A/HRC/8/5 page 5 the corporate responsibility to respect because it is the basic expectation society has of business; and access to remedy, because even the most concerted efforts cannot prevent all abuse, while access to judicial redress is often problematic, and non-judicial means are limited in number, scope and effectiveness. The three principles form a complementary whole in that each supports the others in achieving sustainable progress. I. PROTECT, RESPECT AND REMEDY 10. The framing of policy challenges can have profound consequences for assigning responsibilities to relevant actors and determining whether the combination is capable of meeting the overall policy objectives. The business and human rights agenda remains hampered because it has not yet been framed in a way that fully reflects the complexities and dynamics of globalization and provides governments and other social actors with effective guidance. A. The challenge 11. How should we frame today’s challenges in order to capture their essential attributes? As noted at the outset, our focus should be on ways to reduce or compensate for the governance gaps created by globalization, because they permit corporate-related human rights harm to occur even where none may be intended. 12. Take the case of transnational corporations. Their legal rights have been expanded significantly over the past generation. This has encouraged investment and trade flows, but it has also created instances of imbalances between firms and States that may be detrimental to human rights. The more than 2,500 bilateral investment treaties currently in effect are a case in point. While providing legitimate protection to foreign investors, these treaties also permit those investors to take host States to binding international arbitration, including for alleged damages resulting from implementation of legislation to improve domestic social and environmental standards - even when the legislation applies uniformly to all businesses, foreign and domestic. A European mining company operating in South Africa recently challenged that country’s black economic empowerment laws on these grounds.6 13. At the same time, the legal framework regulating transnational corporations operates much as it did long before the recent wave of globalization. A parent company and its subsidiaries continue to be construed as distinct legal entities. Therefore, the parent company is generally not liable for wrongs committed by a subsidiary, even where it is the sole shareholder, unless the subsidiary is under such close operational control by the parent that it can be seen as its mere agent. Furthermore, despite the transformative changes in the global economic landscape 6 Piero Foresti, Laura De Carli and others v. Republic of South Africa (International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, case No. ARB (AF)/07/1).