Difference and Indifference: Bringing Czech Roma Ghettoes to Europe's Court

In this article, human rights lawyer Barbora Bukovska discusses the issue that the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) does not contain a right to adequate housing—as stipulated in the European Social Charter. As a result, victims do not appear to have access to the European Court of Human Rights. She argues that housing conditions are sufficiently fundamental to the dignity and well-being of the individual that certain minimum standards can be viewed rather as a "civil/political" right—protected under the ECHR—rather than an "economic/social" right, which are not.