A/HRC/22/46 D. The study on security of tenure 17. The Special Rapporteur has decided to dedicate much of her attention until the end of her mandate to the issue of security of tenure. The present report reflects the areas of research she commissioned in 2012 (some of which can be found in two research papers available from www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Housing/Pages/StudyOnSecurityOfTenure.aspx). In section I, the Special Rapporteur described the broad context bearing upon tenure security and the crucial importance of the issue. In section II she maps the tenure systems and arrangements existing worldwide, as well as key policies and practices pertaining to tenure security. In section III, the Special Rapporteur assesses existing guidance under international human rights law as well as in national and regional legal frameworks and related case law and other global governance frameworks. In section IV, she highlights some of the key challenges that pertain to securing tenure, flagging areas for further research rather than offering definite answers to what are extremely complex issues. 18. The present report is also based on three consultations convened by the Special Rapporteur in 2012. In September, in Naples, the Special Rapporteur convened a consultation with 26 participants from housing, urban planning and human rights organizations. In October 2012, in Geneva, she convened an expert group meeting with another 26 participants, including experts in the areas of land management, urban planning and human rights law and litigation, and representatives of humanitarian action and community-based organizations. Also that month, the Special Rapporteur convened a public consultation in Geneva. The Special Rapporteur would like to thank the participants in the above consultations,14 and other contributors, for the high quality of their inputs. The final text of the report remains the Special Rapporteur‘s sole responsibility. 19. Resources permitting, the Special Rapporteur intends to continue to explore some of the issues that emerged in her first year of research. She aims to submit a final report on security of tenure to the Human Rights Council in 2014. II. Mapping and framing tenure A. Definitions 20. Any discussion of land and housing tenure needs to recognize the importance of cultural, historical and political contexts, and the specific legal systems in place. The particular combination of these specificities results in subtle differences in the way key terms and relationships are defined. 21. ―Tenure‖ comes from the French verb tenir, meaning ―to hold‖. A definition that is commonly cited considers land tenure ―the relationship, whether legally or customarily defined, among people, as individuals or groups, with respect to land‖.15 This definition does not however reflect the realities of informal tenure systems, common in urban areas. The reasons may be that policy development on land tenure has its roots in rural contexts. 22. For the purpose of the present report, and to account for types of tenure in urban contexts, tenure is understood as the set of relationships with respect to housing and land, established through statutory law or customary, informal or hybrid arrangements. 14 15 6 The lists of participants for the consultations and the expert group meeting are available from www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Housing/Pages/StudyOnSecurityOfTenure.aspx. See, for example, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), ―Land tenure and rural development‖, Land Tenure Series 3 (2002), para. 3.1.