Universal Rights, Differentiated Responsibilities: Safeguarding rights beyond borders to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals

Countries: 
Costa Rica
Netherlands
Ireland

The Center for Economic and Social Rights, in partnership with the Third World Network, authored the following policy brief on the importance of extraterritorial human rights obligations in the context of Financing for Development and the Post-2015 Development Agenda. The brief sets out how human rights provied a normative framework that can help deliniate states' duties and proposes that extraterritorial human rights obligations can shed light on the current discussions around international cooperation and finance. The authors suggest ten ways that states can align their sustainable development and financing commitments with the international duties triggered when their actions have effects outside their borders.