A/HRC/8/5 page 7 18. Take first the State duty to protect. It has both legal and policy dimensions. As documented in the Special Representative’s 2007 report, international law provides that States have a duty to protect against human rights abuses by non-State actors, including by business, affecting persons within their territory or jurisdiction.10 To help States interpret how this duty applies under the core United Nations human rights conventions, the treaty monitoring bodies generally recommend that States take all necessary steps to protect against such abuse, including to prevent, investigate, and punish the abuse, and to provide access to redress.11 States have discretion to decide what measures to take, but the treaty bodies indicate that both regulation and adjudication of corporate activities vis-à-vis human rights are appropriate. They also suggest that the duty applies to the activities of all types of businesses - national and transnational, large and small - and that it applies to all rights private parties are capable of impairing. Regional human rights systems have reached similar conclusions. 19. Experts disagree on whether international law requires home States to help prevent human rights abuses abroad by corporations based within their territory. There is greater consensus that those States are not prohibited from doing so where a recognized basis of jurisdiction exists,12 and the actions of the home State meet an overall reasonableness test, which includes non-intervention in the internal affairs of other States.13 Indeed, there is increasing encouragement at the international level, including from the treaty bodies, for home States to take regulatory action to prevent abuse by their companies overseas.14 20. The 2007 report also described the expanding web of potential corporate liability for international crimes, reflecting international standards but imposed through national courts.15 As discussed in the next section, in some jurisdictions innovations in regulation and adjudication are moving toward greater recognition of the complex organizational forms characteristic of modern business enterprises. 10 A/HRC/4/35 and A/HRC/4/35/Add.1. Some States hold that this duty is limited to protecting persons who are both within their territory and jurisdiction. 11 A/HRC/4/35/Add.1. 12 Recognized bases include where the actor or victim is a national, where the acts have substantial adverse effects on the State, or where specific international crimes are involved. See A/HRC/4/35/Add.2. 13 The entire human rights regime may be seen to challenge the classical view of non-intervention, but the debate here hinges on what is considered coercive. 14 For instance, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination recently encouraged a State party to “take appropriate legislative or administrative measures” to prevent adverse impacts on the rights of indigenous peoples in other countries from the activities of corporations registered in the State party (CERD/C/CAN/CO/18, para. 17). 15 A/HRC/4/35, paras. 19-32.