A/HRC/40/61 most have authority to address human rights in housing and are well positioned to play a critical role in this regard.82 56. National human rights institutions should monitor the progressive realization of the right to housing, hold hearings to ensure that the circumstances of marginalized groups are fully addressed and recommend appropriate remedial actions or policy responses by Governments or private actors. 83 In their engagement with the Sustainable Development Goals, they should ensure access to justice and accountability for progressive realization, including goals and timelines consistent with target 11.1 to ensure access to safe, secure and affordable housing for all by 2030. 57. National human rights institutions should provide public legal education and assistance to rights claimants to access justice for the right to housing through all available mechanisms. They may assist rights holders to bring cases to courts or tribunals by initiating claims jointly with rights holders, by participating as third parties or amicus, by providing necessary evidence on systemic issues or by supervising the implementation of remedies. The Defensoría del Pueblo in Colombia has conducted site visits in order to hear directly from communities, forwarded information about systemic violations of the right to housing to municipal or national authorities and followed up with strategic litigation on the right to housing when necessary. 84 The Scottish Human Rights Commission is playing a leading role in developing models for ensuring effective remedies for the right to housing and other socioeconomic rights.85 B. Business and human rights and the right to a remedy 58. With widespread deregulation and privatization of housing and unprecedented investment by private equity firms, pension funds and other financial actors in housing markets, ensuring access to justice to hold private actors accountable to the right to housing is more important than ever. This is an obligation of States, not something that can be left up to private actors to implement on a voluntary basis. Whatever role is accorded private actors and investors in the housing system, States cannot contract out of their obligations to provide access to justice for the right to housing. They must adopt “legislative, administrative, educational and other appropriate measures” requiring that the actions of private actors be consistent with, and do not undermine, the realization of the right to housing.86 59. States must ensure access to effective remedies not simply when private actors create “harms” or “human rights abuses” as they are traditionally understood, but also to ensure the progressive realization of the right to housing “by all appropriate means”. Access to justice must be available not only when corporations have actively deprived people of the right to housing through evictions, land grabbing or other “abuses”, but also when their actions undermine the realization of the right to housing, such as when private equity and asset management firms purchase affordable housing to replace it with luxury developments. Whether local, national or transnational, businesses involved in developing, renting, selling, managing or investing in housing, as well as those providing credit for housing, must be held accountable through access to justice for those affected by their actions. 82 83 84 85 86 16 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 10 (1998) on the role of national human rights institutions in the protection of economic, social and cultural rights; see also submissions for the present report by Azerbaijan, Colombia, France, Georgia, Germany, Guatemala, Nicaragua, the South African Human Rights Commission, the Ombudsman Institution of Turkey and Housing and Land Rights Network. See submission by the South African Human Rights Commission for the present report, p. 8. See submission by the Defensoría del Pueblo of Colombia for the present report. Katie Boyle, Models of Incorporation and Justiciability for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Edinburgh, Scottish Human Rights Commission, 2018). Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 24 (2017) on State obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the context of business activities, para. 14.