A/HRC/31/66 property, the rights related to assembly may require positive measures of protection even in the sphere of relations between individuals. 58 85. Business enterprises also play an increasingly prominent role in the policing of assemblies. For example, civilian private security services may perform a policing-type role while protecting private property or assets during an assembly, and private companies often play a role in surveillance (see A/HRC/23/39/Add.1, para. 33). Business entities should carry out human rights due diligence, 59 and where a potential impact on assembly and related rights is identified mitigate these risks. Civilian private security services should not perform policing-type functions in relation to assemblies. However, where this occurs, such services must respect and protect human rights 60 and should comply with the highest voluntary standards of conduct.61 86. Business entities commonly seek injunctions and other civil remedies against assembly organizers and participants on the basis, for example, of anti-harassment, trespass or defamation laws, sometimes referred to as strategic lawsuits against public participation. States have an obligation to ensure due process and to protect people from civil actions that lack merit. 87. A State can incur responsibility for violations of human rights by non-State actors if it: approves, supports or acquiesces in those acts; fails to exercise due diligence to prevent the violation; or fails to ensure proper investigation and accountability. States also have a duty to take appropriate measures to prevent, investigate and provide effective remedies for relevant misconduct by business enterprises, and to hold to account private parties that are responsible for causing or contributing to an arbitrary deprivation of life in the State’s territory or jurisdiction. 88. Practical recommendations: (a) States should protect individuals from interference with their rights in the context of assemblies by business enterprises, including by taking steps to comply with the responsibilities elucidated in the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights; (b) Where privately owned spaces are open to the general public and serve a similar function as public spaces, they should be treated as a public space for the purposes of the rights to freedom of assembly and expression; (c) States should introduce for assembly organizers and participants protections from civil lawsuits brought frivolously, or with the purpose of chilling public participation. J. The State and its organs shall be held accountable for their actions in relation to assemblies 89. The State bears an obligation to provide to those whose rights have been violated in the context of an assembly an adequate, effective and prompt remedy determined by a 58 59 60 61 20 Plattform Ärtze für das Leben v. Austria, para. 32. See principles 17-21 of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. See the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, State Regulation concerning Civilian Private Security Services and their Contribution to Crime Prevention and Community Safety (2014). See, for example, the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights (2000), available from www.voluntaryprinciples.org/.