A/HRC/21/47 standards.3 All these safeguards, including the State’s duty to consult, are specific expressions of a precautionary approach that should guide decision-making about any measure that may affect rights over lands and resources and other rights that are instrumental to the survival of indigenous peoples. 53. Consultation and consent and related safeguards are instrumental to securing indigenous peoples’ rights in the face of extractive industries that operate or seek to operate on or near their territories, but understanding the reach of those underlying substantive rights and the potential impacts on those rights must be a starting point for solving the many questions that arise in this context. 2. Duty of States to protect and the responsibility of corporations to respect the human rights of indigenous peoples in relation to extractive activities 54. The Special Rapporteur has observed a high level of acceptance by States and transnational business enterprises of the “protect, respect and remedy” framework that is incorporated into the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (A/HRC/17/31, annex) that were endorsed by the Human Rights Council in 2011 in its resolution 17/4. The Guiding Principles affirm the well-established maxim of international law that States have a duty to protect human rights, including against abuses by business enterprises and other third parties, through appropriate policies, regulation and adjudication. The second pillar of the Guiding Principles is the responsibility of corporations to respect human rights by acting with due diligence to avoid infringing or contributing to the infringement of human rights. The third is the need for effective remedies to redress violations when they occur. 55. While the Special Rapporteur has observed a high level of acceptance of the Guiding Principles and their “protect, respect and remedy” framework, he has also noted ambiguity among Government and corporate actors about the extent to or manner in which the Guiding Principles relate to the standards of human rights that specifically concern indigenous peoples. This ambiguity should be dispelled in favour of a clear understanding that the Guiding Principles apply to advance the specific rights of indigenous peoples in the same way as they advance human rights more generally, when those rights are affected or potentially affected by business activities, including extractive industries. There is no sound reason to exclude the human rights standards that apply specifically to indigenous peoples from the application of the Guiding Principles, and to do so would be contrary to the injunction, found among the Guiding Principles’ introductory paragraphs, that they should be applied “in a non-discriminatory manner”, with particular attention to the rights and needs of groups that are vulnerable or marginalized. 56. The Special Rapporteur notes that the Expert Mechanism, in its recent follow-up report on indigenous peoples and the right to participate in decision-making (A/HRC/EMRIP/2011/2), discussed the relationship between the Guiding Principles and the rights of indigenous peoples. The Special Rapporteur joins the Expert Mechanism in affirming that all the Guiding Principles are to be applied specifically to indigenous peoples with due regard to the relevant international standards, and he urges all concerned to take account of the Expert Mechanism’s exposition of the particular implications of the Guiding Principles in the context of extractive industries operating or seeking to operate within or near indigenous territories (A/HRC/EMRIP/2011/2, paras. 26-28). 57. It bears reiterating here that the State’s protective role in the context of extractive industries entails ensuring a regulatory framework that fully recognizes indigenous peoples’ 3 14 See Saramaka, paras. 138-140 (identifying participation, impact assessments and benefit-sharing as safeguards). See also, for discussion of these safeguards in the context of corporate responsibility, A/HRC/15/37, paras. 71-80.