A focus on human rights violations leads to border control type human rights monitoring that provides only minimal human rights protection, as the borderline tends towards the bottom. Moreover, it is indifferent to degrees of human rights protection beyond the borderline, thus discouraging ambitious human rights agendas. The technique of progressive realisation may be the basis of improved border control monitoring that avoids the downward trend. Moreover, borderline control should be complemented with additional techniques that transform the dynamic of human rights from minimalism to maximalism.