Can People-Centered Justice Stop Forced Evictions?

During the pandemic, many governments brought in eviction moratoriums, along with the call to “stay at home,” in an attempt to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Such actions recognized the centrality of housing as social infrastructure for individuals and households to resist and recover from shocks.

Unfortunately, the response to COVID-19, and to every other crisis since, has not put an end to forced evictions. They affect both individual tenants and collectives living under insecure tenure, who face distinctive challenges when engaging with the justice system. In this insight, we share lessons emerging from collective experiences of evictions.

Forced evictions are recognized as “a gross violation of human rights” by international law. Even when domestic legal frameworks might allow certain forms of evictions to be “lawful,” they qualify as a human rights violation if they fail to comply with international law standards. These broadly define forced eviction as “the permanent or temporary removal against their will of individuals, families and/or communities from the home and/or land which they occupy, without the provision of, and access to, appropriate forms of legal or other protection.”

Although accurate numbers are difficult to obtain, expert and civil society observatories estimate that millions of people are threatened by or suffer from forced evictions every year. They disproportionately affect some of the most marginalized groups in society, with multifaceted impacts that exacerbate cycles of poverty, vulnerability, and risk.

When people’s rights are violated, they often turn to legal pathways to resolve disputes. Housing and land disputes, including those that lead to forced evictions, are among the most common justice problems people face. They are also at the intersection between key United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) such as 16.3 (justice for all) and 11.1 (adequate, safe, and affordable housing).

Yet how different groups experience access to justice are dramatically unequal. Those holding legal rights over land and property have greater resources and power, along with access to legal support, political influence, and the authority to use violence to forcibly evict residents. As a result, these disputes expose some of the deepest tensions between prioritizing the right to private property and protecting fundamental rights, including the right to adequate housing and a dignified life.

Towards a people-centered approach

How can existing justice systems allow these violations to continue? Stopping forced evictions requires reforming justice systems to prioritize the safeguarding of housing rights.

The Justice Action Coalition, a multi-stakeholder group of 19 countries and 23 organizations, is working to promote a people-centered approach to justice systems reform, making them more accessible and responsive to people’s needs.

What does a people-centered justice approach to stopping forced evictions look like?

The four components

Each of these components, reflecting the principles promoted by the Justice Action Coalition, can be applied to anti-eviction and housing justice struggles:

• ‘People-centered’ justice means just that. It begins by recognizing and incorporating diverse forms of knowledge produced by people defending their right to housing, including more flexible methods of data collection and evidence, and by recognizing potentially affected people as the protagonists. It also means establishing protocols, training, and other mechanisms that promote cultural shifts to renounce the use of police violence while upholding human rights and international law.
• Focusing on outcomes is critical. Justice processes should aim to prevent forced evictions. This includes establishing cross-sectoral and technical mechanisms aimed at long-term solutions that guarantee the right to adequate housing. To this end, it is critical to dismantle the hierarchies that prioritize property rights over the right to adequate housing and other economic, social and cultural rights. The focus on prevention should be accompanied by reparation for previous housing rights violations. Importantly, this implies integrating the potential impacts of forced evictions into decision-making around conflict resolution.
• Justice systems should empower people and simplify processes. Efforts to advance housing and land rights must begin by addressing the uneven challenges that people face when interacting with justice institutions. This requires ensuring a fair distribution of resources, information, legal support, and tools to defend communities facing eviction threats. Such support is important throughout the entire dispute process, beginning as early as possible rather than only when eviction is imminent. Working with “popular” or community lawyers, paralegals, solidarity networks, and the public attorney is crucial. Supporting and investing in the legal empowerment capacities of grassroots groups is vital to shift the underlying power imbalances that drive housing injustices.
• People-centered justice recognizes the need to work across sectors beyond the justice system. For housing and land disputes, this means looking beyond the courts and promoting adequate, inclusive spaces for conflict resolution with diverse actors, including community leaders, using traditional mediation practices. It also encourages collaboration among legal, planning, and other governance actors to collectively challenge discrimination that constrains rights. This includes regulating private initiatives and their impacts on human rights. Across sectors, capacity-building is required so that technical, professional, and support staff understand the complexity and depth of the impacts of forced evictions.

People-centered justice works

In Brazil, Despejo Zero (“Zero Evictions”), a coalition of grassroots groups, universities, human rights lawyers, and support organizations, emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic to prevent a catastrophic wave of evictions. But the campaign became much more than that.

Beyond data collection and coordination for advocacy and legal work, its efforts led to a ruling by the Supreme Federal Court declaring it unconstitutional to evict people during a health crisis, such as COVID-19. This was followed by a mandate to establish committees at the federal and state levels to resolve housing and land conflicts, providing a space for stakeholders to negotiate and reach consensus. Despite uneven progress and results across states, the establishment of these committees demonstrates the importance of creating spaces to resolve eviction cases and advance justice for often-marginalized people.

The Brazilian experience is just one example demonstrating how justice systems can adapt to deal with the complexity of forced evictions. Other experiences, such as those in Kenya, show how planning tools can be adapted to establish special or exceptional zones to advance housing rights in marginalized areas.

In South Africa, a court ruling has led to the introduction of binding requirements to upgrade existing informal settlements to secure housing, thereby enforcing the guidelines contained in the National Housing Code.

In Nigeria, paralegal community members, working with grassroots media to provide evidence, have opened new avenues to interact with the formal justice systems in highly contested eviction processes.

These demonstrate that addressing people’s housing justice issues requires deploying different levers, involving formal and informal actors, both within and beyond justice structures. In a context where many housing issues become “judicialized,” advancing a people-centered approach to justice is vital to achieving positive outcomes for individuals and their communities. Building pathways towards SDG 16.3 can help ensure everyone’s right to an adequate home and a dignified life is fulfilled.

This insight was produced as part of the ongoing collaboration between IIED’s Housing Justice team and the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies’ Justice for All program at NYU’s Center on International Cooperation (CIC). 

A full report with insights about the connection between people-centered justice and forced evictions will be available in Fall of 2026.

Camila Cociña is a senior researcher, Paula Sevilla is a researcher, and Alexandre Apsan Frediani is a principal researcher of the housing justice team at the International Institute for Environment and Development, IIED.