From the Foreword by Prof. Olivier De Schutter, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food: "This volume is the result of over ten years of research conducted jointly by non-governmental organisations and universities. It presents a range of cases in which the actions or omissions of States have impact on the enjoyment of human rights outside their national territory, raising the question of whether, and under which conditions, such conduct may engage the international responsibility of the States concerned. When the Maastricht Principles on Extraterritorial Obligations of States in the area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights were adopted on 28 September 2011, it is these cases, among others, that the experts who developed these principles had in mind. As such, the series of case studies presented by Fons Coomans and Rolf KÃ?1⁄4nnemann is at the cutting edge both of human rights activism and of human rights doctrine. This volume provides clear evidence both that the Maastricht Principles are useful and important, and that if we accept to build on the extraterritorial obligations of States, the accountability gap that economic globalization has created can be closed." *** This book is essential reading for academics, students, non-governmental organizations, and other practitioners. The human rights community should start making the analysis of extraterritorial obligations a standard part of its casework. The cases in this book show why this is necessary and how this can be done. (Series: Maastricht Series in Human Rights)

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.

This exciting Research Handbook combines practitioner and academic perspectives to provide a comprehensive, cutting edge analysis of economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR), as well as the connection between ESCR and other rights. Offering an authoritative analysis of standards and jurisprudence, it argues for an expansive and inclusive approach to ESCR as human rights.

Recent years have seen a remarkable expansion in the scale and importance of economic, social, and cultural rights (ESC rights), culminating in the adoption of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in December 2008. The Protocol gives individuals and groups the ability to bring complaints about rights violations before the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. Against this background, this book focuses on the question of how fundamental socio-economic human rights enshrined in international law are defined, interpreted, understood, and implemented. It assesses how effective efforts to realize ESC rights have been and investigates the contemporary challenges obstructing their protection. It sets out the impact of the global financial crisis and austerity measures, the human rights responsibilities of corporations, and trends in the justiciability of those rights at the national and international level. The interrelationship between ESC rights and other legal regimes such as trade and investment law, environmental law, international criminal law, and international humanitarian law is also thoroughly examined. After an introduction by the editors the book contains seventeen chapters looking at the main questions which shape the progressive realization of ESC rights and their monitoring mechanisms. The authors of the chapters, both scholars and practitioners, adopt interdisciplinary approaches that move beyond traditional analyses of ESC rights. In doing so, they clarify and illuminate multiple aspects of the law by bringing together the different aspects of ESC rights, restating the challenges they face, and assessing the progress that has been made in expanding their adoption.

Explores whether states possess extraterritorial obligations under international law to respect and ensure economic, social and cultural rights.

States are reticent to support the idea that they have human rights obligations to people other than their own. However decades of United Nations consideration and human rights standard-setting in the area of international cooperation have advanced interpretations of the obligation whereby economic and other policies should be designed in such a way as to avoid causing injury to the interests of developing States and to the rights of their people, and, moreover, should actively seek to address existing deprivations. This latter obligation to fulfil socio-economic rights elsewhere gives rise to a host of important legal issues that provide the focus for this article. Should we understand the obligations to be those of individual States or can we speak of collective legal obligations in this area? Is the extraterritorial obligation to fulfil socio-economic rights limited to the transfer of financial resources, and if not what else might it entail? Are they best framed as secondary obligations triggered only if the rights-holder's own State is unable or unwilling to fulfil them or as simultaneous obligations? If, as per the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and its monitoring Committee we recognise capacity as a basis to assist, how might the obligations among all those States with capacity be divided? In complying with these positive obligations of international assistance and cooperation what would constitute an unreasonable cost on the part of a State acting extraterritorially? In exploring these questions, this paper offers insights from the author's membership in the Drafting Committee of the 2011 Maastricht Principles on the Extraterritorial Obligations of States in the area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and presents the current state of legal play.