Professor Koldo Casla appointed UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing

The United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council announced last Tuesday, 31 March, the appointment of Dr. Koldo Andoni Casla Salazar as Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing.

Dr. Casla, born in Donostia in 1985, who also holds British nationality, will succeed Indian Balakrishnan Rajagopal as head of the housing rapporteurship.

He holds a PhD in European and International Studies from King’s College London (2017), a Fulbright Master’s in International Studies from the University of Denver (2011), a Master’s in Theory and Practice of Human Rights from the University of Essex (2009), and a Law degree from the University of the Basque Country (2008).

Between 2017 and 2019, Dr. Casla was a Research Associate at the Institute of Health & Society at Newcastle University, where he worked on legal avenues to improve the legal status of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the United Kingdom. Between 2016 and 2019, he was Policy Director at Just Fair, where he led research, strategic communications, partnerships, and campaigns on economic and social rights in the UK. Between 2011 and 2013, he was Chief of Staff to the Human Rights Commissioner of the Basque Country (“Ararteko”).

His most recent book is The Social Right to Property: Social Function and Human Rights (Edward Elgar 2026, open access here).

Dr. Casla and the Barcelona Chair of Housing Studies (CBEH) have had the opportunity to collaborate on several occasions in the past. He has published the working paper, available open access on this website, The housing crisis requires us to rethink the right to property.

He is also co-author of a recent paper, available in English and Spanish also open access on this website, Litigation on the progressive realisation of economic, social and cultural rights: under what conditions can it be strategic? This study is the result of an event organised by the University of Barcelona and the University of Essex with the support of the Socio-Legal Studies Association in September 2025, held at the Faculty of Law of the University of Barcelona (open access here).