A/HRC/28/65 and opportunities for participation in decisions that affect their lives has left many communities in situations of dire poverty and without access to adequate food and nutrition. B. Extraterritorial obligations of States 41. In recent years the scope of a State’s human rights obligations has progressively evolved to include duties to exercise jurisdiction over activities that are connected to one State but have an impact in another. In principle, corporations can also be held accountable either by States responsible for regulating, monitoring and preventing human rights violations; or through intergovernmental instruments or voluntary codes of conduct. 42. Although international human rights law presupposes the consent of a State to establish an obligation, the evolution of human rights has included the extension of duties under international law directly to non-State actors, including individuals and business enterprises. 1. Obligation to respect 43. States should ensure that their policies and practices do not lead to violations of the right to food, either directly or indirectly, for people living in other countries, as well as their own citizens. This obligation is simply the extension of the “no harm” principle of States in international law. The extraterritorial obligations of States in relation to the right to food are referred to in general comment No. 12 which notes that “food should never be used as an instrument of political and economic pressure”. States should therefore refrain from implementing food embargoes or similar measures that endanger conditions for food production and water supply, and access to goods and services essential for securing the right to food.43 Similarly IFIs should also refrain from taking decisions that could lead to potential violations of the right to food in other countries. As multi-State actors, IFIs should be held accountable for human rights violations by other member States that have ratified the Covenant. 2. Obligation to protect 44. The majority of extraterritorial cases derive from the host States failure to fulfil its obligation to protect where private companies are impacting upon human rights. While home States of companies operating abroad have an obligation to clearly set out the expectation that such companies respect human rights throughout their operations, it is the host States which have the primary responsibility to prevent human rights violations, including by TNCs operating within its jurisdiction. However, agreements between TNCs and host governments often limit the host State’s ability to perform these duties. Indeed some States have even taken retrogressive steps in this regard. A recent study44 indicates that some jurisdictions have formulated laws that effectively shield business from being held accountable for human rights violation and make it difficult for victims to obtain an effective remedy. In some instances, States themselves may have been complicit in perpetrating violations. In many cases, however, TNCs also impact positively on a 43 44 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comments No. 12, para. 37, and No. 15 (2002) on the right to water, para. 32. See Ziegler et al., The Fight For the Right to Food (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), p. 81. Gwynne Skinner, Robert McCorquodale and Olivier De Schutter, “The Third Pillar: Access to Judicial Remedies for Human Rights Violations by Transnational Business” (International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR), CORE and the European Coalition for Corporate Justice (EECJ), 2013). 13