For all its achievements in integrating Europe, the EU lacks a human rights policy which is coherent, balanced and professionally administered. This volume provides an insightful critique of current policies and detailed recommendations for the future by leading experts in the field including individuals from every EU country.

The European Union uses a confidential, institutionalized Dialogue to raise human rights concerns with China, but little is publicly known about its set-up, its substance, its development over time and its impact. This book provides the first detailed reconstruction and assessment of the EU’s responses to human rights violations in China from 1995 to the present day. Using classified documents in the EU’s historical archives and interviews with diplomats, officials and human rights experts in Europe, China and the United States, Kinzelbach lifts the veil of secrecy on the EU-China Human Rights Dialogue and provides a rare insight into how the European Union and China conduct quiet diplomacy on human rights. The book reconstructs the evolution of the Dialogue and the EU’s internal debate on the merits of quiet diplomacy, and draws comparisons with the approach of other actors, notably that of the United States. In doing so, the EU’s relative impact is concluded to be tenuous if not counter-productive. The book also chronicles and analyzes numerous human rights concerns that were raised in the period, ranging from structural issues to individual cases. This ground-breaking, in-depth case study will be of interest to students and scholars of international politics, human rights, international law, EU politics, especially the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy, and Chinese politics.

The Treaty of Lisbon has endowed the EU with a normative human rights framework that confirms recognition as a fully-fledged regional mechanism for the protection of human rights. The aim of this book is to contribute to the growing discussion of the external human rights dimension of the European Union. Its theme sits at the crossroads between International and EU law, Human Rights, and Political Science. In moving beyond well-covered topics such as the protection of human rights within the EU, or their relevance for the accession of new Member States, this book asks the broader question of whether EU human rights law has any real relevance on a global scale. In total, The EU as a 'Global Player' in Human Rights gives an overview of the international relevance of EU human rights law by means of exemplary case-studies of the EU’s institutional and substantive protection of human rights, whilst consideration of non-European perspectives from China and Japan underline its global focus. This book will be of particular interest to researchers, students, and practitioners in International and European law, Human Rights Law, European studies and International Relations.

This book explores how and why the transposition of EU directives in the new and contentious policy area ‘Business and Human Rights’ differs between member states. It reveals the extent to which individual member states are pursuing diverging approaches in dealing with the ‘discretionary space’ in EU directives, and highlights theoretical and political explanations. Drawing on historical institutionalism and rational choice institutionalism, the book establishes a link between the degree of corporatism in a given political economy and government behaviour in terms of Business and Human Rights policy. Moreover, it identifies political salience within the policy subsystem as a pertinent factor for explaining national transposition outcomes.

Though the EU has tried to place human rights and democracy at the heart of its external action, there are serious concerns about its capacity to have a significant impact on the situation of human rights and human rights defenders as well as on the democratization processes taking place in different regions of the world. This edited volume sheds light on the achievements of EU policies and programmes in the field of human rights and democracy, also taking into account the challenges ahead. Analysing the changing global context’s effect on the ability of the EU to have a meaningful impact in the field of human rights and democratization, it examines relevant policies and programmes of the EU to see their impact on the ground. Combining various methodologies, the authors examine primary agreements and other EU documents, secondary sources (such as evaluations of EU’s policies and programmes) in the field of human rights and democracy promotion, and have interviewed EU officials, academics and other key stakeholders. From these, the book sheds light on specific programmes such as the EIDHR, the EOM and the EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders, illuminating the increasingly hostile environment to work for human rights and democracy in a number of countries. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of EU human rights and law, to practitioners in Europe and beyond, and more broadly to EU studies, democracy studies and international relations.

The place of human rights in EU law has been a central issue in contemporary debates about the character of the European Union as a political organisation. This comprehensive and timely Handbook explores the principles underlying the development of fundamental rights norms and the way such norms operate in the case law of the Court of Justice. Leading scholars in the field discuss both the effect of rights on substantive areas of EU law and the role of EU institutions in protecting them.

This book demonstrates how human rights obligations of the EU foreign constitution can be operationalized in the realm of international economic regulation. The content is divided into three major parts. The first outlines the legal foundations needed for the EU to become a shaper of international investment law, which include the general principles and objectives of EU external policies, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, international human rights and the international investment competences of the EU. The second part demonstrates the current international investment regime’s incompatibility with human rights interests, while the third analyzes two mechanisms stemming from trade Law – ex-ante human rights impact assessments and civil society monitoring bodies – and explores whether they could mitigate the current inequalities in the protection of rights. The potential of these mechanisms, the book argues, lies in their capacity to ensure a comprehensive assessment of all interests at stake, and to empower traditionally marginalized rights-holders to make, shape and contest the international investment regime.

In EU Environmental Law, International Environmental Law, and Human Rights Law: The Case of Environmental Responsibility, Armelle Gouritin offers a critical appraisal of EU environmental responsibility law and asserts a new rights-based approach to international environmental law. This book addresses environmental damage, environmental harm, the grounds for environmental responsibility and the exceptions to the responsibility principle. A critical appraisal of EU Directives 2004/35 and 2008/99 is complemented by an analysis of the input of the European Court on Human Rights and international environmental law with a view to filling the gaps identified in the Directives. Gouritin offers a full analysis of the potential and limits of the rights-based approach applied to environmental responsibility.

This book examines rights issues in relation to visual privacy in the use of civilian drones. Here, visual privacy is described as the freedom from a combination of unwanted activities directed towards an individual, such as observing, recording, and publishing of personal visual information without an individual’s consent. The book answers the question of whether visual observation of an individual with the help of the camera systems onboard a civilian drone is lawful in light of EU law. It also discusses the legality of the subsequent recordings and publications. The issues are considered in terms of the European Convention of Human Rights, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union and EU General Data Protection Regulation. The book will be a valuable resource for researchers, academics and policy-makers working in the areas of technology, privacy and human rights law.

This book represents a significant and timely contribution to the copious literature of the EU as a global actor providing new insights and fresh perspectives into the promotion of human rights and international labour standards in the EU’s external trade relations, building on and stimulating further – the already well-engaged – scientific dialogue on this area of research. In particular, it provides the basis for developing a new analytical structure for better understanding the role of the EU in promoting human rights and international labour standards in global trade and, in particular, for assessing the extent to which and how normative considerations have influenced the adoption of EU legal instruments and policy decisions. This book will appeal to research scholars, post-graduate students, practitioners and human rights activists.