’Remote Areas’ in International Human Rights Law

The territory of numerous States includes “remote areas”, i.e. regions situated far from the main centres of population, which are geographically isolated and inaccessible. The problem that remote areas raise from the point of view of international human rights law is the persistence of regional disparities in the access to human rights. Furthermore, the weak presence of the State is likely to give rise to various human rights violations and criminal activities by non-state actors such as armed bands. Thus, persons living in remote areas are usually in a disadvantaged situation at the level of the enjoyment of basic services compared to persons living in the main centres of population such as urban or densely populated areas. Whereas the wording used by human rights monitoring bodies indicates that recommendations about remote areas constitute due diligence obligations (obligations of conduct) rather than strict obligations of result, they clearly go beyond the traditional neutrality of general international law in the matter of the State’s internal administrative and political system. Namely, they provide for the State’s obligation to compensate geographical, regional and socioeconomic disparities through positive measures. While interpreting the concerned conventions in this sense, monitoring bodies contribute ultimately to a more balanced rearrangement of the territory.