Human Rights Unbound

Abstract

This book develops a theory of extraterritorial human rights obligations in international law. It links debates on human rights theory with those relating to extraterritoriality and merges accounts of economic social and cultural rights with those of civil and political rights. It advances four main arguments aimed at changing the way we think about extraterritoriality of human rights. First, it is argued that the questions regarding extraterritoriality are really about justifying the allocation of human rights obligations to specific states. Second, the book shows that human rights as found in international human rights treaties are underpinned by the values of integrity and equality. Third, it is argued that these same values justify the allocation of human rights obligations towards specific individuals to public institutions—including states—that hold political power over said individuals. And fourth, the book argues that title to territory is best captured by the value of stability, as opposed to integrity and equality. If these arguments are successful, their consequence is a major shift in how we view extraterritorial human rights obligations. Namely, the upshot is that all standards in international human rights treaties that count as human rights require that a threshold of jurisdiction, understood as political power, is met. However, on the present account, this threshold is not just a conceptual necessity but a normative one as well. It is needed because it not only describes, but also justifies the allocation of obligations.

Justice in the Liminal: The Council of Europe and the Right to a Healthy Environment

“…Under the case law of the Court as it currently stands, drawing on the jurisdictional norm in Article 1 of the ECHR, it appears almost impossible for people from developing countries-who face the brunt of climate-related harms213 -to rely on the ECHR to challenge the actions of historically and currently high-emitting CoE Member States. Or, as Lea Raible has noted, '[h]uman rights are still primarily a national affair' 214. While the ECtHR does not yet have case law specific to cross-border environmental impacts,…”