A/HRC/32/19 E. Target audience 19. The guidance is addressed primarily to State agencies and judicial bodies concerned with the development, administration and enforcement of domestic legal regimes that regulate the respect by business enterprises of human rights. States can implement the guidance in a variety of ways, for example, through a domestic legal review process, as part of national action plans on business and human rights, as part of strategies to improve access to justice or other processes as may be suitable to the particular domestic context. The guidance will also be relevant to the work of policymakers and practitioners, including those involved in legislative drafting, prosecutors and other law enforcement officials, and national human rights institutions. The guidance may also help to inform the ongoing work of international bodies with mandates relevant to business and human rights, including human rights treaty bodies. Various elements of the guidance can be used to guide business enterprises and may be drawn upon by other stakeholders, such as civil society organizations and trade unions. III. Three cross-cutting issues 20. The addendum provides further context and explanation for each component of the guidance. However, the following three issues have particular implications for corporate accountability and access to remedy in cases of business-related human rights abuses and are important to understand for effective implementation of the guidance. A. Structural and managerial complexity of business enterprises 21. Business enterprises can take many legal and structural forms. They may be single corporate entities (or “companies”) or a group of companies working together through relationships on the basis of shared ownership, or contract, or both. The company law doctrine of “separate corporate personality” is recognized in most, if not all, jurisdictions. Under this doctrine, each company, as a separately incorporated legal entity, is treated as having a separate existence from its owners and managers. Consequently, a company (a parent company) that owns shares in another company (a subsidiary) will not generally be held legally responsible for acts, omissions or liabilities of that subsidiary merely on the basis of the shareholding. 22. This means that legal liability for the adverse human rights impacts of a subsidiary’s activities may not extend beyond the subsidiary itself, unless the liability of the parent company can be established on some other basis (e.g., because of the parent company’s own negligence in the way the subsidiary was managed or because of some specific legislative provision).24 In many jurisdictions, however, the law relating to parent company liability in cases of business-related human rights abuses is in the early stages of development, creating an uncertain basis for legal action against parent companies (and other constituent members of business enterprises). On the other hand, there will be cases in which a claim against a parent company may be the only way of securing an effective remedy for the human rights impacts of a subsidiary’s activities, such as where the subsidiary has been dissolved, is insolvent or has insufficient resources to meet a legal claim for damages. 24 See A/HRC/32/19.Add.1, paras. 6-23 and 42-56. 9