The organizers of this volume had suggested that I write something in Louise Arbour's honour with the “provisional” title: “Human Rights Obligations of Non-State Actors: Are We There Yet?” This reveals, I suppose, that in some quarters it is inevitable that international law and human rights practice will evolve in a progressive way so that armed groups and others will eventually have human rights obligations attached to them. At another level, the proposed title reveals that those of us who have been whining about this topic, for some years now, might be thought by some to be annoying back-seat children pestering the grown-ups, the up-front parents in the driving seats of the serious business of inter-state relations and proper international human rights law.

My premise, in this short piece, is that the issue of the human rights obligations of non-state actors is more complex than the question of how far we have come along the road toward an ultimate consensus as to the existence of international responsibilities. I will argue that non-state actors do already have international human rights obligations (the lack of academic consensus notwithstanding) and that there are several routes by which they can already be held accountable. I will also suggest that the extent of their obligations depends on what kind of non-state actor they are, the context in which they are operating, and any relevant promises made by them. In other words, the scope of their obligations depends on their capacity, context, and commitments.

In a 2005 speech on combating economic social and cultural rights violations, as part of the struggle against torture, Louise Arbour, as United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights, focused on accountability, and in that vein highlighted the adoption of the Optional Protocol to deal with individual complaints about violations of the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights. She then pointed out: “The growing recognition that the private sector has responsibilities to respect human rights is also welcome. But means of holding States and non-State actors accountable for their actions in relation to human rights are still wanting.” In what follows we will explore what sort of growing recognition we are now talking about, and how far we have come in terms of the means of holding non-state actors accountable.