Human rights have traditionally been framed in a vertical perspective with the duties of States confined to their own citizens or residents. Interpretations of international human rights treaties tend either to ignore or downplay obligations beyond this ‘territorial space’. This edited volume challenges the territorial bias of mainstream human rights law. It argues that with increased globalisation and the impact of international corporations, organisations and non-State actors, human rights law will become less relevant if it fails to adapt to changing realities in which States are no longer the only leading actor. Bringing together leading scholars in the field, the book explores potential applications of international human rights law in a multi-duty bearer setting. The first part of the book examines the current state of the human rights obligations of foreign States, corporations and international financial institutions, looking in particular at the ways in which they address questions of attribution and distribution of obligations and responsibility. The second part is geared towards the identification of common principles that may underpin a human rights legal regime that incorporates obligations of foreign States as well as of non-State actors. As a marker of important progress in understanding what lies ahead for integrating foreign States and non-State actors in the human rights dutybearer regime, this book will be of great interest to scholars and practitioners of international human rights law, public international law and international relations.

In an epoch of transnational armed conflict, global environmental harm, and rising inequality, the extraterritorial application of human rights law has become a pressing and controversial legal issue. The faultlines of the Westphalian order are the meridians along which the extraterritorial application of human rights run, as human rights are invoked to address a panoply of global-scale problems, from transborder environmental harm, to social and economic development and global inequality, to the repression of piracy in ungoverned spaces, and military occupation and armed conflict in the territory of a third state.

This book offers a comprehensive, highly informative and interdisciplinary study on territorial integrity and the challenges globalization, self-determination and external interventions present. This study aims at not only to fill an epistemological gap in this regard, but also answer the question of whether International Law is adequately equipped to help states address these challenges. The author argues that the biggest threat that many states are confronted with today is their disintegration rather than their obsolescence, and that International Law has not often been able to prevent that eventuality. In fact, states, when they were not destroyed by war, managed to survive, thanks to the flexibility of territoriality, i.e. their ability to adjust to difficult situations as they arose. It is this understanding of adaptation that urges an increasing number of states today to revive territorial autonomy and restore an original understanding of self-determination in which democracy is a pivotal factor in establishing congruence between the states and their nations. While this move is endorsed by International Law, it is not the case for globalization; for their own sake, proponents of globalization should recognize that the states are irreplaceable as long as they remain the sole providers of protection for their peoples.

An analysis of international human rights law's applicability and effectiveness in geographic areas where the State has lost territorial control.

Transnational business activities are important drivers of growth for developing and the least developed countries. However, they can also negatively impact the enjoyment of human rights. In some cases, multinational enterprises (MNEs) have even been accused of grave human rights abuses in the territory of the states where their subsidiaries operate. Since the parent companies of many MNEs are incorporated under the law of European states, those countries’ domestic law and the European legal framework play a crucial role in establishing how their activities should be conducted – also throughout their supply chains – and which remedies will be available when corporate human rights violations occur. In recent years, the European Union, the Council of Europe and their Member States have been adopting policies and legislation to ensure respect for human rights by businesses and have developed a body of related case law. These legal instruments can be considered the European responses to the challenges posed at international-law level, and they constitute the focus of research of this book. Through its collected chapters – written by scholars and practitioners under the direction of the editor, Angelica Bonfanti – the book identifies the European solutions to the business and human rights international legal issues, provides an overall assessment of their effectiveness, and examines their potential evolution.

Human rights have traditionally been framed in a vertical perspective with the duties of States confined to their own citizens or residents. Obligations beyond this territorial space have been viewed as either being absent or minimalistic at best. However, the territorial paradigm has now been seriously challenged in recent years in part because of the increasing awareness of the ability of States and other actors to impact human rights far from home both positively and negatively. In response to this awareness various legal principles have come into existence setting out some transnational human rights obligations of varying degrees. However, notwithstanding these initiatives, judicial institutions and monitoring bodies continue to show an enormous hesitancy in moving beyond a territorial reading of international human rights law. This book addresses the issue in an innovative and challenging way by crafting legally sound hypothetical "judgments" from a number of adjudicatory fora. The judgments are based on real world situations where extraterritorial or transnational issues have emerged, and draw on existing international human rights law, albeit a progressive interpretation of this law. The book shows that there are a number of judicial and quasi-judicial systems where transnational human rights claims can, and should be enforced. These include: the World Trade Organization; the International Court of Justice; the regional human rights monitoring bodies; domestic courts; and the UN treaty bodies. Each hypothetical judgment is accompanied by detailed commentary placing it in context in order to show how international human rights law can address issues of a transnational character. The book will be of interest to human scholars and lawyers, practitioners, activists and aid officials.

This book provides an innovative outlook of the various challenges of international law in the Asian region. Moving away from the Eurocentrism prevalent in the literature on the subject, it provides a comprehensive Asian perspective without adopting a monolithic or homogeneous Asian approach. Although Asian countries converge on certain issues related to international law, such as engagement with the United Nations, at times, there is a significant divergence, such as in the case of agricultural trade liberalisation. Given the vastness of the region and the differing political systems, there are many discrepancies to consider. The book takes into account the viewpoint of civil society so as to avoid a vertical state‐centred approach. Offering an easy-to-understand presentation of key issues concerning the region, this book is a useful introduction to this complex topic for students, academics and practitioners of international law.