may then be forced to squat on land for lack of other options, where they are then subject to threats, harassment and forced evictions, in violation of the principle of security of tenure. 48 The housing that stateless persons can access is often substandard with limited access to safe drinking water, adequate sanitation or refuse disposal, in violation of the principle of availability of services. 49 Stateless persons often face excessive rents and rent increases, and they may have few alternatives or options for recourse from unscrupulous landlords, in violation of the principle of affordability. 50 Accessible housing for stateless persons is often overcrowded due to high poverty levels, and of such a poor quality that provides limited protection from the elements and exposure to additional health hazards, in violation of the principle of habitability.51 Instead of ensuring that stateless persons, as a ‘disadvantaged group’, are ‘ensured some degree of priority consideration in the housing sphere’ in law and policy, states often ignore or actively exclude them, in violation of the principle of accessibility. 52 Stateless persons are often pushed to the most marginal and remote lands in both urban and rural areas with limited access to facilities and services, in violation of the principle of location. 53 Due to the discrimination stateless persons already face, they are often unable or unwilling to express their cultural identity in housing, in violation of the principle of cultural adequacy. 54 Stateless persons face challenges enjoying each component part of the right to adequate housing, as well as broader principles of equality and non-discrimination, which underpin the human rights covenants. 55 While stateless persons face challenges enjoying the right to adequate housing in numerous countries, those obstacles vary depending on context. In locations with sizeable stateless populations facing active repression, such as Myanmar, stateless Rohingya not displaced internationally are confined to isolated communities without adequate services or freedom of movement. 56 This contravenes the principles of availability of services, habitability and location. 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 General Comment No 4, UN Doc E/1992/23 (n 9) 115–16 [8]. ibid 116 [8]. ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid. ICESCR (n 32), art 2; ICCPR (n 34) arts 2, 26. Human Rights Council, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar, UN GAOR, 40th sess, Agenda Item 4, UN Doc A/HRC/40/68 (2 May 2019) 9 [37]. 246