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On the one hand, the context for the results of these studies is the recent conclusion of the second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements, Habitat II, which confirmed the commitment of the participating governments to guarantee the right to housing as a human right and more specifically to provide "effective protection from forced evictions that are contrary to the law, taking human rights into consideration" (United Nations 1996). It is indispensable to also point out the adoption by the United Nations Human Rights Commission of the extremely relevant resolution 1993/77, which defines forced evictions as a "gross violation of human rights." 

On the other hand, these significant achievements at the international level do not automatically translate into adequate national legal systems and government practices. On the contrary, in many cases a long and difficult process of struggle and social mobilization is required at both the national and international levels to institutionalize the positive rights and guarantees called for by such international agreements. To this end, HIC has for the past several years undertaken an intense program of analysis and denouncement of a large number of forced evictions. Also, HIC has on various occasions intervened before national governments, and in virtually all the relevant international forums, HIC has promoted the explicit recognition of the right to housing as a basic human right and the qualification of forced evictions as a flagrant violation of this right. 

Unfortunately, forced evictions still occur in many countries, precisely because the required rights and guarantees are in many cases not yet adequately reflected in the law and otherwise institutionalized at the national level. These evictions occur within very diverse contexts, at varying scales, and for multiple explicit and hidden motives. They are insufficiently understood in terms of their causes, types, conditions, and social effects. Also, the most effective forms of social action are relatively little known or understood, both to prevent or stop evictions and to struggle to institutionalize norms and procedures to progressively and definitively eliminate evictions, as part of the recognition and assertion of the right to housing. 

It was for all these reasons that HIC, with the invaluable support of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), promoted the formation of the International Evictions Research Network, established in February 1990, at a seminar held in Tepoztlan, Mexico. In 1991, as a result of that seminar, the network solicited and received from IDRC financial support to carry out the research presented in this book. First drafts of the case studies were discussed at a seminar in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in September 1992; the final drafts of the studies were completed in 1993. In late 1994, the studies were compiled and edited and the final general conclusions were elaborated. 

Although we cannot pretend that these studies are entirely representative of the world situation with respect to evictions, they do present a sufficiently diverse spectrum of national and local situations to provide enormously rich comparative material. The first of the five case study covers the processes of expulsion of poor residents from the Canadian cities of Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto in conjunction with the celebration of hallmark events. The second investigates the eviction of poor inhabitants from the downtown area of Santiago de Chile during the period of 1981–90, within the context of the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. The third describes evictions in the city of Santo Domingo that took place within the framework of a policy of urban "beautification" undertaken by the authoritarian regime of President Balaguer to prepare for ceremonies to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the arrival of Columbus in America. The fourth study focuses on the region of Witwaterstrand in South Africa in the years of apartheid and encompasses four experiences. The last study focuses on the evictions resulting from the "urban-renovation" policies in Seoul, South Korea, with observations of a case that acquired at the time a paradigmatic significance (the settlement of Sang Kye Dong). 

The results of the studies may help researchers to systematically explore the ways in which the context and the whole of the factors related to the housing status of the affected populations interact when evictions occur. The concluding chapter describes how the characteristics of diverse political regimes and people's diverse levels of respect for the legal state combine with inadequate access to housing and the unstable housing status of population groups to set the stage for evictions. Although the cases studied in this volume are very diverse in the levels of violence, motives, and scope and relevance within the national contexts, they all demonstrate that the way eviction scenarios develop and unfold is closely related to the evolution of the affected populations' forms of resistance and organization. 

The five research teams followed the same analytical scheme in the development of their studies, which allowed us to carry out a comparative analysis and derive solid overall conclusions. In the end, the conclusions support the principles that motivate HIC to support the struggle of social organizations in their countries in defence of the right to housing and of all basic human rights. 

As readers will be able to appreciate, the material included in this book provides a number of elements of enormous analytical value in relation to evictions. Even more useful than the lessons it gives will be the important reference source this work provides on issues in the struggle to institutionalize and effectively vindicate the right to housing and hence to progressively eliminate evictions. 

It is worth noting that very favourable advances have occurred in several of the cases in the years since these studies were carried out. In the Dominican Republic, some of the most notorious eviction decrees were canceled, and the new national government began calling on the social movement and its partner nongovernmental organizations, the Committee for the Defence of Barrio Rights (Comité para la Defensa de los Derechos Barriales) and the Alternative City Project (Ciudad Alternativa), to participate in dialogue to draft new housing policies with emphasis on neighbourhood improvement. In South Africa, the new political context has opened fresh hopes for community participation in the resolution of that country's severe housing problems. 

Habitat International Coalition 
September 1996 

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