A/HRC/22/41 independent verification were important if they are to achieve market differentiation, and if those who do not comply are to be identified and prevented from operating or at least disadvantaged commercially. 38. Mr. Sanderson also stated that his own company did not recruit staff to carry out activities that their national laws prohibited them to undertake. On vetting generally, he noted that it was at times difficult to check the background of applicants from countries where national authorities did not keep complete and easily accessible criminal and military service records. 39. Finally, he noted that victims’ access to grievance mechanisms offered by PMSCs was often not easy. Good practices in this field entailed making senior managers available to aggrieved parties, advertising the contact details of companies and clearly identifying staff and vehicles as belonging to a particular company. 3. Possibility of elaborating a legally binding instrument 40. In his presentation on the option of elaborating a legally binding instrument on the regulation, monitoring and oversight of the activities of private military and security companies, James Cockayne noted that States, the PMSC industry and interested civil society actors had made extensive efforts to identify the standards to which the industry ought to be held, but had not yet succeeded in developing implementation arrangements that would make those standards enforceable at the national level. He noted his opinion that legally binding instruments could ultimately be a part of an effective regulatory framework for this industry, as experience has shown that there could not be effective enforcement of standards in this industry without the use of binding enforcement mechanisms. In his view, legally binding arrangements would be more likely to emerge through the development of a set of coordinated international regulatory positions implemented through national law or international framework conventions coordinating national arrangements, rather than by moving immediately to adopt a single international treaty, code or regulatory body. 41. Mr. Cockayne noted that developing effective regulation would first require finding common regulatory positions on specific aspects of regulation, such as licensing, export controls and remedies for human rights abuses and violations. He suggested that discussions should focus on five areas: State contracting of private military and security services; State support for PMSCs’ respect for human rights in conflict-affected areas; State licensing of private military and security services; human rights-sensitive export control arrangements; and the question of effective remedies and related grievance mechanisms. He noted that the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights adopted by the Human Rights Council, which also apply to private military and security service providers, provide a useful roadmap to guide discussions towards common regulatory positions in these areas, and could underpin a legally binding instrument or instruments. Existing regulatory initiatives specific to the PMSC industry, including the draft convention of the working group on mercenaries, the Montreux Document, the International Code of Conduct, and the working group on mercenaries’ work on international basic principles, would also provide important guidance. 42. While acknowledging that the Montreux Document and International Code of Conduct provided a very rich source of guidance on the standards to which key States and companies should be held, he noted that they failed to stipulate meaningful consequences in cases of non-compliance. In particular, the grievance arrangements currently contemplated by the draft charter on oversight for the International Code of Conduct, would not meet the effectiveness criteria for grievance mechanisms laid out in the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Moreover, none of the States involved in the International Code of Conduct process had yet committed to contract only with private military and security companies that have been certified as compliant with the Code, although at least 10