A/HRC/14/27 I. Introduction 1. In its resolution 8/7, adopted on 18 June 2008, the Human Rights Council was unanimous in welcoming the “protect, respect and remedy” policy framework (now widely referred to as “the United Nations framework”) that the Special Representative proposed for better managing business and human rights challenges. It rests on three pillars: the State duty to protect against human rights abuses by third parties, including business, through appropriate policies, regulation, and adjudication; the corporate responsibility to respect human rights, which means to act with due diligence to avoid infringing on the rights of others; and greater access by victims to effective remedy, judicial and non-judicial. 2. From the outset, the Special Representative has maintained that the widening gaps between the scope and impact of economic forces and actors, and the capacity of societies to manage their adverse consequences, were unsustainable. These governance gaps, he has observed, “provide the permissive environment for wrongful acts by companies of all kinds without adequate sanctioning or reparation”.1 The framework is intended to help close those gaps. Its three pillars are distinct yet complementary. The State duty to protect and the corporate responsibility to respect exist independently of one another, and preventative measures differ from remedial ones. Yet, all are intended to be mutually reinforcing parts of a dynamic, interactive system to advance the enjoyment of human rights. 3. The Council extended the Special Representative’s mandate until 2011, with two main tasks: “operationalizing” the framework, i.e., providing concrete guidance and recommendations to States, businesses and other actors on the practical meaning and implications of the three pillars and their interrelationships; and “promoting” the framework, coordinating with relevant international and regional organizations and other stakeholders. II. Principled pragmatism 4. In his first report to the then Commission on Human Rights, the Special Representative described the approach he would take to the mandate as principled pragmatism: “an unflinching commitment to the principle of strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights as it relates to business, coupled with a pragmatic attachment to what works best in creating change where it matters most – in the daily lives of people”.2 5. In 2008, having systematically mapped patterns of corporate-related human rights abuse and existing standards and initiatives and consulted widely across regions and sectors of society, he advised the Human Rights Council: “there is no single silver bullet solution to the institutional misalignments in the business and human rights domain. Instead, all social actors — States, businesses, and civil society — must learn to do many things differently”.3 But, he added, those things must cohere and generate an interactive dynamic of cumulative progress – which the framework is designed to help achieve. 6. The same approach informs the current phase of operationalizing and promoting the framework: maximizing tangible results for affected individuals and communities by identifying and fostering standards and processes within and among relevant entities — 1 2 3 GE.10-12629 A/HRC/8/5, para. 3. E/CN.4/2006/97, para. 81. A/HRC/8/5, para. 7. 3