A/HRC/28/62 62. In November 2012, the Province of Buenos Aires adopted a law on fair access to habitat (Ley de acceso justo al habitat) which guarantees the right to housing and to a dignified and sustainable habitat, along the lines of the provincial and national constitutions and several international human rights treaties. The law establishes a link between the public policy on housing and the way in which different public and private stakeholders are involved, including real estate companies. It requires steps to be taken to address the lack of adequate housing for people living in poverty or with special needs, and creates mechanisms to regulate speculation around land prices. It articulates both the right to adequate housing and the “right to the city” as core principles alongside the social function of land and property, democratic decision-making in the city and the importance of equitable distribution of benefits and costs of city growth, including in relation to infrastructure. 63. Madison County in Wisconsin, United States of America, adopted a city resolution in 2011 recognizing housing as a human right. The resolution requires Madison to promote fair housing and refers to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and to the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, to which the United States is party. The city is therefore required to eliminate policies with a racially discriminatory impact. The resolution calls for an assessment of affordable and accessible housing needs and an adequately funded, responsive housing strategy. Those types of initiatives are particularly important in a country that has not ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and raise the possibility of subnational governments affirming direct accountability to international human rights norms even where the State has not ratified them. 64. Human rights city initiatives are complementary to, but distinguishable from, the “right to the city” as laid down in the 2005 World Charter on the Right to the City. Rather than being based on existing international human rights law, that movement was born of the idea that the freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights. The Right to the City project is therefore more extensive than human rights city initiatives and includes values such as the social production of housing/habitat and the rights to “sustainable and equitable urban development”, the right to transport and public mobility, and the right to the environment. At the same time, the World Charter on the Right to the City includes an explicit provision on the right to adequate housing which is generally in keeping with the right as articulated in international human rights law. 60 65. Brazil was a pioneer in establishing a City Statute, Law 10.257 of 10 July 2001, creating the basis to tackle urban inequalities, and introducing the concept of the social function of the city and property. According to the Statute, the municipalities have broad capacities to set the basis for an urban order that addresses social exclusion and spatial segregation, focusing on housing but also on a wider range of social and environmental issues faced by cities. While its implementation has not always appeared to live up to the expectations originally created, the Statute has shown the importance of shifting the paradigm around urban reform towards a people-centred perspective, with local governments having a central role, and combining social mobilization, legal reform and institutional change. 60 18 See www.urbanreinventors.net/3/wsf.pdf.