Abstract
Eviction trends worldwide and the role of locl authorities in implementing the right to housing is based on the findings of a programe to monitor forced evictions undertaken by the Habitat International Coalitin. It outlines how the right to housing is increasingly explicit in international law and in some countres' constitutions and how few govrern ments act on it. It reviews the 40 cases of eviction one oftrhe most blatant and critical vi-lations of the right to housing which the Coalition documented between 1987 and 1993, and discusses the similarities and differences of these cases and the actors involved.