This paper examines and evaluates the role of human rights in enhancing and expanding penal powers across the globe. It discusses various aspects of this phenomenon, such as the exercise of extraterritorial jurisdiction by national courts to prosecute human rights violations, the establishment of international courts and tribunals, and the imposition of penal obligations on states by international human rights bodies. The paper argues that the advancement of human rights has resulted in the discursive construction of global forms of crime and justice. In this discursive framework, certain wrongdoings that are considered to be of universal concern automatically trigger calls for criminalisation and punishment, regardless of context, consequences or feasibility. However, as the paper contends, when penality operates globally under the banner of human rights, it may escape the constitutional and political constraints that apply when the power to punish is based on constitutional sovereignty. It may also become a tool for powerful countries to exert coercion beyond their borders.