Cedric Ryngaert is Associate Professor of International Law at Leuven University and Utrecht University. He is the author of, among other publications, Jurisdiction in International Law (OUP 2008).
The Maastricht Principles on Extraterritorial Obligations of States in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the legal Commentary to them, are incredibly rich and progressive materials for which the drafters, including Margot Salomon (whose EJIL:Talk! post on the Maastricht Principles can be found here), deserve all credit. The space allotted to me is too short to discuss the entire document. Therefore, I have decided to limit myself to making two ‘jurisdictional’ observations: one relating to the link between the concepts of human rights jurisdiction and state responsibility, and the other relating to the link between human rights jurisdiction and the principles of jurisdiction under public international law.
(1) It is remarkable that the Maastricht Principles do not draw a direct link between concept of human rights jurisdiction and the concept of state responsibility. The Commentary to Principle 11 (the principle that concerns state responsibility) explicitly states in this respect that ‘[t]he question of state responsibility is distinct from that of jurisdiction as defined in Principles 9 and 10’ – but then does not go on to indicate how both questions actually differ from each other. As a result, Principles 9 and 10 on jurisdiction seems to be floating in mid-air, although they may clearly animate the conditions under which states incur responsibility, as in fact elaborated on in the remainder of the Principles. In my view, there is a clear link between the notions of jurisdiction and state responsibility, and the drafters may have wanted to address it. Read the rest of this entry…
Recent Comments