Global Justice, State Duties

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

This book asks if states possess extraterritorial obligations under existing international human rights law to respect and ensure economic, social and cultural rights and how far those duties extend. The book is the first of its kind to analyze the principal cross-cutting legal issues at stake.The rise of globalization and the persistence of global poverty are straining the territorial paradigm of human rights. This book asks if states possess extraterritorial obligations under existing international human rights law to respect and ensure economic, social and cultural rights and how far those duties extend. Taking a departure point in theory and practice, the book is the first of its kind to analyze the principal cross-cutting legal issues at stake: the legal status of obligations, jurisdiction, causation, division of responsibility, and remedies and accountability. The book focuses specifically on the role of states but also addresses their duties to regulate powerful nonstate actors. The authors demonstrate that many key issues have been resolved or clarified in international law while others remain controversial or await the development of further practice, particularly the scope of jurisdiction and the quantitative dimension of extraterritorial obligations to fulfil.