A/HRC/11/13 page 20 that the due diligence process elaborated by the Special Representative “encourages robust risk assessment that is … highly advisable from a business perspective in today’s highly visible and transparent environment”.48 82. There are two scenarios under which legal liability could flow from human rights due diligence, but the decisive factor in both is how the company responds to new information. In the first, the company gains knowledge of possible human rights violations it may commit or be involved in, does nothing to act on it, the violations occur, and word of the company’s prior knowledge gets out. In the second, the company publicly misrepresents what it finds in its due diligence and that fact becomes known. But the point of human rights due diligence is to learn about risks that the company would then take action to mitigate, and not to ignore or misrepresent the findings. 83. Some have claimed that the more information there is in the public domain about a company’s potential human rights impacts, the more fodder there might be for vexatious legal claims or public campaigns. But done properly, human rights due diligence should precisely create opportunities to mitigate risks and engage meaningfully with stakeholders so that disingenuous lawsuits will find little support beyond the individuals who file them. Moreover, recent experience shows that other social actors are quite capable of concluding and stating publicly that a company facing criticism has undertaken good faith efforts to avoid human rights harm, and that transparency in acknowledging inadvertent problems can work in its favour.49 84. The mandate’s ongoing work, including the corporate law project, should shed further light on this question, and on what policy changes by States could ensure that companies are incentivized to undertake human rights due diligence. C. Summing up 85. Discharging the responsibility to respect human rights requires due diligence whereby companies become aware of, prevent, and mitigate adverse human rights impacts of their activities and relationships. The responsibility to respect is not intended to carry the entire burden of the business and human rights agenda: it is bracketed by the State duty to protect on one side, and access to effective remedy on the other. We now turn to the latter. 48 Memorandum from Weil, Gotshal and Manges LLP, http://www.reports-andmaterials.org/Weil-Gotshal-legal-commentary-on-Ruggie-report-22-May-2008.pdf, p. 5. 49 The reaction to news reports in 2007 about child labour in a GAP supplier factory illustrates this point. NGOs were nuanced in their response, and Mary Robinson, former High Commissioner for Human Rights, noted GAP’s transparency, swift response, and active participation in multi-stakeholder initiatives, and called the story “a two-day wonder”. The Economist, 19 January 2008.