A/HRC/29/28 growing number of companies are becoming aware of, and taking steps to, implement the Guiding Principles in policies and company procedures. 11. Industry bodies such as the mining industry’s International Council on Mining and Metals and the oil and gas sector’s International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association have developed several tools10 to help companies to implement the Guiding Principles. Corporate law firms and bar associations are also increasingly emphasizing that corporate practice not only needs to be in compliance with domestic legal requirements, but also aligned with international human rights standards, in particular the Guiding Principles.11 In the area of finance, there is growing recognition among investors of the utility of the Guiding Principles as a framework for managing social risks in a business context.12 12. The Working Group has been actively supporting these efforts through its engagement with stakeholder groups. While it is encouraged by the many examples of progress, it also considers that most of the hard work of translating policy statements and commitments into action remains to be done. In particular, concerns about elusive progress in achieving access to remedy for victims of corporate-related human rights abuse must be heeded. Such concerns were an important factor behind the civil society campaign in support of the decision of the Human Rights Council to establish an open-ended intergovernmental working group with the mandate to draw up an internationally legally binding instrument on transnational corporations. 13. Recent efforts to map progress by both States and businesses in the form of the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre’s “action platforms”,13 guidance on reporting14 and initiatives aimed at ranking or benchmarking the practice of individual companies15 all have potential for spurring the faster change needed. 14. Within the United Nation system, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) serves as a focal point for the business and human rights agenda. Equally, the International Labour Organization (ILO) has a central role in working with States, business enterprises and trade unions to promote and monitor the implementation of international labour standards that are part of the normative content of the Guiding Principles, together with other human rights standards. Beyond OHCHR and ILO, United Nations agencies, programmes and processes have supported the Guiding Principles, but on the whole have been slow in integrating them into key frameworks (see A/HRC/26/20, 10 11 Available from www.icmm.com/page/84154/our-work/projects/articles/business-and-human-rights and www.ipieca.org/topic/human-rights/resources. See the International Bar Association guidance for bar associations and business lawyers on the implementation of the Guiding Principles, at www.ibanet.org/Legal_Projects_ Team/Business_and_Human_Rights_for_the_Legal_Profession.aspx. For development of human rights compliance policies among individual law firms, see www.ibanet.org/Article/ Detail.aspx?ArticleUid=68762a20-bf17-4f85-8c4f-81e3bbe88c16. 12 See for example a statement by investors with a total of USD 3.91 trillion under asset management, in support of a reporting framework developed by the Shift non-profit organization to assist companies in implementing the Guiding Principles, available from www.ungpreporting.org/earlyadopters/investor-statement/. 13 Available from business-humanrights.org/en/company-action-platform and businesshumanrights.org/en/government-action-platform. 14 Available from www.ungpreporting.org/. 15 See “Rankings, Benchmarks, Reporting and More: Motivating Action on Business and Human Rights”, available from www.huffingtonpost.com/amol-mehra/rankings-benchmarksrepor_b_6761934.html. 5