A/HRC/30/44 Guiding principle 9 States should maintain adequate domestic policy space to meet their human rights obligations when pursuing business-related policy objectives with other States or business enterprises, for instance through investment treaties or contracts. Commentary Economic agreements concluded by States, either with other States or with business enterprises — such as bilateral investment treaties, free trade agreements or contracts for investment projects — create economic opportunities for States. But they can also affect the domestic policy space of Governments. For example, the terms of international investment agreements may constrain States from fully implementing new human rights legislation, or put them at risk of binding international arbitration if they do so. Therefore, States should ensure that they retain adequate policy and regulatory ability to protect human rights under the terms of such agreements, while providing the necessary investor protection. Guiding principle 25 As part of their duty to protect against business-related human rights abuse, States must take appropriate steps to ensure, through judicial, administrative, legislative or other appropriate means, that when such abuses occur within their territory and/or jurisdiction those affected have access to effective remedy. Report of the Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, A/HRC/29/28 – excerpts Transparency in investment arbitration 21. A significant opportunity for increasing transparency in the area of investor-State arbitration has arisen from work of the Working Group on Arbitration and Conciliation of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). The UNCITRAL Working Group started working on transparency in 2010, with a mandate that stressed the importance of ensuring transparency in investor-State dispute settlements (A/6317, para. 314). In a written submission in support of that mandate, a Member State observed that the lack of transparency in investor-State arbitration was contrary to the fundamental principles of good governance and human rights upon which the United Nations is founded (see A/CN.9/662, para. 20). That work has culminated in two major texts: (a) the rules on transparency in treaty-based investor-State arbitration, which came into effect on 1 April 2014; and (b) a convention on transparency63 (the United Nations Convention on Transparency), which was finalized by the Commission in July 2014 and opened for signature on 17 March 2015. The Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises welcomes these new transparency rules. 22. Both the Guiding Principles and the UNCITRAL work on transparency back procedural and legal transparency and take a practical approach to achieving that aim. The new UNCITRAL rules on transparency seek to address a regular concern with investorState dispute settlement cases – namely that their typically confidential and non63 30 A/CN.9/812 and www.uncitral.org/pdf/english/texts/arbitration/transparency-convention/ Transparency-Convention-e.pdf. The Working Group chairperson was invited to speak at the March 2015 signing ceremony.