Extraterritorial Obligations in the United Nations System: U.N. Treaty-Based Bodies

Abstract

The United Nations is a complex system exhibiting a number of various approaches to regulating, governing and enforcing extraterritorial obligations (ETOs). This chapter focuses on the activity of five U.N. treaty-based bodies aimed at monitoring the implementation of the core international human rights treaties – the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, the Human Rights Committee, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the manner in which they have reformed international law relating to ETOs. The chapter provides a general overview of the U.N. treaty bodies’ interpretation and classification of ETOs as well as their approach to regulating and enforcing remedial extraterritorial obligations and global obligations, including obligations of extraterritorial cooperation and assistance. Following that, it explores the U.N. treaty bodies’ methods of assigning ETOs to states and non-state actors and their role as accountability mechanisms capable of holding states responsible for breaching their ETOs.

Keywords: Extraterritorial obligations, U.N. treaty bodies, human rights, United Nations System, global obligations