Does the international right to housing prevent people from being evicted?

The EVICT project wants to understand if it does, and how.

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Explore the pillars of our research:

Evictions & the right to housing
International law
Using data science in law

In Europe, 700,000 people had to leave their home involuntarily, with devastating effects on wellbeing and society.

EVICTIONS

Having a place to call home is a fundamental human right, but every year hundred thousands of people are evicted from their home. They lose their home involuntary. The EVICT project analyses all kinds of eviction cases, and aims to see whether the international right to housing helps people that face an eviction.

Learn more about evictions

Housing is an international human right, but states often don’t comply.

International law

National governments and courts need to comply with international human rights law, such as the right to housing. Yet, we know that they often do not comply with international law. The right to housing, as laid down in international and European law, often demands more protection of the power- and propertyless than national laws prescribe.

The EVICT project explores the complex relationship between international and national law to study to what extent the international human right to housing has an impact in an eviction case.

Learn more about international law

Recent crises led to an enormous number of national case law. Thousands of court judgements will be analysed using data science.

Data science

It would be impossible to manually analyse the thousands of court judgements on eviction. Therefore, the EVICT project adopts a unique data-driven approach.

We combine traditional legal methods with data science techniques, such as network analysis and machine learning to conceptualise the right to housing and to find and explain predictors for court decisions.

Learn more about our data-driven approach

EVICT is an ERC Starting Grant project, led by Prof. dr. Michel Vols

The EVICT research team

EVICT is a collaboration between legal scholars and computational linguists.

Meet the entire team

Prof. dr. Michel Vols

Principal investigator, Professor of Public Order Law

Prof. dr. Martijn Wieling

Associate Professor Information Science

Dr. Michelle Bruijn

Assistant Professor

Prof. dr. Björn Hoops

Associate Professor

Dr. Berend Roorda

Associate Professor

Blog

We regularly write about international and national eviction law and our data science analyses.

EVICT Seminar with Dr. Rachael Walsh, Prof. Dr. Michel Vols and Dr. Sarah Fick: Property and Proportionality in Housing Law and Eviction LitigationWritten by

Presentation by Iris Schepers: Predicting Citations in Dutch Case Law with Natural Language ProcessingWritten by

EVICT Talk with Prof. Dr. Ingrid Leijten: Financialization in the Housing Sector: Potential and Pitfalls of a Human Rights Based ApproachWritten by

The Individual and State Interest Opposed in Azerbaijan’s Illegal Construction Crisis – Proportionality as the Starting Point of Humane JusticeWritten by Maria Niemelä

Upcoming events

Find out about upcoming events about the EVICT project

19 May, 2022

Online / speakers on-site
EVICT symposia & workshops

EVICT seminar on the relationship between right to housing and the right to health

1 June, 2022

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Conferences

Seminar on ‘Housing and social control – a legal evaluation’