In this chapter, I explore how the new Court, immediately after its creation in 1998, enforced increasingly lower thresholds of severity to find a violation under the prohibition of torture and introduced several key positive obligations. I provide a detailed assessment of how, with a few audacious rulings, the new Court reversed the compromises made by the old Court, especially regarding the member states’ national security concerns. Different from the old Court, the new Court could act audaciously across the board. The most visible implication of this was the fact that the new Court accepted almost all the novel claims brought before it—even those concerning resource-intensive positive obligations and the violations perpetrated by private actors. As epitomes of sudden change, these positive obligations assumed a taken-for-granted status not long after their initial acknowledgment. Having described the achievements of the new Court, I also discuss the areas where progress was slower. In particular, I take a look at the Court’s treatment of claims arising from systemic racist policies.

This chapter critically discusses the proceduralisation of due diligence obligations. The chapter defines proceduralisation as a process gradually eroding the ‘reasonable’ standard traditionally linked to due diligence and substituting it with specific legal parameters. Through proceduralisation, the content of due diligence obligations is ‘spelled out’ into a series of sub-duties, tecnical standards and direct obligations (including procedural ones) whose fulfilment is required for assessing compliance with the standard of due diligece of the ‘principal’ obligation. The first part of this chapter critically explores this phenomenon, arguing that proceduralisation through interpretative practice raises challenges and comes close to creating new legal rules. The second part illustrates proceduralisation through two case studies taken from international environmental protection and due diligence obligations in international human rights law. The chapter argues that the proceduralisation of due diligence obligations fundamentally tests their dogmatic structure by affecting their nature and content.

This chapter deals with the creation of private rights in areas of uncertain jurisdiction. What kinds of rights are they and what are their features? Do states possess the same competence to create private rights in delimited and undelimited spaces? To address the above, the chapter first discusses the creation of private rights by states in general. Then, it examines whether the lack of clearly established boundaries prohibits or otherwise hinders states from granting private rights in land and maritime spaces which are also claimed by other states. It is concluded that the absence of fixed international boundaries does not affect the powers of states to create private rights on land or at sea, even in areas claimed by two or more parties. Rather, the states’ competence to create private rights in areas of uncertain jurisdiction rests on the bona fide claim of a legal title. Although this claim may be rebutted or reduced by the establishment of an international boundary, the said private rights are legitimate and active.

This chapter discusses the development of negative and positive human rights obligations under international human rights law (IHRL) and their applicability to hostage-taking. It is shown that the development of IHRL can be fundamental for the protection of the human rights of hostages, filling in the gaps left by jurisdiction in international law and state responsibility, as states have a duty to protect the human rights of hostages by adopting all possible measures to prevent hostage-taking; taking action to end the violations that hostages suffer at the hands of their abductors; investigating a hostage incident and rescue operation; and compensating the victims. Chapter 5 also discusses the jurisdictional limitations of the human rights framework which sit uncomfortably in the transboundary nature of hostage-taking. The second part of the chapter therefore reassesses the human rights obligations of states which operate beyond their borders in order to release hostages.