This is an interpretive guide, meaning that it clarifies how the content of the Guiding Principles should be understood. It is not an operational manual that will explain how to put the Guiding Principles into practice. Rather, the guide provides an overview of the access to remedy pillar, explains the key principles and concepts that underpin it, and addresses some common misconceptions. The guide is complemented by a set of compilations of guidance from the Accountability and Remedy Project, which provide recommended actions for enhancing the effectiveness of the different types of remedial mechanisms relevant to resolving cases relating to business and human rights. Numerous other operational tools have been developed since the endorsement of the Guiding Principles, including targeted and theme-based guidance published by OHCHR and the Working Group on business and human rights. In addition, other organizations continue to develop their own approaches, focusing on implementation of the access to remedy pillar. It is hoped that this guide will assist them in doing so by explaining further the intent behind the Guiding Principles as regards access to remedy.

Ensuring access to remedy demands action from many different kinds of actors, both State based and non State based. While “effective judicial mechanisms are at the core of ensuring access to remedy”,5 many other kinds of mechanisms and actors also play an essential role in complementing and supplementing the vital work of law enforcement bodies, prosecutors and courts. It is hoped that, by highlighting the different ways in which these diverse actors may contribute to access to remedy, the present guide will encourage further policy innovation, for example by fostering a greater understanding of the value of coordinated action between different types of actors and mechanisms and of the conditions under which this can take place.