Law 467: Human Rights Beyond Borders*

Quarter: *Spring 2019 Law (Overlaps with both Winter and Spring Quarter 2019)
Instructor: Ralph Wilde Ralph Wilde

This course considers whether and to what extent international human rights law applies to the actions of states outside their sovereign territories. And what it requires of states insofar as it does apply extraterritorially. The focus is on international law only, not also domestic law. The extraterritorial application of human rights law is one of the most contested and fast-moving areas of human rights law today. It is concerned with important and high-profile activities performed by states outside their borders, from war to occupation and antipiracy and migration-related activities, as well as the more general question of whether economically privileged states have economic duties to people beyond their own citizens. This relatively under-explored area of law is of considerable current interest to governments (including their armed forces), international organizations and human rights NGOs.