A/HRC/40/61 C. Informal and customary justice 65. As housing issues are usually resolved outside of courts, often at the local level, it is important to ensure that informal and customary justice systems also provide access to justice for the right to housing. Such systems may include customary or religious courts, local or administrative authorities, community-based paralegals, tenants’ unions or collaborative dispute resolution procedures. Compared to formal courts, informal justice systems can be culturally and socially less threatening, more timely and more cost-effective, and they can enjoy greater social legitimacy and trust among rights claimants. They can also be more participatory, with stakeholder representation on adjudicative bodies, and can integrate rights-empowerment strategies and human rights education at the local level. They often have distinctive competencies to address local housing issues such as informal tenancies and land use. When properly guided by human rights norms, with particular attention to gender equality, informal justice systems are capable of “delivering accessible justice to individuals and communities where the formal justice system does not have the capacity or geographical reach”.92 66. In many states in the Global South, customary tenure covers the vast majority of land transactions. In such circumstances, States should integrate informal processes through which housing issues are resolved at the community level with formal justice systems that are capable of ensuring compliance with international or constitutional human rights law. This combined approach is likely to achieve better results in terms of human rights. 67. The Special Rapporteur, during her missions, has experienced first-hand the benefits of informal justice systems for the right to housing. In the Republic of Korea, for example, the municipal government of Seoul has established a committee against human rights violations to enable communities and individuals to raise human rights complaints before a diverse panel of experts that includes city officials, human rights lawyers, people with lived experience and social workers. The committee investigates and makes recommendations on human rights violations at the city level. It works in tandem with a city ombudsperson who, once a violation has been established, can make an official complaint and trigger formal proceedings.93 68. In Spain, a country with a staggering number of evictions each month due to mortgage and rental arrears, a grass-roots movement called Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH) works with tenants to delay evictions and ensure access to alternative housing. Since 2013, the organization has stopped at least 4,065 evictions; almost all of the residents have been rehoused.94 VIII. Conclusion and the way forward 69. Access to justice for the right to housing is inseparable from the right itself. All States, therefore, must have an answer to the question so often put to the Special Rapporteur: “Where can I go to claim the right to housing?” 70. States cannot hold themselves up as leaders in human rights while leaving increasing numbers of residents to live and die on their streets, with no means to hold their Governments accountable and with no access to effective remedies. The time for excuses, justifications and looking the other way when access to justice is denied for the right to housing has long passed. Rights must have remedies, and Governments must be held accountable to rights holders. 71. Rampant evictions of those living in informal settlements, disregard of court orders and the rule of law and criminalization of those who are homeless suggest one 92 93 94 18 Informal Justices Systems: Charting a Course for Human-Rights Based Engagement (New York, United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Children’s Fund and UN-Women), p. 11. Introduction to the human rights governance handbook issued by the municipality of Seoul, given to the Special Rapporteur during her visit. See https://afectadosporlahipoteca.com/asesoria-y-recursos/asesoria-colectiva/.