A/HRC/29/41 the prohibition of forced eviction into the implied right to adequate housing set out in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. In exercise of its mandate under article 45 (3) to interpret the provisions of the Charter, the Commission has read the right to shelter and housing into the Charter. The Commission held, in paragraph 60 of the communication, that: Although the right to housing or shelter is not explicitly provided for under the African Charter, the corollary of the combination of the provision protecting the right to enjoy the best attainable state of mental and physical health, cited under Article 16 above, the right to property, and the protection accorded to the family forbids the wanton destruction of shelter because when housing is destroyed, property, health and family life are adversely affected. It is thus noted that the combined effect of Articles 14, 16 and 18 (1) reads into the [African] Charter a right to shelter or housing which the Nigerian Government has apparently violated. 2. National legislation 38. In the Eritrean context, the right to adequate housing, as provided for in article 11 (1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, is better understood against the backdrop of the country’s post-independence land law: the Land Proclamation19 and Legal Notice 31/1997. In accordance with the Proclamation, land is the exclusive property of the State; the sale, transfer and mortgaging of land is prohibited. While an individual citizen has only usufruct rights over land, these land reform legislations allowed the Government to allocate land through leaseholds. Thus, every Eritrean citizen was given the right to be allocated a plot of land for housing in urban areas and ancestral villages, once the necessary criteria were met, including national service duties. 39. The Proclamation stipulates that the Government or appropriate body shall have the right and power to expropriate land from usufructuaries for the purposes of various development and capital investment projects aimed at national reconstruction or other similar purposes. The expropriation is subject to the approval of the Office of the President or a body delegated by the President and cannot be appealed in court. However, without a clear definition of the purposes, recognition of applicable human rights standards, reference to prior notification, legal recourse for disputing land expropriation, recognition of the need to find alternatives, especially in situations where people are rendered homeless or vulnerable, and a process of transparency and participation,20 among other things, the practice of land expropriation has been rampant and arbitrary in Eritrea. 40. An unforeseen side effect of the above legislation was that it created obstacles in the housing industry, with far-reaching consequences for the enjoyment of the right to housing. One of the challenges was that the land delivery system was unable to respond speedily to the need for housing land and the demand for housing by far exceeded supply. 21 Thus, there was a strain on the system, which according to reports, were interpreted as the Government reneging on its promise to allocate land to every citizen. In situations where distribution of land did take place, many thought that it happened through an opaque process, replete with 19 20 21 Proclamation No. 58/1994. See Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (Rome, 2012). Available from www.fao.org/docrep/016/i2801e/i2801e.pdf. Eritrea, Ministry of Public Works/Department of Urban Development, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), “Eritrea: housing/urban development policy report”, July 2005. 11