A/HRC/2/2 A/HRC/Sub.1/58/36 page 96 70. The Sub-Commission, on the basis of its research and studies, has provided major contributions to standard-setting on a variety of topics, starting from the International Covenants on Human Rights and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, and traversing the codification of international human rights law up to and including the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, the Set of Principles for the protection and promotion of human rights through action to combat impunity, the Guidelines for the Regulation of Computerized Personal Data Files, and the Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law. In this regard, partnership between the Sub-Commission and intergovernmental bodies, notably the former Commission on Human Rights, has been a key ingredient of the successes registered by the United Nations in the field of human rights. 71. The Sub-Commission has contributed to reinforcing the universality, indivisibility and interdependence of human rights through its examination of issues and themes affecting people in their daily lives. It has made major contributions to the promotion and protection of economic, social and cultural rights alongside civil and political rights. The Sub-Commission’s work on respect for human rights during states of emergency and its work on human rights and terrorism are examples of the innovative insights it has provided into new human rights problems. 72. The Sub-Commission’s examination of the situation of vulnerable groups, such as national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, indigenous peoples, migrants, people living in slavery or slavery-like conditions, or people affected by adverse social practices, has helped shed light on the problems of such groups and has helped chart policies and strategies for remedying existing problems and preventing them in the future. The Sub-Commission has also concerned itself with the role of non-State actors, in particular by elaborating principles on the responsibility of transnational corporations in the field of human rights. 73. The Sub-Commission played a pioneering role in the development of what subsequently became the confidential communications procedure established under Economic and Social Council resolution 1503 (XLVIII) by formulating, at the request of the Commission on Human Rights, the criteria for the admissibility of communications and spearheaded the application of that procedure, both through the Sub-Commission’s Working Group on Communications (the first stage in identifying those communications which appeared to reveal a consistent pattern of gross and reliably attested violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms) and, until 2000, by determining in plenary which situations of grave violations of human rights should be referred to the Commission for consideration. In the 25 years from 1975 to 2000, the Commission was seized with some 80 country situations thus referred to it by the Sub-Commission.