A/HRC/4/18 page 9 evictions, people are often left homeless and destitute, without means of earning a livelihood and, in practice, with no effective access to legal or other remedies. Forced evictions are often associated with physical and psychological injuries to those affected, with a particular impact on women and on persons already living in extreme poverty, children, indigenous peoples, minorities and other vulnerable groups. 22. In collaboration with the German Federal Foreign Office and the German Institute for Human Rights, the Special Rapporteur co-organized an International Workshop on Forced Evictions in Berlin in June 2005, for the purpose of elaborating guidelines aimed at assisting States and the international community in developing policies and legislation to address forced evictions. The attached Basic principles and guidelines on development-based evictions and displacement (annex I) are the result of this workshop and subsequent consultations. 23. While acknowledging existing standards on forced evictions, the Special Rapporteur believed that these could be further strengthened and put forward in more operational terms. These basic principles and guidelines offer several new prescriptions, based on experiences gathered worldwide since 1997. In particular, they: • Define the practice of forced evictions (paras. 4-8); • Lay down stringent criteria under which displacement can occur in “exceptional circumstances”, with “full justification” and procedural guarantees (para. 21); • Enumerate detailed steps to be taken by States to protect human rights prior to, during, and after evictions (paras. 37-58); • Call for comprehensive “eviction-impact assessments” to be carried out prior to displacement (paras. 32, 33); • Call for provision of compensation, restitution and adequate rehabilitation consistent with human rights standards (paras. 42, 60-63); • Provide useful guidance on other phenomena that lead to displacement such as disasters (paras. 52, 55); • Establish a “right to resettle” consistent with the right to adequate housing for displaced communities living in adverse conditions (paras. 16, 52-56); • Call on States, in pursuance of an “immediate obligation” to guarantee security of tenure to all those currently lacking titles to home and land (paras. 23, 25); • Provide a strong gender perspective, including protection and entitlements to women (paras. 7, 15, 26, 29, 33, 34, 38, 39, 47, 50, 53, 54, 57 and 58); • Call for States to take intervening measures to ensure that market forces do not increase the vulnerability of low-income and marginalized groups to forced eviction (paras. 8, 30).