Article

Human rights obligations of territorial non-state actors

Yaël Ronen

• Cornell international law journal, Vol. 46, no. 1, Winter 2013, p. 21-50

English

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This article considers the extension of international human rights law to encompass a particular category of non-state actors (NSAs), namely those that exercise effective territorial control to the exclusion of a government (territorial NSAs). Part I discusses the need for extending international human rights law to NSAs, suggesting that it is particularly appropriate to do so for territorial NSAs. This section also considers the breadth of such an extension. Part II assesses the present state of the law by examining state practice, decisions of judicial and quasi-judicial bodies, and reports of experts in order to determine whether human rights obligations already apply to NSAs as a matter of customary international law. The article concludes with observations about the direction in which the notion of NSA responsibility for human rights violations may be developing at present.

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