A/HRC/32/45 the efficient, transparent and accountable performance of State-owned enterprises. International guidelines on corporate governance have been developed to that end (see section II below). 16. Concerns have also been raised about the apparent lack of awareness of many Stateowned enterprises of their responsibility to respect human rights and their poor performance in this regard. A study by the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre on the human rights commitments of companies showed that, of the 180 companies contacted between 2014 and 2015, State-owned enterprises were the least responsive.10 Although the picture is mixed, with a number of State-owned enterprises having made commitments on human rights,11 allegations of human rights abuses by such enterprises in their home countries and in their operations abroad have been documented, including labour-related abuses, environmental damage, land rights violations and intimidation and defamation of human rights defenders.12 17. Reports of human rights abuses, and companies’ listings of human rights or environmental, social and corporate governance performance, tend not to differentiate between private companies and State-owned enterprises, which makes it difficult to ascertain the human rights performance of those enterprises overall. Also, State-owned enterprises’ respect for human rights can depend on varying degrees of both State requirements and other incentives, such as industry standards. D. Scope and limits of the report 18. In addition to State-owned enterprises, guiding principle 4 explicitly mentions entities that are closely associated with the State, such as export credit agencies and official investment insurance or guarantee agencies as well as development agencies and development finance institutions. However, discussion of these entities is not within the scope of the present report. 19. The report focuses only on State-owned enterprises, in the traditional sense. It does not include sovereign wealth funds, 13 which, although not explicitly mentioned in guiding principle 4, fall under the category of businesses that are owned or controlled by the State. Sometimes considered a special type of State-owned enterprise, what matters is that they are owned or controlled by the State, regardless of their precise corporate form. Sovereign wealth funds have emerged as a significant force in global finance, managing assets estimated to be close to US$ 6.4 trillion in 2014.14 10 11 12 13 14 6 in the political economy of states: avenues for application”, State of Play series No. 3 (March 2014), p. 51. See Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, “Action on business and human rights: Where are we now? - Key findings from our Action Platforms (March 2015), p. 4. By 1 April 2016, 242 State-owned enterprises out of around 8,700 self-reported business participants had joined the United Nations Global Compact initiative (actual number may differ slightly as this is based on self-reporting of State-owned status). Database available at unglobalcompact.org. See Human Rights and Business Dilemmas Forum, “Working with SOEs”, available at www.hrbdf.org/dilemmas/working-soe/#.Vp-yFU3bLIU; and information on the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre website, www.business-humanrights.org/. See the Santiago Principles, available at: http www.iwg-swf.org/pubs/eng/santiagoprinciples.pdf. UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2014 pp. xvii-xviii (see footnote 6).