A/HRC/16/42 All too often the human rights of disaster victims are not sufficiently taken into account. […] Often the human rights violations are not intended or planned. Sometimes they result from insufficient resources and capacities to prepare and respond to the consequences of the disasters. More often, they are the result of inappropriate policies, neglect or oversight. These violations could be avoided if both national and international actors took the relevant human rights guarantees into account from the beginning15 .” 13. IASC has further asserted that “Human rights have to be the legal underpinning of all humanitarian work pertaining to natural disasters. There is no other legal framework to guide such activities, especially in areas where there is no armed conflict”. This shift is also about longer-term sustainability. It helps the relevant actors to plan for what follows beyond the initial relief and stabilization operations16 . III. The right to adequate housing in post-disaster and postconflict situations: key issues and questions A. Complex situations, difficult challenges 14. The right to housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living is internationally recognized. “[T]he right to housing should not be interpreted in a narrow or restrictive sense which equates it with, for example, the shelter provided by merely having a roof over one's head or views shelter exclusively as a commodity. Rather it should be seen as the right to live somewhere in security, peace and dignity17 ”. In line with this interpretation, “adequacy” is measured against a list of key factors including: legal security of tenure; availability of services, materials, facilities and infrastructure; affordability; habitability; accessibility; location; and cultural adequacy 18 . Housing is therefore not simply a shelter commodity. It is much more than a physical structure for protection from the elements, and its value extends beyond what it will cost to buy, sell or rebuild. Housing has inherent social value. 15. The right to adequate housing can be severely compromised by disasters and conflicts, through damage and destruction, loss of records and the displacement of individuals, families and communities. While the numbers of people affected are often staggering, the impact of conflicts and disasters on this right should not be measured simply in terms of numbers of physical assets destroyed and people displaced. It should also and perhaps primarily be understood in terms of the extent of disruption of social relationships, networks and assets; destruction of home-centred livelihoods built up over many years; and the undermining of complex, multi-layered land tenure rights. Destruction of housing as a physical asset can be addressed through repair, rehabilitation and reconstruction. This is an urgent and difficult enough task in the aftermath of disasters and conflicts. Destruction of housing as a social asset, on the other hand, requires more multi-faceted and longer-term responses based on a deeper understanding of the tenure systems and histories of the affected settlements and, in particular, of their poorer and marginalized residents. It also requires vigilance in the course of the restoration and reconstruction to ensure that previously held tenure rights are not undermined or diminished in any way but are, instead, protected and where possible strengthened. 15 16 17 18 6 IASC, Human Rights and Natural Disasters: Operational Guidelines and Field Manual, pp. 1-2. Ibid., p. 2. General comment 4, para. 7. Ibid., para. 8.