A/HRC/8/16 page 8 D. Summing up 23. Due diligence comprises reasonable steps by companies to become aware of, prevent, and address adverse impacts of their activities and relationships. These steps may vary depending on factors such as country context, the nature of the activity and industry, and the magnitude of the investment or exchange. 24. Similarly, what companies should do in terms of monitoring and mitigation may also vary along these dimensions. For example, the steps a company takes to address and monitor human rights impacts of its own operations may differ from those regarding its business relationships or relationships with other social actors. Moreover, the required actions regarding the human rights impact of a subsidiary may differ from those taken in response to potential or actual impacts of suppliers several layers removed. 25. In sum, the scope of due diligence to meet the corporate responsibility to respect human rights is not a fixed sphere, nor is it based on influence. Rather, it depends on the potential and actual human rights impacts resulting from a company’s business activities and the relationships connected to those activities. III. THE IMPLICATIONS OF COMPLICITY 26. The corporate responsibility to respect human rights includes avoiding complicity. Over the last three years, the Special Representative has convened, in 2006, a multidisciplinary seminar specifically on complicity, and the concept has been discussed in many of his other multi-stakeholder consultations, including the most recent consultation, in December 2007, on the nature of the corporate responsibility to respect.11 The Special Representative’s reflections have also drawn upon the work of two non-governmental organizations with extensive experience in this area.12 27. The concept of corporate complicity in human rights abuses has attracted the attention of Governments, companies, lawyers, philosophers, advocates, and victims of human rights abuse. They may have differing understandings of what the term means in practice. Some observers emphasize the legal pedigree of “complicity” and refer to the developments in international criminal law as the guiding light for defining complicity in the business and human rights context. Others emphasize condemnation of corporate indirect involvement in human rights abuses based on social expectations, irrespective of actual legal liability. 28. This section describes the most relevant considerations underpinning complicity, from both legal and non-legal points of view. As international criminal law is a useful starting place, this 11 12 See A/HRC/8/5/Add.1. See the Fafo Institute’s project on Business and International Crimes, information available at: http://www.fafo.no/liabilities/index.htm. See also the International Commission of Jurists Expert Legal Panel on Corporate Complicity in International Crimes, information available at: http://www.business-humanrights.org/Updates/Archive/ICJPaneloncomplicity.