While states' obligations under human rights are often seen as being related primarily to persons in their respective territories, in times of globalization the access of people to food and resources is increasingly influenced by acts or omissions of foreign states, of intergovernmental organizations, and by transnational corporations. States' human rights obligations towards persons outside their territories (extraterritorial obligations) have therefore gained importance - in the fields of development assistance, trade and investment, and the regulation of transnational corporations.
States have the obligations to respect, protect and fulfill the right to food both at home and abroad. Violations of extraterritorial states obligations (ETOs) can take various forms such as the co-financing of dam or mining projects lacking proper rehabilitation and compensation in the framework of bilateral or multilateral development cooperation, or the failure to exercise due diligence in the context of World Bank policy advice leading to the destruction of livelihoods, or the signature of international agreements like new trade rules which destroy access to food and resources for certain vulnerable groups. The exercise of states' ETOs in intergovernmental organizations, and the implied human rights obligations of these organizations, provide important challenges. The same is true for the implementation of protect-bound obligations in the international regulation of transnational corporations. 
FIAN's work on ETOs concentrates on clarifying the concept and defining strategies and objectives on the basis of case-work. FIAN cooperates in an international "ETO-Consortium" of NGOs and international lawyers which aims at deriving the respective legal principles. One particular field of FIAN's ETO work is the impact of trade deregulation on African smallholder farmers.
"African smallholders in focus - a voice in EU trade policy"
ETO Consortium
Documents on extraterritorial states' obligations
