STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK ON A NATIONAL ACTION PLAN ON BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS FOR MALAYSIA III. USING THE STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK 18. The Strategic Framework is directed at assisting the Government to provide an appropriate policy and regulatory environment to foster business respect for human rights and accountability for businesses’ adverse impacts on society. The Guiding Principles provide an authoritative global framework for doing so, and the Strategic Framework translates this globally applicable blueprint into Malaysia’s unique context. 19. The Guiding Principles seek to integrate human rights considerations into business-related policy-making and business operations. This strategy responds directly to the problem’s root cause: the development of economic institutions, actors and norms without a corresponding development in capacities to manage their adverse impacts on society.17 The Guiding Principles are the culmination of six years of in-depth research, extensive multi-stakeholder consultations and practical road-testing.18 20. The Guiding Principles do not reinvent the wheel. They build on existing institutions, mechanisms, processes, regulatory tools etc. and do not necessarily require the creation of new ones, although doing so is not precluded. For example, corporate governance reporting measures, which conventionally require the disclosure of information that affects a company’s financial bottom line, may be redefined to increase corporate transparency in relation to the businesses’ human rights risks and impacts. Existing corporate risk management processes may be built upon to establish systems that manage not only risks to the company’s financial bottom line, but also risks posed by business operations to the rights of individuals and communities. Public procurement criteria may be expanded to include human rights criteria. These are but a few examples. Notably, stakeholders consulted by the Commission have observed that the measures proposed by the Guiding Principles are not foreign to them.19 21. The Strategic Framework uses the Guiding Principles to articulate a set of policy objectives specific to Malaysia’s context. In the Commission’s view, these policy objectives should be achieved in order to ensure that Malaysia has an appropriate policy and regulatory environment for fostering corporate respect and accountability for human rights. This set of policy objectives is not exhaustive. Further, the Commission recognises that the Guiding Principles provide a minimum standard for action and do not foreclose further developments.20 22. It is essential for a process to develop an NAP on business and human rights to be Governmentowned and led. It is also essential that the NAP be formulated based on adequate, informed and inclusive stakeholder consultations. Currently, however, awareness of the Guiding Principles must be increased among Government and non-governmental stakeholders. The Strategic Framework has been formulated with these considerations in mind. 7