Handbook: For Human Rights Beyond Borders

29. September 2017

In today’s highly interdependent world, decisions by States often have impacts beyond their own national borders. These decisions can affect the enjoyment of human rights in other countries. Through their domestic and foreign policies and practices, as well as the international norms and standards they promote, States individually and jointly shape the international legal, political and economic environment in which other States operate.

The handbook and toolkit “Human Rights beyond Borders: How to hold States accountable for extraterritorial violations” aims to serve as a practical guide for human rights advocates and social movements in monitoring and holding States accountable on their compliance with extraterritorial obligations (ETOs).

The intention of the handbook is to make the Maastricht Principles on the ETOs of States more accessible and relevant to civil society by illustrating, with concrete examples, how they relate to specific policy fields and sites of social struggle, and can be used in these contexts to hold States accountable for extraterritorial violations.

The handbook is the result of a collaborative effort by the members of the ETO Consortium whose experiences and insights in working with ETOs are reflected. The handbook goes hand in hand with a toolkit which contains practical tools for analyzing and arguing ETO cases, as well as for identifying entry points at the national, regional and international level for denouncing extraterritorial violations of human rights and promoting State adherence to ETOs.

Handbook: For Human Rights Beyond Borders