Abstract:
The territorial scope of the application of human rights treaties has been a
core discussion when dealing with the enforcement of human rights
obligations imposed by human rights treaties on State Parties. In particular,
this is because the conduct of a State may affect the human rights of
people situated outside the State’s territorial borders. Accordingly, to afford
protection to the affected States, most international human rights
instruments contain the so-called jurisdictional clause which aims to
identify the range of people to whom States owe their human rights
obligations under a treaty. However, the term “jurisdiction” has not
achieved an undoubted definition as yet and remains a continued area of
contention. The subject matter of this article is the extraterritorial
application of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (ICESCR). It concerns therefore, the applicability of these human
rights treaties to the conduct of a State which affects the rights of people
outside its territorial borders and results in the lack of the full enjoyment of
the human rights recognised in the Covenants, and which would be
qualified as a violation of human rights treaty had it been undertaken on
the State Party’s own territory. Although most of the literature on this topic
relates specifically to armed conflict and military occupation, the author applies the tests established for the determination of the exterritoriality of
the treaties in circumstances inclusive of and beyond armed conflict and
military occupation.
