Global governance: the Rolnik affair

12/09/2013

Much outrage has attended the report from UN official Raquel Rolnik, and her comments on the so-called "Bedroom Tax", not least in the Daily Mail, which is highlighting "Tory fury" at Rolnik, now branded as a "loopy Brazilian leftie".

Puzzlement is being expressed at Rolnik should have come to the UK to make "a political point" at a time when "there are 50million people living in shanty towns". Tory Party chairman Grant Shapps has called on UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon to launch a full investigation.

However, despite what has now become a torrent of press coverage, after an initial BBC report, we are being left largely uninformed about the status of Mrs Rolnik, other than the fact that she is UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing.

What is not being made clear is that the role of UN Special Rapporteur is well established part of the UN Commission on Human Rights and, in this case, is implementing the provisions of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

This instrument was adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 2200A (XXI) of 16 December 1966, and it was signed and ratified by the UK respectively on 16 September 1968 and 20 May 1976, the latter under the tenure of James Callaghan and his Labour Government.

Although the UK has not accepted the Optional Protocol to the Covenant, under the provisions of the existing agreement, the UK commits (via Article 11) to "recognise 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".

This same Covenant then permits the UN agencies and experts to carry out studies and submit reports concerning the implementation of the Covenant by the parties, which gives Mrs Rolnik her authority to carry out her study and make her report.

The Mail makes a big deal about Rolnik coming from "violent, slum-ridden Brazil" yet, the paper says, she "still attacks us on housing and human rights". This, of course, misses the point. As Rolnik makes clear in this video: "We are not comparing UK with Brazil … we are comparing UK to UK … we are looking for improvement … what we see is retrogression".

This is in the context of Article 11 where the government is committed to “continuous improvement of living conditions”. The UK signed and ratified the Covenant, and it is still in force. Thus the argument is that retrogression is a breach of the Covenant. Comparisons with Brazil are not relevant.

As for Mrs Rolnik she is an architect and an urban planner, with over 30 years of experience in planning and urban land management. She has considerable experience in the implementation and evaluation of housing and urban policies. Currently based in Sao Paulo, she is a professor at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of Sao Paolo and is the author of several books and articles on urban issues.

She was appointed at the 7th session of the Human Rights Council as the second United Nations Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context. She has acted as Special Rapporteur since 1 May 2008.

Like it or not, under the Covenant to which the UK fully subscribes, Mrs Rolnik has every right to carry out her investigations on housing provision in the UK, and make such reports as she thinks fit to the Commission on Human Rights and other UN bodies.

Her activity is part of that growing and increasingly powerful system of world governance, largely invisible and almost entirely unrecognised – until, that is, that we get an incident such as the one reported.