A/HRC/9/10 page 8 This can be achieved by taking legislative, budgetary, administrative and other measures to promote the achievement of human rights, including facilitating opportunities for the achievement of human rights and by direct provision when rights are denied. 18. This typology of rights has had a major influence on the evolution of thinking on economic, social and cultural rights. It has been adopted in a number of general comments, including by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in its general comments No. 12 on the human right to adequate food, No. 14 on the human right to the highest attainable standard of health and No. 15 on the human right to water.4 19. The typology of respect, protect and fulfil is a useful framework to interpret provisions on international assistance and cooperation. As an illustration, while asserting that the primary obligation to realize the right to food rests with national Governments, the former Special Rapporteur on the right to food noted that Governments also have “extranational obligations” to respect, protect and facilitate the right to food. The duty to respect extends to actions that have a negative impact on the right to food for people in other countries.5 There is also a duty for States to abstain from any policy that impinges on the protection of at least the core content of the economic, social and cultural rights of the affected peoples of another State. This can be seen in general comment No. 8 of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on the relationship between economic sanctions and respect for economic, social and cultural rights. 20. The responsibilities of States can be viewed as extending to responsibility for the organizations of which they are members, including their participation in international and regional organizations.6 These responsibilities can include the obligation to respect and protect. States must abstain from participating in decisions of international financial institutions that may obstruct or hinder the realization of economic, social and cultural rights. In concrete terms, the duty to protect requires developed States to avoid involvement in any international assistance 4 This has also been included in the South African constitution, section 7.2. 5 See Smita Narula, “The Right to Food: Holding Global Actors Accountable under International Law”, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice Working Paper, No. 7, 2006, NYU School of Law. 6 Sigrun I. Skogly, Beyond National Borders: States’ Human Rights Obligations in International Cooperation, Antwerp: Intersentia, 2006; for an analysis of the various obligations linked with the typologies of respect, protect and fulfil, see Magdalena Sepulveda, “Obligations of ‘International Assistance and Cooperation’ in an Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights” (2006) Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights p. 271.