A/HRC/54/52 projects free from reprisals or acts of violence, or from undue pressures to accept or enter into consultations about them. 10. Companies should conduct due diligence to ensure that their actions will not violate or be complicit in violating Indigenous Peoples’ rights, identifying and assessing any actual or potential adverse human rights impacts of a development project. 11. States should ensure that contentious issues between Indigenous Peoples, States and business enterprises arising in the implementation of major development projects are never handled primarily as a problem of national security or law and order, as that often leads to military or police action that may violate Indigenous Peoples’ human rights. When a State determines that it is permissible to proceed with a development project that affects Indigenous Peoples without their consent, and chooses to do so, that decision should be subject to independent judicial review. States and corporations should adhere to the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework. 12. States should ensure that Indigenous Peoples’ rights are respected when expanding protected areas, mitigating climate change and carrying out conservation projects, which often feature high levels of militarization. Indigenous Peoples should be part of any decision-making in such situations. 13. Indigenous Peoples’ rights, including their rights to health, to education and to practise their livelihoods, should act as a constraint on any military programmes targeting their territories. States should implement effectively the international human rights obligations to prevent, protect from and remedy the effects of exposure of Indigenous Peoples to toxics in the context of militarization. 14. States should protect the rights of women and girls to be free from violence resulting from militarization and should ensure effective remedies for women who have been victims of such violence. 15. States should ensure that Indigenous women are included in any consultation processes under article 30 of the Declaration. Indigenous women’s role in protecting their communities from the impact of militarization should be recognized. 16. States should, acting in compliance with international human rights principles, take all steps necessary to properly investigate all allegations of violations of Indigenous Peoples’ rights, particularly by government officials, such as border guards, the military and the police, in situations of conflict or militarization. Furthermore, States should ensure that perpetrators are prosecuted and brought to justice to ensure that such human rights violations do not recur. 17. In upholding their duty to protect, States must ensure that non-State armed groups and private military and security companies do not violate Indigenous Peoples’ rights, including those under domestic and international law. States should refrain from cooperating with such groups in the militarization of Indigenous territories. 18. States should identify and abandon counter-insurgency programmes and counter-terrorism and national security laws that result in the violation of Indigenous Peoples’ rights. Further, States should refrain from utilizing such laws to punish Indigenous human rights defenders. States should not use counter-terrorism or counter-insurgency programmes as a justification for military activities on Indigenous Peoples’ lands. 19. States should establish effective and credible safeguard mechanisms to address human rights abuses against Indigenous Peoples in the context of militarization and conflict, particularly in Indigenous peoples’ attempts to safeguard and use their homelands and territories, including those that transcend national borders and in the transition from conflict to post-conflict situations. Those mechanisms should be developed in cooperation with Indigenous Peoples, civil society actors and national human rights institutions. 20. States are encouraged to establish an independent commission of enquiry to investigate allegations of human rights violations against Indigenous Peoples 20 GE.23-14759