Although “international human rights law” is a commonly used phrase, the term is slightly misleading in the sense that so little of this law has been international in nature or in scope. Rather, what has evolved over time has been a system where the responsibility to protect universal human rights - and even the responsibility for violating human rights standards - has been confined to the territorial boundaries of each country. Moreover, although the essence of human rights is to protect the dignity of each and every human being, the law that has been created for this purpose has placed a straightjacket on itself by ignoring some of the most insidious threats to human security.

In this extraordinarily thought-provoking book, Arne Vandenbogaerde attempts to bring international human rights law much closer to what he refers to as the “daily realities of our globalized world.” What this reality shows is this: that so often human insecurity is the result of the acts and omissions of a confluence of actors operating from a variety of places. To be sure, in many instances these harms will come from the hands of one's own state. However, as globalization gallops forward, there are many more instances and opportunities for the policies and practices of one state to have a profound effect - both positive and negative - on human rights protections in other lands, and this is particularly the case in the area of economic, social and cultural rights.

Beyond this, what empirical evidence is now starting to show is that non-state actors pose just as great a threat - arguably, even more of a threat - to human wellbeing than do states. If one doubts this, consider the fact that many of the wealthiest entities in the world are privately held corporations. And one of the things that make them so rich and so powerful is that they frequently set up their operations in countries where governments are weakest and, not coincidentally, where large segments of the host population are destitute and deprived of their human rights.