The purpose of this Alternative Report is to provide information to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) on the Armenian government’s implementation of its obligations under Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (hereinafter – “the Covenant”). Article 11 sets out the right to an adequate standard of living. This report will focus on the right to adequate housing conditions. The Report reviews the legal framework regarding the right to adequate housing as well as challenges to providing housing to persons left homeless after the 1988 earthquake, in particular those in the city of Gyumri in Shirak region.
Armenia ratified the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 1993. In 2009 it signed the Optional Protocol to the Covenant that would ensure the possibility of applying to the CESCR from Armenia with individual communications, but it has not been ratified.
All the analysis and observations contained in the Report pertain to legislative and practical developments that took place after the last CESCR monitoring in 2014. Hence, the time period covered by this Report is 2014-2019.
