The International Protection of Human Rights

States have an obligation to protect human rights and this obligation arises from international conventions that states have ratified. It can be said that there are three approaches to the basis of the human rights obligation.The first is the normative theory of human rights, i.e. the human rights obligation is based on a normative relationship between the right holder and a state.The second is that effective protection is difficult if there are no remedies available to the right holder. These remedies are available if the right-holder is under the jurisdiction of the state.The third approach is called universalist. Under this approach, the human rights obligation is established merely by virtue of belonging to a legal space for the protection of human rights or where the state knew, ought to have known and had the capacity to prevent human rights violations.The universalist approach also implies a duty of care in extraterritorial cases.