Challenging Territoriality in Human Rights Law: Building Blocks for a Plural and Diverse Duty-Bearer Regime (Routledge Research in Human Rights Law)

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.

Wouter Vandenhole teaches human rights and holds the UNICEF Chair in Children’s Rights at the Faculty of Law of the University of Antwerp (Belgium). He chairs the Law and Development Research Group of his Faculty, and the European Research Networking Programme GLOTHRO (Beyond Territoriality: Globalization and Transnational Human Rights Obligations). Vandenhole sits on the editorial board of Human Rights and International Legal Discourse and of the Journal of Human Rights Practice. He has researched and published widely on economic, social and cultural rights, children’s rights and transnational human rights obligations. Key publications on transnational human rights obligations include: ‘Extraterritorial Human Rights Obligations: Taking Stock, Looking Forward’ (2013) European Journal of Human Rights; M. Gibney and W. Vandenhole (eds), Litigating Transnational Human Rights Obligations: Alternative Judgments, Routledge Research in Human Rights Law (Routedge 2014); and M. Langford, W. Vandenhole, M. Scheinin and W. van Genugten (eds), Global Justice, State Duties. The Extraterritorial Scope of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in International Law (CUP 2013).