3-4/5/2012: Workshop on Litigating Transnational Human Rights Obligations

This year’s Global Campus of Human Rights visual contest was devoted to memory and reconciliation: its narratives, its traumas, its unexpected triumphs. The winners of the Contest were announced by the Chair of the Global Campus, Prof. Veronica Gomez, during the Graduation Ceremony of the European Master in...This year’s Global Campus of Human Rights visual contest was devoted to memory and reconciliation: its narratives, its traumas, its unexpected triumphs. The winners of the Contest were announced by the Chair of the Global Campus, Prof. Veronica Gomez, during the Graduation Ceremony of the European Master in...This year’s Global Campus of Human Rights visual contest was devoted to memory and reconciliation: its narratives, its traumas, its unexpected triumphs. The winners of the Contest were announced by the Chair of the Global Campus, Prof. Veronica Gomez, during the Graduation Ceremony of the European Master in...This year’s Global Campus of Human Rights visual contest was devoted to memory and reconciliation: its narratives, its traumas, its unexpected triumphs. The winners of the Contest were announced by the Chair of the Global Campus, Prof. Veronica Gomez, during the Graduation Ceremony of the European Master in...This year’s Global Campus of Human Rights visual contest was devoted to memory and reconciliation: its narratives, its traumas, its unexpected triumphs. The winners of the Contest were announced by the Chair of the Global Campus, Prof. Veronica Gomez, during the Graduation Ceremony of the European Master in...This year’s Global Campus of Human Rights visual contest was devoted to memory and reconciliation: its narratives, its traumas, its unexpected triumphs. The winners of the Contest were announced by the Chair of the Global Campus, Prof. Veronica Gomez, during the Graduation Ceremony of the European Master in...This year’s Global Campus of Human Rights visual contest was devoted to memory and reconciliation: its narratives, its traumas, its unexpected triumphs. The winners of the Contest were announced by the Chair of the Global Campus, Prof. Veronica Gomez, during the Graduation Ceremony of the European Master in...This year’s Global Campus of Human Rights visual contest was devoted to memory and reconciliation: its narratives, its traumas, its unexpected triumphs. The winners of the Contest were announced by the Chair of the Global Campus, Prof. Veronica Gomez, during the Graduation Ceremony of the European Master in...

Following the May 2011 GLOTHRO stock-taking conference, Mark Gibney and Wouter Vandenhole initiated a book project, tentatively titled Litigating Transnational Human Rights Obligations.

The caselaw on transitional/extraterritorial human rights obligations is virtually non-existent, which reflects not only a newness in the law, but also, a certain degree of hesitancy about litigating in this realm. The goal of this book project is to lead by example, by crafting legally sound judgments from a number of adjudicatory fora – the ICJ, the various regional human rights commissions and courts, domestic tribunals, the individual and inter-state complaint mechanisms in the United Nations, the WTO, and so on – that address a particular “real-world” problem involving the issue of transnational/extraterritorial duties and obligations. What we are hoping to achieve is to present various models for the progressive interpretation of international law.

A secondary objective of this volume is to test the accountability dimension of emerging soft law frameworks and principles, such as the Maastricht Principles on Extraterritorial Obligations in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (September 2011) and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (May 2011).

The ambition is to include the full range of both civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights. Scholars and practitioners from different parts of the world have been asked to submit opinions or “judgments” on transnational human rights obligations. In this meeting at EIUC, authors and some respondents discussed the draft opinions or “judgments”. This workshop served the GLOTHRO overall objectives of creating a research community (in particular including early career researchers) with a global dimension on the topic, and of deepening our understanding of transnational human rights obligations.

For more information on the Research Networking Programme “Beyond Territoriality: Globalization and Transnational Human Rights Obligations” (GLOTHRO), see www.glothro.org
The workshop was organised with the financial support of