A/HRC/8/5 page 8 21. Further refinements of the legal understanding of the State duty to protect by authoritative bodies at national and international levels are highly desirable. But even within existing legal principles, the policy dimensions of the duty to protect require increased attention and more imaginative approaches from States. 22. It is often stressed that governments are the appropriate entities to make the difficult balancing decisions required to reconcile different societal needs. However, the Special Representative’s work raises questions about whether governments have got the balance right. His consultations and research, including a questionnaire survey sent to all Member States, indicate that many governments take a narrow approach to managing the business and human rights agenda.16 It is often segregated within its own conceptual and (typically weak) institutional box - kept apart from, or heavily discounted in, other policy domains that shape business practices, including commercial policy, investment policy, securities regulation and corporate governance. This inadequate domestic policy coherence is replicated internationally. Governments should not assume they are helping business by failing to provide adequate guidance for, or regulation of, the human rights impact of corporate activities. On the contrary, the less governments do, the more they increase reputational and other risks to business. Chapter II below elaborates on these issues. 23. The corporate responsibility to respect human rights is the second principle. It is recognized in such soft law instruments as the Tripartite Declaration of Principles Concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy,17 and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.18 It is invoked by the largest global business organizations in their submission to the mandate, which states that companies “are expected to obey the law, even if it is not enforced, and to respect the principles of relevant international instruments where national law is absent”.19 It is one of the commitments companies undertake in joining the Global Compact.20 And the Special Representative’s surveys document the fact that companies worldwide increasingly claim they respect human rights.21 16 A/HRC/4/35/Add.3. 17 ILO Official Bulletin, Series A, No. 3 (2000). 18 See Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, DAFFE/IME/WPG(2000)15/ FINAL. 19 International Organisation of Employers, International Chamber of Commerce, Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), “Business and Human Rights: The Role of Government in Weak Governance Zones”, December 2006, paragraph 15, http://www.reports-and-materials.org/Role-of-Business-in-Weak Governance-Zones-Dec-2006.pdf. 20 21 See http://www.unglobalcompact.org/AboutTheGC/TheTenPrinciples/humanRights.html. A/HRC/4/35/Add.3, A/HRC/4/35/Add.4 and “Human Rights Policies of Chinese Companies: Results from a Survey”, available at http://www.business-humanrights.org/Documents/RuggieChina-survey-Sep-2007.pdf.