Precarious shelter, precarious rights
The EVICT-team is delighted to welcome special guest: visiting researcher Associate Professor Alexandra Flynn, from the Peter A. Allard School of Law at UBC, of the The University of British Columbia at the University of Groningen. Professor Flynn joing the Groningen Department of Legal Methods all the way from Vancouver, Canada, to deliver a seminar on people in precarious housing situations, organised by the EVICT-project.
More information on Professor Flynn’s presentation:
“Canada’s housing crisis continues to deepen, exacerbated by constitutional fragmentation and intergovernmental reluctance to implement human rights-based housing policy. While the federal National Housing Strategy Act recognizes housing as a human right, its application is limited and its legal force is limited to the federal level, leaving provinces and municipalities unbound. This article argues that contract law—particularly conditional funding agreements between the federal government and subnational actors—can serve as a pragmatic and legally coherent mechanism to bind municipalities to housing obligations, including the recognition of housing as a human right. Drawing on the Canada Health Act as a functional precedent and supported by constitutional jurisprudence, this paper demonstrates how the federal government can use contracts as justice-oriented tools to implement the right to housing. Contracts, though not a constitutional panacea, offer a legal and institutional bridge between aspirational rights and material obligations in a complex federal system.”
Other speakers will then take the floor to present us with more interesting perspectives on the right to housing and evictions in various contexts. During this seminar, Professor Michelle Bruijn and assistant professor Stefan van Tongeren will serve as discussant to enrich the conversation.
We kindly invite you to come to this seminar, and your attendance is greatly appreciated.
About the speakers
- Professor Alexandra Flynn (University of British Columbia) – giving an insightful presentation on the right to housing in Canada.
- Dr. Michel Vols (University of Groningen) – discussing a generational approach to the right to housing.
- Matej Sedlár (University of Groningen) – presenting on vulnerability and the right to housing in light of Article 8 ECHR.
- Els Schipaanboord (University of Groningen) – contributing a paper on crime-related evictions and state obligations under the ICESCR framework.
Programme
14:00 Opening by Els Schipaanboord
14:10 ‘Binding Rights: Contractual Federalism and the Right to Housing in Canada’, presentation by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alexandra Flynn
14:40 ‘A Generational Approach to the Right(s) to Housing’, presentation by Prof. Dr. Michel Vols
15:00 Discussant Prof. Dr. Michelle Bruijn and Q&A, followed by a short break
15:25 ‘Crim-evictions, Homelessness and State Obligations under the ICESCR: From Moral Hazard to Structural Harm?’, presentation by Els Schipaanboord
15:40 ‘Vulnerability and the Right to Housing. Reconceptualising the Vulnerability Reasoning of the ECtHR under Article 8 ECHR’, presentation by Matej Sedlar
15:55 Discussant Dr. Stefan van Tongeren and Q&A
16:15 Concluding remarks
About the EVICT talks
In each EVICT Talk, we will have a speaker on a topic related to evictions, the right to housing, housing law, the (complex) relation between international law and national law, and/or data science. Each talk, we will have a different international speaker (ranging from scholars to practitioners) who will offer fascinating insights into their expertise.
The event is held on-site in Groningen. Online attendance will not be possible.
More events
Find out about upcoming events about eviction law.
