This Handbook intends to introduce readers to the Guidelines, which hold the potential to serve as an important tool to prevent forced evictions and to ensure due process and adequate rehabilitation and resettlement based on human rights standards in the eventuality that evictions occur. The Handbook first provides a summary of the Guidelines that includes their principle elements, and then presents the actual text of the Guidelines. Apart from intending to spread awareness on the Guidelines, this Handbook aims to encourage their use and adoption by various actors, including government officials, law and policy-makers, and the UN, with the goal of contributing to the process of human rights standard setting – at the local, national and international levels. It is hoped that these UN Guidelines will be widely disseminated, translated into as many languages as possible, used by relevant authorities, and incorporated into law and policy to ensure that human rights, in particular the rights to adequate housing, work, land, and security of the home and person are respected, protected and fulfilled