The fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights provides an important opportunity to reflect on the impact of dividing the unified rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into two categories. Of particular importance was the choice to separate the right to life from the right to adequate housing.
The right to life does not actually belong to one or the other category of human rights. Lived experience illustrates that the right to life cannot be separated from the right to a secure place to live, and the right to a secure place to live only has meaning in the context of a right to live in dignity and security, free of violence.
The right to adequate housing is too frequently disconnected from the right to life and core human rights values, treated more as a policy aspiration than as a fundamental right which demands timely rights-based responses and access to justice.