Report on the right to housing in the light of European standards and European good practices.

This Report is commissioned by the Council of Europe under the projects Enhanced social protection in Ukraine and Facilitating housing solutions for the war-affected people in Ukraine implemented within the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine Resilience, recovery, reconstruction 2023-2026. It sets out relevant information regarding the right to housing in the light of European standards and European good practices, focusing on the European Social Charter and case law of the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR), including also other relevant standards. It addresses such questions as to who should be entitled to social housing, standards for social housing, and reviews the Conclusions of the ECSR in 2023 in relation to Ukraine. The European Social Charter is a Council of Europe treaty from 1961 which is an integrated set of international standards concerning social rights and a mechanism for monitoring their implementation within the ratifying States. The Charter guarantees fundamental social and economic rights as a counterpart to the European Convention on Human Rights, which refers to civil and political rights. It guarantees a broad range of everyday human rights related to employment, housing, health, education, social protection and welfare. The Charter lays specific emphasis on the protection of vulnerable persons such as elderly people, children, people with disabilities and migrants. It requires that enjoyment of Charter rights be guaranteed without discrimination. No other legal instrument at pan-European level can provide such an extensive and complete protection of social rights as that provided by the Charter, which also serves as a point of reference in European Union law; most of the social rights in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights are based on the relevant articles of the Charter. Ukraine ratified the Revised European Social Charter on 21 12 2006, accepting 76 of the 98 paragraphs of the Charter. Ukraine has ratified Article 16 on the right of the family to social, legal and economic protection and 31.1. and 31.2 on the right to housing of the European Social Charter. The ECSR has provided detailed conclusions in respect of national reports and decisions in relation to Collective Complaints which set out the housing related standards and obligations on States in their application of the European Social Charter provisions which they have ratified.