Ambiguities in the EU's rights-based approach to liberal order

Abstract

Abstract The European Union has been characterized as a vanguard of a rights-based liberal international order. A prime example is making all cooperation agreements with third states conditioned on respect for human rights. But the EU's approach is contested on grounds of inconsistency and power imbalance. This article contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between authoritative human rights procedures and contestations of the liberal order. In doing so, the article brings to the fore ambiguities that are often glossed over in the literature related to representation in supranational political arrangements. Through a longitudinal case-study of the centrepiece of the EU's external human rights policy, the human rights clause, the article shows that the EU vacillates between supranational and intergovernmental political arrangements. It insists on a human rights clause that allows for sanctioning of non-compliance, but that also maintains core features of intergovernmental decision-making where executives in the EU and partner governments maintain the authority to initiate and settle disputes on human rights. The result is a half-hearted move towards a rights-based liberal order that neither fully respects nation-states' sovereignty nor fully allows for an impartial settlement of human rights disputes.