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5CHAPTERSECURITY OF TENURE:CONDITIONS AND TRENDSSecurity of tenure isa basic attribute ofhuman security ingeneralBoth theinternational humansettlementscommunity and theglobal human rightscommunity havedevoted increasingattention to …security of tenure inrecent yearsAccess to land and security of tenure arestrategic prerequisites for the provision ofadequate shelter for all and for the developmentof sustainable human settlements… It is alsoone way of breaking the vicious circle ofpoverty. Every government must show acommitment to promoting the provision of anadequate supply of land … governments atappropriate levels … should … strive to removeall possible obstacles that may hamper equitableaccess to land and ensure that equal rights ofwomen and men related to land and propertyare protected under the law. 1Few issues are as central to the objective of adequatehousing for all as security of tenure. While approachestowards achieving this objective vary widely, it is clear thatvirtually all commentators agree that secure tenure is a vitalingredient in any policy designed to improve the lives ofthose living in informal settlements throughout the world.Furthermore, security of tenure is a basic attribute of humansecurity in general: a full, dignified life, wherein all humanrights can be enjoyed in their entirety. Those on the political‘Left’ and those on the political ‘Right’ may have very differentviews on how, and on the basis of which policies,security of tenure can best be enjoyed by increasingly largenumbers of people. Yet, very few disagree about the centralimportance of tenure security to the broader question ofhousing, slum improvement and, increasingly, the protectionand promotion of human rights. Indeed, the United Nationshas long and consistently expressed its concerns in thisregard, repeatedly urging that special attention should bepaid to improving the access of the poor to land and housingwith secure tenure. 2And, yet, despite this widespread agreement, securityof tenure remains extremely fragile for hundreds of millionsof the urban and rural poor. Furthermore, the security oftenure of millions of poor people throughout the world isdeteriorating as land values within cities continue to rise, asaffordable land becomes increasingly scarce, and as housingsolutions are increasingly left to market forces. A number ofadditional factors contribute to these deteriorating conditions,including the rapid and continuing growth of informalsettlements and slums; structural discrimination againstwomen, indigenous peoples and others; and displacementcaused by conflict and disaster. If these global de facto realitiesare contrasted against the clear normative frameworkelaborating rights to secure tenure, the world faces nothingless than a severe security of tenure crisis. With more than200,000 slums existing today globally, 3 mostly located acrossthe cities of developing countries, and with nearly 80 percent of urban dwellers in the least-developed countries livingas residents of such slums, then questions of tenure securityare daily concerns affecting well over one fifth of humanity. 4While security of tenure is often perceived primarilyas a housing or human settlements issue, interestingly, boththe international human settlements community and theglobal human rights community have devoted increasingattention to the question of security of tenure in recentyears. It is true that many housing and urban researchers, aswell as local and national government officials, do notinitially view tenure concerns necessarily as an issue ofhuman rights. Yet, the human rights movement – judges,United Nations bodies, lawyers, non-governmental organizations(NGOs), community-based organizations (CBOs) andothers – have increasingly embraced and considered tenuresecurity. This, coupled with the growing treatment ofsecurity of tenure as a self-standing right by a range of internationaland national legal and other standards, has led to aunique convergence of effort and approach by the globalhousing community, on the one hand, and the human rightscommunity, on the other. Although the formal links betweensecurity of tenure and human rights comprise a reasonablyrecent policy development, the link between human rightsand tenure issues stretches back to the first United NationsConference on Human Settlements (Habitat) in Vancouver(Canada) in 1976. 5Thus, it appears that the difficulties faced by manywithin the human rights field to fully appreciate the humanrights dimensions of poverty, slum life and displacement – aswell as the sometimes naive and biased views on the appropriaterole of law in human settlements – seem increasinglyto be issues of the past. This emerging convergence betweenfields traditionally separated by artificial distinctions hasgenerated a series of truly historical developments in recentyears which, if continued and expanded, could arguably