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3.3. Extraterritorial obligations In addition to policies regarding business and human rights defenders nationally, States should use NAPs to outline how their laws, policies, and actions will regulate and incentivise the actions of the State’s businesses abroad in relation to human rights defenders. The Declaration on Human Rights Defenders affirms that “no one shall participate, by act or by failure to act where required, in violating human rights and fundamental freedom.”36 The Declaration elucidates how existing binding international human rights law applies to human rights defenders, and discusses the duties of ‘organs of society,’ which includes business. As such, companies may have a duty to act in circumstances where the conduct of a third party (for example, the State in which it operates) relates to its business and where a failure to act would lead to avoidable harm. Deference to local laws of the host State is not sufficient reason for businesses working abroad to undermine the rights of human rights defenders or fail to speak out against attacks and restrictions to defenders’ work.37 NAPs should enshrine an expectation that companies also address the underlying situation leading to such ‘conflicting requirements.’ Concretely, this means business should speak out proactively against local laws and policies that restrict the work of human rights defenders or perpetuate a climate of attacks and impunity. This is particularly the case where there are allegations or proof, such as by international human rights mechanisms, that local laws or policies are incompatible with the host States’ obligations under international law.38 States should articulate through their NAPs how they will encourage and incentivise businesses abroad to freeze, withdraw, or restrict their investments and projects when human rights defenders are threatened, attacked, or restricted by laws or criminalisation. As an example, in March 2016, in response to the murder of Berta Cáceres, an indigenous human rights defender who identified human rights concerns around a hydroelectric project in Honduras, the Dutch development bank FMO and the Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation (Finnfund) froze their funding of the project, condemned the murder, and made a public call for a thorough investigation.39 Subsequently, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights defined the response as “surely among the minimum required for a financier in a situation like this,” calling upon all organisations financing projects to show they take human rights risks seriously.40 A NAP that is serious about protecting human rights must tackle the risks facing all those who defend these rights, not just those domiciled within the State. It must contain concrete policies and actions designed to recognise and protect human rights defenders both within the State in question, but also abroad in countries where business enterprises and investors domiciled in the State in question, including wholly or partially owned subsidiaries, operate. 9