A/HRC/32/45 women in decision-making positions in State-owned enterprises, equating them to other governmental bodies.19 33. There are situations in which the acts of a State-owned enterprise or the nature of its relationship to the State are more clearly associated with the State duty to respect. This is the case when such an enterprise performs public functions — such as managing a prison — or has delegated authority or is contracted to provide public services. In such cases, the State must exercise adequate oversight in order to meet its human rights obligations and ensure respect.20 All these considerations have particular resonance in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and national plans to achieve them, given the important role that businesses, including State-owned enterprises, are expected to play. 34. The commentary to guiding principle 4 states that a human rights abuse by a Stateowned enterprise may also constitute a violation of the State’s own international law obligations when the acts of the enterprise can be attributed to the State. Public international law envisages specific conditions under which private persons or entities which are not State organs according to the internal law of the State concerned may engage the responsibility of the State.21 Under these rules, abuse by enterprises owned or controlled by the State may be attributable to the State in question. Here, the issue of whether particular business entities are State-owned or not is, however, of less importance in deciding whether their acts are attributable to the State. What matters is whether the business entity is completely dependent on the State, is empowered by law to exercise elements of government function and acts under those powers, or acts under the instructions, direction or control of the State.22 Nevertheless, given the nature of relationships between State-owned enterprises and States, it is more likely that abuses by a State-owned enterprise could lead to attribution of State responsibility than those by private businesses. B. State-owned enterprises as business enterprises: the corporate responsibility to respect human rights 35. Although the present report focuses primarily on States’ duties with respect to Stateowned enterprises, it is important to recall that such enterprises are commercial entities that should respect human rights like any other private enterprise. Guiding principle 14 provides that “the responsibility of business enterprises to respect human rights applies to all enterprises regardless of their size, sector, operational context, ownership and structure” (emphasis added). The same reasoning can be found in the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises,23 which are aligned with the Guiding Principles, and the International Labour Organization Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy. Thus, it is clear that Principles 11 to 24, applicable to pillar II of the Guiding Principles, and Principles 29 to 31 under pillar III fully and equally apply to State-owned enterprises. 19 20 21 22 23 See CEDAW/C/MAR/CO/5; CEDAW/C/BIH/CO/3; A/56/38, para. 171 (Uzbekistan); and A/57/38, paras. 104 (Estonia) and 150 (Trinidad and Tobago). See also A/HRC/15/31. See A/56/10 and Corr. 1 and 2, para. 77; and Olivier de Schutter, “The responsibility of states”, in Simon Chesterman and Angelina Fisher, eds., Private Security, Public Order: The outsourcing of Public Services and Its Limits (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 17-37. See A/56/10 and Corr. 1 and 2, para. 77, arts. 5 and 8. OECD, OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (Paris, 2011). 9