As the review of the United States before the Human Rights Committee approaches, and the United States prepares to present its views to the HRC, this panel is a timely review of the converging views on extraterritorial applications of human rights obligations in international human rights bodies as a backdrop for a discussion of the United States' position. Professor Manfred Nowak will review the ECHR jurisprudence on extraterritoriality, Claret Vargas will review the HRC's interpretations, and Professor BethVan Schaack will present a nuanced overview of the United States' position and will offer some proposals for the US to depart from its current position while continuing to protect its interests.

Beth Van Schaack is Professor of Law at Santa Clara University, she is currently a visiting scholar at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. In 2012, she was appointed as the deputy to U.S. Ambassador-At-Large for War Crimes Issues in the U.S. State Department’s Office of Global Criminal Justice.

Manfred Nowak is Professor of International Law and Human Rights at the University of Vienna, Faculty of Law and former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. He is Visiting Professor at Stanford Law School and holder of the Austrian Visiting Chair at Stanford University.

Claret Vargas is the Executive Director of the Stanford Human Rights Center at Stanford Law School.