A/HRC/45/9/Add.1 groups, for instance in Ghana, Myanmar, Nigeria and Peru, and supported outreach to thirdcountry companies to join the initiative. 14 30. One Swiss-based extractive company told the Working Group about its efforts to implement the Voluntary Principles in its mining operations and the challenges it had encountered. For example, in one country, the company provided training to security providers due to the lack of skilled and qualified workers. The company also emphasized that it tried to tailor security approaches to local contexts, and noted that, from its perspective, the conduct of public security forces was often more problematic than that of private security providers over whom, it argued, the company had greater control through contractual clauses and requirements. That said, public security forces were, at least in theory, subject to greater public scrutiny. 31. Overall, while several stakeholders recognized the practical framework that the Voluntary Principles provided and the useful tools that had been developed to seek to give companies the know-how for implementing them, there was considerable criticism of their limited impact for communities near extractive operations. 4. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights 32. The Working Group also considered broader initiatives, notably under the framework of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, to assess their effectiveness in strengthening human rights protection in the private military and security industry. In 2016, Switzerland adopted a report outlining a National Action Plan for the implementation of the Guiding Principles.15 A revised National Action Plan for 2020–2023 was approved by the Federal Council in January 2020. 16 33. The Working Group took note of several references to private security in the 2016– 2019 Action Plan. These references primarily focused on information about initiatives undertaken, outreach, legislative developments (notably the Federal Act on Private Security Services Provided Abroad), and the role of Switzerland in international multi-stakeholder initiatives such as the International Code of Conduct Association and the Voluntary Principles. While these are significant achievements, the approach taken looked backwards rather than pointing forwards and failed to elaborate on new objectives and measures with respect to private military and security companies. The 2020–2023 Action Plan lacks detail in the area of private security. It fails to seize the opportunity to formulate objectives to consolidate and strengthen achievements made thus far with regard to private security services provided abroad, and to include goals to strengthen regulation of private security services provided domestically. 34. In addition to the National Action Plan, the Government has developed specific initiatives to foster the implementation of the Guiding Principles in several business sectors that rely heavily on private security.17 For example, in 2018, the Government issued a guidance document for the commodity-trading sector on implementing the Guiding Principles.18 This guidance is particularly relevant as Switzerland is one of the most important commodity-trading centres in the world, and given that there are persistent allegations of human rights violations and abuses in the complex and varied supply chains related to the mining, buying, transporting, storing, transforming and selling of natural resources.19 The document makes reference to public and private security in relation to potential adverse human rights impacts associated with commodity trading, notably in the context of buying and storing commodities. It also gives the example of how a trading 14 15 16 17 18 19 See www.voluntaryprinciples.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Switzerland-2018-Annual-Report.pdf. See www.seco.admin.ch/seco/en/home/seco/nsb-news.msg-id-64884.html. See www.nap-bhr.admin.ch/napbhr/en/home.html. See www.fdfa.admin.ch/eda/en/home/foreign-policy/human-rights/human-rights-policy/businesshuman-rights.html. See www.seco.admin.ch/seco/en/home/Publikationen_Dienstleistungen/Publikationen_und_ Formulare/Aussenwirtschafts/broschueren/Guidance_on_Implementing_the_UN_Guiding_Principles _on_Business_and_Human_Rights.html. See, for example, www.gfbv.ch/en/campaigns/no-dirty-gold/#switzerlands-role. 7