A/HRC/29/39 (b) To develop credible and workable recommendations and guidance for States in relation to each of the six project components (see sect. II.A) to enable a stronger and more consistent implementation of the Guiding Principles, particularly in so far as business involvement in severe human rights abuses is concerned. 9. The decision to focus on cases of severe abuse in the first instance has been taken for strategic, substantive and methodological reasons. First, this prioritization is justified by the severity of impacts for victims. Second, as noted above, business involvement in gross human rights abuses poses a particular set of challenges in respect of access to remedy. Third, the steps already taken by many States to ensure that international crimes are punishable at the domestic level make it likely that focusing on the severest forms of human rights abuse will be the most useful and revealing starting point for close comparative analysis. However, this in no way implies that severe business-related human rights abuses should be the sole focus of States’ regulatory action. On the contrary, mindful that the Guiding Principles address the full range of business-related human rights impacts, and that in many contexts it is impossible or undesirable to carve out specialist regimes for a particular class of human rights abuses, OHCHR will be examining the outcomes of the accountability and remedy project for lessons of relevance for access to remedy not only in the severest cases. 10. The accountability and remedy project will focus on judicial mechanisms for gaining access to remedy. This is not to diminish the importance of non-judicial mechanisms, which, as noted in Guiding Principle 27, are part of a comprehensive State-based system for the remedy of business-related human rights abuse. However, given the project’s focus on the severest cases, which by their very nature may raise issues of possible criminal behaviour, it is appropriate to focus on domestic mechanisms responsible for enforcing criminal law. Data on the use of non-judicial mechanisms will be collected (see sect. II.B), as OHCHR recognizes the role that such mechanisms can play in reducing the costs of dispute resolution and in creating more opportunities for victims to access effective remedies. In order for States to effectively hold businesses to account and to ensure access to remedy in the severest cases, however, non-judicial mechanisms must be backed up by effective judicial mechanisms. 11. Finally, although the project focuses on access to remedy issues, there is a need for both States and businesses to make concerted and increased efforts to develop better preventive practices and policies with respect to business-related human rights abuses. While the development of preventive practices and policies are beyond the scope of the project, the methodology recognizes the relationships that can exist between the preventive efforts of a business enterprise and its legal risks and culpability. As part of the project, input will be gathered from many different jurisdictions on issues such as the bearing that human rights due diligence may have on legal liability and sanctioning, in order to better explore the linkages that exist between prevention and legal liability. This will be done to ensure that the practical recommendations arising from the project address, to the extent possible, the need for prevention as well as remedy. 12. The mandate of the accountability and remedy project is separate from, but potentially complementary to, the decision made by the Human Rights Council in its resolution 26/9 to establish an open-ended intergovernmental working group on human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises to elaborate an international legally binding instrument. The project is not linked to the negotiations on that instrument. However, if the intergovernmental working group so decides, it could draw upon material emerging from the project in its discussions. 5