A/HRC/14/29 23. Some civil society representatives pointed out that States, when entering into trade agreements, should preserve and enforce labour rights, indigenous peoples’ and women’s rights, but are often unable to do so. It was suggested that, at the international level, there are two parallel and mutually exclusive architectures: one for human rights and one for trade whereby States’ capacity is significantly diminished. Therefore States, in an attempt to attract foreign investment, enter into trade or investment agreements that lead them to relax labour laws or fail to implement them. One of the proposals to overcome this impasse was that the United Nations formulate a code of norms, such as the draft Norms on the responsibility of transnational corporations and other business enterprises with regard to human rights, developed by the then Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, directly applicable to business and establish a tribunal to ensure the enforcement of those norms. Other specific proposals included a suggestion that States must proactively seek to avoid support for investments that will breach human rights through their export credit agencies. States should establish a potential client’s track record and screen clients based on compliance with the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. States should also include human rights standards in investor-State agreements to ensure that these agreements do not impinge on host Governments’ ability to regulate the activities of multinational enterprises. 24. It was also suggested by civil society representatives that States should include human rights as an integral part of every activity or role that they undertake with regard to business. This would include all relationships and functions, be it as a partner, a consumer, a public procurer, a shareholder, an investor, an insurer or a risk bearer and a regulator and through trade and investment agreements, export credit agencies, aid funds, public-private partnerships, export credit insurance, subsidies, loans and investments. Moreover, States should proactively seek to prevent any public support or export credit from contributing to or being complicit in human rights abuses. When the State has a role in facilitating or supporting investments by its companies abroad, such as through export credit agencies or providing guarantees for exports or investments, the State should establish a potential beneficiary’s human rights and environmental track record and make a screening based on the company’s compliance with the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, for example. In this way, States and State bodies can use the Guidelines as a preventive measure for averting human rights abuses. 25. Some civil society representatives insisted on the importance of the extraterritorial dimension of the State duty to protect. Home and host States have an obligation to regulate the activities of the companies operating from or within their territory. When the host State is unable to enforce national law on the company then the home State should adjudicate the behaviour of the company and offer a remedy to the victims of corporate abuse. On this point, a business representative said that States should refrain from exercising jurisdiction outside of national borders unless there is a clear, demonstrable and substantive link to the territory. 26. A number of participants also raised the issue of violations of indigenous peoples’ rights in cases where they have not consented to the exploitation of resources on their territories. Due to corruption, some Governments fail in their duty to protect indigenous peoples’ rights. 27. According to some business representatives, business does not consider human rights an issue for voluntary mechanisms. It requires national law and effective implementations of that law, so the highest priority is to close the gap between what the law sets as a standard and general practices. There is no country where corruption is legal but it exists everywhere and sometimes excessively affects all aspects of human rights. Contrary to what people might think, business needs non-discriminatory application of national law, predictability and stability of the system. It was also noted that bilateral investment treaties GE.10-12935 7