Walter Young 
Center on Housing Rights and Evictions
Established in 1994, this human rights organization works to protect housing rights and prevent forced evictions worldwide. The Center is guided by international legal instruments, while understanding that “housing” is more than a roof over one’s head. The Center emphasizes that “about half of the world’s population lacks decent housing, even though this right is guaranteed in international human rights instruments.” In its work to defend the rights to decent housing, the Center and its partners around the world are engaged in analysis, advocacy, education, and training to work in court on issues such as:
- forced evictions
- Property protection
- Access to land
- Water and sanitation
- Women and housing rights
- judicial and legal protection
- Restitution and repossession
- the impact of catastrophic events on housing rights.
In November 2010, in one of its recent landmark decisions, set out in Center for Housing Rights and Evictions v. Italy, the Council of Europe’s Committee on Social Rights (which oversees the revised European Social Charter) found that Italy had violated the rights of its Roma ethnic population by destroying their camps and expelling them from the country. The mass expulsions of members of the Roma ethnic group, who were citizens of other EU States but not of Italy, had increased significantly since 2008. The following violations have been identified: discrimination and violation of the rights of Roma to decent housing, to social, legal and economic protection, protection from poverty and social exile, and violation of the right of nomadic Roma families to protection and assistance. Italy has also been criticized for implementing policies that segregate Roma Roma and subject them to extremely poor housing conditions.
Caring for the environment in Switzerland
Between 1961 and 1976, several large chemical plants dumped more than 114,000 tons of toxic chemical waste into a former clay pit at Bonfohl, near Basel, Switzerland. Today it would be illegal to dump the waste, but in 1961, when the quarry began filling, no such dumps were prohibited by law. The toxic waste remained there, continuing to poison the area and the environment with a mixture of organic and inorganic pollutants. On May 14, 2000, about 100 Greenpeace activists occupied the Bonfole chemical dump site and demanded that the chemical companies that dumped toxic waste there take full responsibility for cleaning it up. The activists said they will remain at the dump site until the chemical companies commit to cleaning it up so that it is no longer a danger to human health or the environment.
The seizure of the landfill site forced the chemical companies to meet with local community representatives and Greenpeace, and as a result, they finally signed an agreement requiring that a feasibility study for the cleanup be completed by February 2001, and that cleanup work begin that year. The companies also agreed to the participation of local communities and environmental organizations in the cleanup process and committed to inform local authorities about the extent of groundwater and drinking water contamination resulting from the waste discharge. On July 7, 2001. “Greenpeace” ceased its action at the landfill site.
