gender- and diversity-sensitive approach should be mainstreamed into all activities to strengthen the protection of human rights defenders. 10. Conducive legal, administrative and institutional framework: Domestic legal, administrative and institutional frameworks should contribute to creating and consolidating a safe and enabling environment, in which human rights defenders are protected, supported and empowered to carry out their legitimate activities. Domestic laws, regulations, policies and practices must be compatible with OSCE commitments and international human rights standards. They must be sufficiently precise to ensure legal certainty and prevent them from being arbitrarily applied. The institutional framework must guarantee the fundamental principle of fairness and due legal process. 11. Legality, necessity and proportionality of limitations on fundamental rights in connection with human rights work: International human rights instruments only allow for limitations on certain rights and only if limitations have a formal basis in law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interest of one of the prescribed grounds. Furthermore, they must be proportionate and compatible with other fundamental human rights principles, including the prohibition of discrimination. International human rights mechanisms have emphasized that the scope for permissible limitations must generally be interpreted narrowly. The fact that the right to defend human rights is instrumental for the achievement of all other rights further narrows the scope for permissible limitations. The threshold to meet the principles of necessity and proportionality of any such limitations can be considered particularly high. II. PHYSICAL INTEGRITY, LIBERTY AND SECURITY AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS A. Protection from threats, attacks and other abuses 12. State institutions and officials must refrain from any acts of intimidation or repri- sals by threats, damage and destruction of property, physical attacks, torture and other ill-treatment, killing, enforced disappearance or other physical or psychological harm targeting human rights defenders and their families. Participating States also have a duty to protect human rights defenders from such acts by nonstate actors and to take steps to prevent abuses. Public authorities should publicly condemn such acts and apply a policy of zero tolerance. Impunity and effective remedies 13. All allegations of such acts must be promptly, thoroughly and independently investigated in a transparent manner. The existence of independent and effective oversight mechanisms to investigate complaints about abuses by police and other state officials and their accessibility to human rights defenders are an essential Guidelines on the Protection of Human Rights Defenders 3