30 obligations to respect, to protect, and to fulfill human rights as described above. 2.65. As party to human rights treaties, the Philippines is subject to the interpretations of their monitoring bodies. Notably, the UN Human Rights Committee (the monitoring body for the ICCPR) has clarified that Parties to the ICCPR are under “positive obligations” to protect individuals “against acts committed by private persons or entities that would impair the enjoyment of Covenant rights.”119 The UN Human Rights Committee further states “[t]here may be circumstances in which a failure to ensure Covenant rights … would give rise to violations by State Parties of those rights, as a result of State Parties’ permitting or failing to take appropriate measures or to exercise due diligence to prevent, punish, investigate or redress the harm caused by such acts by private persons or entities.”120 2.66. As such, States are required to protect human rights against violations and abuses arising from acts committed by private entities. In considering matters related to compliance with the ICCPR, the UN Human Rights Committee has “called on State Parties to ‘set out clearly the expectation that all business enterprises domiciled in its territory and/or subject to its jurisdiction respect human rights standards in accordance with the Covenant throughout their operations’ as well as to ‘take appropriate measures to strengthen the remedies for people who have been victims of activities of such business enterprises operating abroad, as well as strengthen the safeguards to prevent people from becoming victims to these.’”121 2.67. These obligations are further recognized by the Philippines through its endorsement of international declarations and its signature or ratification of international environmental agreements that acknowledge the intrinsic relationship between human rights and environmental protection, including the 1972 Stockholm Declaration122 and the 2015 Paris Agreement,123 among others. 119 UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment 31: Nature of the General Legal Obligation Imposed on States Parties to the Covenant, UN Doc CCPR/C/21/Rev1/Add.13, 26 May 2004, para 8. 120 supra., note 119. 121 UN Human Rights Committee, Concluding Observations: Republic of Korea, UN Doc. CCPR/C/KOR/CO.4 (October 2015). 122 The 1972 Stockholm Convention is highly relevant because it is the earliest internationally agreed upon statements connecting the right to life to environmental protection. The Preamble states: “Both aspects of man's environment, the natural and the man-made, are essential to his well-being and to the enjoyment of basic human rights the right to life itself. Principle 1 states: “Man has the fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life, in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being, and he bears a solemn responsibility to protect and improve the environment for present and future generations. United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, 16 June 1972 at Preamble, Principle 1, available at http://www.unep.org/documents.multilingual/default.asp?documentid=97&articleid=1503, last accessed on 06 February 2017. 123 Adoption of the Paris Agreement, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 12 December 2015, FCCC/CP/2015/L.9, available at https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/l09.pdf, last accessed on 06 February 2017.