ABSTRACT
In the context of international human rights law, the task of providing a viable criterion for applicability boils down to the interpretation of jurisdiction. Translating the justificatory theory developed here to the legal level, this chapter draws two conclusions. First, the theory calls for a reinterpretation of jurisdiction as the standard that positive law operates on for the applicability of human rights, covering extraterritorial obligations sensu stricto. This chapter suggests, explains, and illustrates a coherent interpretation of jurisdiction—an interpretation that, however, also fits other levels of human rights law. Second, such an account of jurisdiction still leaves a gap, insofar as it cannot account for global obligations to promote the universal fulfillment of human rights—on territory and beyond. It is here where reinterpretation reaches its limits or, in other words, where the proposed account may point to the need for progress in or evolvement of current human rights regimes. In the last section of this chapter, it turns to practicability-based objections against the project of transposing the justificatory theory of extraterritorial human rights obligations to the legal sphere: Considerations of ineffectiveness and inefficiency, unenforceability, overburden, and non-justiciability. It addresses them and explains what measures could be necessary or helpful in order to facilitate the implementation of these undoubtedly complex norms.
