FROM TERRITORY TO AUTHORITY: RETHINKING STATE RESPONSIBILITY IN HUMAN RIGHTS JURISDICTION

THE REDWOOD JOURNAL Website: www.the redwood journal.com  VOLUME:-1 ISSUE NO:- 1 , MAY 10, 2026 ISSN (ONLINE):-  Email: thelawwaywithelawyers@gmail.com  Authored By :- SOWNDARIYA S   FROM TERRITORY TO AUTHORITY: RETHINKING STATE RESPONSIBILITY IN HUMAN RIGHTS JURISDICTION     ABSTRACT Borders have never fully contained power, and in today’s interconnected world, they do so even less. States increasingly exercise authority beyond their territorial limits through cross-border surveillance, extraterritorial military operations, and economic sanctions, yet international human rights law continues to struggle with holding them accountable. This paper interrogates whether a state’s human rights obligations end at its territorial borders. Drawing on the jurisprudence of the Human Rights Committee, the European Court of Human Rights, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, it traces the evolution of jurisdiction from a strictly territorial concept to one based on “effective control” and “authority and control over individuals.” The paper examines three contested domains, military operations abroad, cyber and surveillance practices, and economic coercion, to assess the extent of this doctrinal expansion. It argues that a narrow, geography-based understanding of jurisdiction creates a protection gap, leaving individuals vulnerable where state action and control  is most impactful. In response, the paper proposes a functional model of jurisdiction that anchors human rights responsibility in the exercise of power rather than territorial presence, thereby aligning legal accountability with contemporary realities of state action. Keywords: Extraterritorial Jurisdiction; Human Rights Law; State Responsibility; Effective Control; ICCPR; Functional Jurisdiction   Page No:- 1 INTRODUCTION When a state deploys surveillance technology to monitor a journalist in a foreign country, conducts a targeted killing in territory where it has no formal presence, or imposes economic sanctions that foreseeably deny a civilian population access to medicine — who bears legal responsibility? The instinctive answer points to the territorial state. But the state that causes harm is increasingly not the state on whose soil that harm is felt. This disjunction between the location of power and the location of consequence sits at the heart of one of the most contested problems in contemporary international human rights law. International human rights treaties were drafted with a predominantly territorial logic. Article 2(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) obliges each state party to respect and ensure rights “to all individuals within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction.” The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) extends obligations to everyone “within their jurisdiction.” These formulations assumed a world in which a state’s effective sphere of action coincided, more or less, with its geographic borders. That assumption no longer holds. States today project power through digital surveillance, unmanned aerial vehicles, financial coercion, and proxy operations that traverse borders with increasing ease and decreasing visibility. This paper adopts a doctrinal and analytical methodology based on treaty interpretation, judicial decisions, and scholarly commentary in international human rights law. This paper argues that a geography-bound interpretation of jurisdiction is no longer adequate to the task of human rights protection. Part II surveys the legal framework governing extraterritorial jurisdiction. Part III analyses the jurisprudential arc across three major international bodies. Part IV examines three hard cases where current doctrine is most severely tested. Part V proposes a functional model of jurisdiction. Part VI concludes.  THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK: JURISDICTION AS THRESHOLD Textual Foundations  The concept of jurisdiction in international human rights law functions as a threshold question: before any substantive human rights obligation can be engaged, a state must be found to exercise jurisdiction over the individual asserting a rights violation. This gatekeeper role carries significant consequences. A state that falls outside the jurisdictional threshold faces no obligation, regardless of the gravity of the harm it has caused. The foundational provision is Article 2(1) of the ICCPR, which binds state parties to respect and ensure rights “to all individuals within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction.” The drafting history suggests that “jurisdiction” was not intended as a synonym for “territory” — the disjunctive structure implies that territorial presence is one basis for jurisdiction, not the only one. The ECHR, in Article 1, omits any territorial qualifier altogether. The American Convention on Human Rights (Article 1(1)) and the African Charter (Article 1) similarly use jurisdictional rather than purely territorial language. The text, properly read, does not foreclose extraterritorial application. What has varied is the willingness of adjudicative bodies to fill that space. Two Models of Jurisdiction Scholarship and jurisprudence have identified two broad models. The spatial model holds that jurisdiction attaches when a state exercises effective control over a territory — typically through military occupation or comparable presence. The personal model holds that jurisdiction attaches when a state exercises effective control or authority over a specific individual, regardless of where that individual is located. These models are not mutually exclusive, and courts have often blended them. Understanding the tension between them is essential to evaluating the trajectory of the case law. III. THE JURISPRUDENTIAL ARC The European Court of Human Rights The ECtHR’s initial position, articulated in Banković v. Belgium, appeared to restrict jurisdiction to a regional “legal space” (espace juridique) constituted by Convention states. The case arose from the NATO bombing of the Radio Television Serbia building in Belgrade in 1999. The court declined jurisdiction, reasoning that nationals of a non-Convention state injured in a non-Convention territory were not within the respondent states’ jurisdiction. The decision attracted sharp criticism for its geographic rigidity and was substantially qualified in subsequent decisions.   Page No:- 2 In Loizidou v. Turkey, the court held that Turkey’s military control over northern Cyprus brought that territory within Turkey’s Convention jurisdiction. In Al-Skeini v. United Kingdom, the court moved decisively toward the personal model: the United Kingdom, exercising public powers in southern Iraq following the invasion, was found to exercise jurisdiction over Iraqi civilians killed by British forces. The court expressly acknowledged that jurisdiction could exist in the absence of territorial control, provided there was control over the individual. Al-Skeini represents a significant doctrinal shift — reconceiving jurisdiction as context-sensitive, tied to the actual