MSW 547 Week 3 Right to Housing Framework Paper Example

Human Rights Framework Paper on the Right to Housing in Article 11 of the ICESCR: The Article Read Closely, What Binds Now and What Arrives as Resources Allow, a Treaty the United States Signed and Never Ratified and a Professional Claim Argued Separately

Student Name

Chamberlain University

MSW 547: Equity, Justice, and Global Perspectives

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Human Rights Framework Paper on the Right to Housing in Article 11 of the ICESCR: The Article Read Closely, What Binds Now and What Arrives as Resources Allow, a Treaty the United States Signed and Never Ratified and a Professional Claim Argued Separately

One Article

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1966, says in Article 11(1) that the States Parties "recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions" (United Nations General Assembly, 1966). The paper concerns housing, and my placement client B., 39, who faces eviction from a county apartment after a rent increase of 22 percent.

Bound Now, or Bound Later

Article 2(1) sets the pace: each State Party undertakes to take steps "to the maximum of its available resources, with a view to achieving progressively the full realization" of the rights. Housing for everyone is therefore an obligation that arrives over time. Article 2(2) is different. States "undertake to guarantee" that the rights "will be exercised without discrimination," and that duty does not wait for resources. The treaty's monitoring committee has read Article 2(1) to include immediate duties as well: to take deliberate, concrete and targeted steps, and to meet a minimum core of each right (Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1990).

Signed, Ratified or Reserved

The United States signed the ICESCR in 1977 and has never ratified it. A signature obliges a state, at most, not to defeat a treaty's object and purpose; it does not make the articles binding law. So Article 11 does not bind the United States, and B. cannot rely on it in an eviction hearing.

Where a Claim Could Be Taken

For a state that has ratified the Covenant and its Optional Protocol, an individual can bring a communication to the Committee after exhausting domestic remedies. None of that is open to B. Honestly stated, the remedy here is nothing in international law.

The Professional Claim, Argued Separately

Article 11 addresses governments, not caseworkers, and its duty does not pass to me by being nearby. My duty to B. comes from elsewhere: the Code's ethical principle that "social workers challenge social injustice" (National Association of Social Workers, 2021). What the Covenant adds is a standard for that challenge. When I testify at the county housing board in November about rent increases in public units, I can say that most of the world's states have accepted adequate housing as a right by ratifying the Covenant, and ask the board to adopt the non-discrimination and minimum-core tests as its own measures, even though no treaty requires it to.

What the Distinction Protects

Separating the government's duty from mine stops me overstating B.'s legal position and keeps my advocacy grounded in a duty I actually hold.

References

Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. (1990). General comment No. 3: The nature of States parties' obligations (art. 2, para. 1, of the Covenant) (E/1991/23). United Nations.

National Association of Social Workers. (2021). Code of ethics of the National Association of Social Workers. https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English

United Nations General Assembly. (1966). International covenant on economic, social and cultural rights (Treaty Series, Vol. 993, p. 3). United Nations.