Call for Chapters: The Right to Housing — Between Utopia and Justiciable Entitlement (Edited Volume)

This edited volume, led by Prof. Anna Młynarska-Sobaczewska of the Institute of Law Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences (ILS PAS), explores the evolving concept of the right to housing across different legal systems, policy frameworks and socio-economic contexts.

The right to housing is widely recognised in international human rights discourse, including frameworks developed by the United Nations, yet its legal status, enforceability and practical realisation remain deeply contested. The project critically examines whether the right to housing constitutes a genuine, enforceable legal entitlement, or a normative aspiration shaped by political, economic and institutional constraints.

The volume seeks systematic, comparative work connecting constitutional frameworks with actual housing policies and their socio-economic outcomes. Indicative themes include:

• Overviews of housing conditions and models of affordable housing
• Factors limiting housing accessibility — privatisation, deterioration of housing stock, shortages, gentrification and the treatment of housing as an investment asset
• Typologies of housing policy (market-based, socialist, and mixed/corporate/Asian systems)
• Central versus local implementation and the interaction of national frameworks with local practice
• Housing policy instruments over the past 20–30 years and their intended and unintended effects
• Emerging threats and ideas: financialisation, climate change and displacement, migration and urban pressure, demographic change

Contributions are welcomed from scholars across legal and cognate disciplines. The editors are open to a varied range of methodologies — socio-legal, comparative law, theoretical and jurisprudential — as well as empirical and policy-oriented studies drawing on law, sociology, urban studies and economics. Multiple chapters on the same jurisdiction (if sufficiently distinct) and multi-country or multi-authored chapters exploring cross-cutting issues are welcome.

Abstracts should be 300–500 words and include the research question, methodology and expected contribution. Accepted chapters should be up to 8,000 words, written in English, using the OSCOLA referencing style with citations in footnotes.

Abstracts and inquiries should be sent to a.mlynarska-sobaczewska@inp.pan.pl.