A/HRC/RES/40/11 14. Calls upon States: (a) To respect, protect and fulfil human rights, including in all actions undertaken to address environmental challenges, including the rights to life and to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, to an adequate standard of living, to adequate food and housing, safe drinking water and sanitation, and cultural rights, and to human rights as they relate to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment; (b) To adopt and implement strong and effective laws or policies ensuring, among other things, the right to take part in the conduct of public affairs and in cultural life, the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and equal access to justice, including to an effective remedy, in the field of the environment; (c) To facilitate public awareness of and participation in environmental decisionmaking, implementation, monitoring and follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including of civil society, women, children, youth, indigenous peoples, rural and local communities, peasants and others who depend directly on biodiversity and the services provided by ecosystems, by protecting all human rights, including the rights to freedom of expression and to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, both online and offline; (d) To implement fully their obligations to respect, protect and fulfil human rights without distinction of any kind, including in the application of environmental laws and policies; (e) To provide a safe and empowering context for initiatives organized by young people and children to defend human rights relating to the environment; (f) To promote a safe and enabling environment in which individuals, groups and organs of society, including those working on human rights and environmental issues, including biodiversity, can operate free from violence, threats, hindrance and insecurity; (g) To provide for effective remedies for human rights violations and abuses, including those relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment, in accordance with their international obligations and commitments; (h) To establish or maintain effective legal and institutional frameworks to regulate the activities of public and private actors in order to prevent, reduce and remedy harm to biodiversity, taking into account human rights obligations and commitments relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment; (i) To take into account human rights obligations and commitments relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment in the genderresponsive implementation of and follow-up to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, bearing in mind the integrated and multi-sectoral nature of the latter; 15. Also calls upon States to promote and enable public participation, and to promote transparency, accountability and effective governance, in the prevention of and the fight against corruption involving State officials, business representatives and other nonState actors, and in raising public awareness regarding the existence, causes and gravity of and the threat posed by corruption, including all possible impact on the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights, and further calls upon all States to respect, promote and protect the freedom of everyone to seek, receive, publish and disseminate information concerning corruption, including by protecting the actors doing so, including environmental human rights defenders; 16. Urges States to bear in mind the importance of the empowerment and capacity-building of indigenous peoples, including their full and effective participation in decision-making processes in matters that affect them directly, and of consultations in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent, and the important role indigenous human rights defenders play in this regard, and encourages States to work towards achieving the ends of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and also encourages those States that have not yet ratified or acceded to the Indigenous and Tribal 5