Steering EU policy on a new strategy for human rights

Date: 11/09/1997

IN ITS programme for the EU presidency, Luxembourg promised that it would pay particular attention to protecting and promoting human rights, and that it would begin a re-evaluation of the EU's strategy on this issue.

What is that likely to mean when translated into action? What kind of new strategy is it reasonable to hope for?

We know that everyone is in favour of promoting human rights, as they are of promoting democracy, peace and freedom... But between warm sentiment and cold realisation lies a minefield of special interests.

Let us be clear about what the presidency policy will not mean. It will not mean promoting human rights within the EU, first because there is the question of subsidiarity, and second because it is always easier to agree on what others are doing wrong and much harder to agree on our own failings.

One glance at the European Parliament's agony sessions over its annual report on the state of civil liberties within the EU will surely scare Luxembourg off that fraught exercise.

If it can steer the EU into adhering to the European Convention on Human Rights - which every member state individually endorses - it will already have performed a miracle.

The policy will also not mean even-handed comment about the practices of others. Everyone will agree to criticise the human rights violations of the nasty Burmese and Nigerian regimes (sotto voce in the case of Nigeria because of economic interests there).

But what of China, with its thousands of political prisoners and the highest execution rate in the world, often after a mockery of a trial? With potential export orders worth hundreds of millions of ecu, do not expect more unanimity of policy now than a few months ago, when the EU failed to agree a common position on China's human rights performance. As foreign policy requires unanimity, this is a formidable obstacle.

As for friends and strategic allies - Indonesia, Turkey and even closer ones - any EU rap over the knuckles is likely to be accompanied by a kiss. Although Winston Churchill asserted that consistency is the virtue of small minds, it does have the advantage of conferring credibility on policy.

We have to recognise the reality that promoting economic and strategic interests will almost always win out over promoting human rights at intergovernmental level, and that individual member states will put their own interests before the collective EU interest.

The Luxembourg presidency faces two challenges on policy. The first is to persuade its colleagues that promoting human rights is the best long-term guarantee of promoting the Union's economic and strategic interests, quite apart from the short-term gains to those whose rights are being violated, and despite the occasional lost export order. Fortunately, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the press and the European Parliament form an unholy trinity which sometimes makes enough noise to cajole or shame the EU into virtue.

The second is to continue to promote the principle of the universality of human rights, ie that they apply without discrimination to every individual on the planet.

Many Asian governments reject this view, seeing individual rights as subordinate to group rights, by which they mean the state. The disastrous application of that view in Europe this century, under the guise of Fascism and Communism, gives Europe the moral authority and imperative to refute this challenge to human rights.

The EU possesses one major weapon for promoting human rights which is relatively free from the constraints of realpolitik: money.

In 1997, the EU budget has more than 100 million ecu in it for promoting human rights around the world, mostly through NGOs, administered by the Commission in various different programmes. This does make a difference, as NGOs like FIDH, Médecins Sans Frontières and the International Helsinki Federation are usually the people with their ears closest to the ground and their mouths closest to the microphone.

They often have good ideas for concrete actions to promote and protect human rights which they can carry out a lot more effectively than officials of the governments concerned, or intergovernmental agencies. Many NGO activities have made a real and enduring contribution to promoting human rights. It is unlikely, for example, that apartheid would have disappeared without the continuous pressure from NGOs in the EU.

Of course, the money could be used more effectively. Many programmes lack a strategic approach, but are shaped by the concern of the moment. Nor is there any overall human rights strategy coordinated for different regions. Information about the programmes is not widely publicised and they are often not very user-friendly.

There is no culture within Union institutions of making human rights an integral consideration in evaluating all EU business. The issue is still seen as marginal to mainstream activities, but there are many ways in which programmes can be operated to promote human rights, or at least not damage them, much as efforts are now made to measure Union programmes for their effect on promoting gender equality.

What kind of positive measures could the presidency take to realise a strategy in favour of human rights? Here are a few suggestions.

First, the Commission could copy the Dutch government's Advisory Group of Experts on Human Rights to ensure that the issue is always considered when shaping EU foreign policy.

Even accepting the limitations of realpolitik, the opinions of such a group would have an impact where no great national interests are at stake and might inhibit the assertion of those interests occasionally. There is another good precedent here in Commission President Jacques Santer's Advisory Group on Bioethics.

Secondly, the Commission should be asked to formulate a 'human rights impact' test which can be applied to all EU programmes, similar to the environmental impact assessment required for land development.

Most Commission officials have no knowledge of human rights and little interest in promoting them, particularly if this creates more work. Unless they are compelled to take human rights into account in running their programmes, they will not do so.

Thirdly, programmes should be adequately monitored for their impact on human rights situations. What works should be encouraged and what does not should be discarded.

Annual reports by the different Commission services should always include a section on the effect on human rights of their expenditure.

Finally, the many different EU human rights programmes need to be more user-friendly in both access and performance. This means better information, application forms and selection processes, and also better procedures for contracts and payments.

Many human rights NGOs seem to be regarded like second-hand car salesmen, suspected of dubious practices at every turn. But most of them are painfully honest and they deserve more understanding from the Commission's contracts and payments teams.

So, three goals for the Luxembourg presidency: to reinforce the political commitment to the universality of human rights at every opportunity; to ensure that the policy-makers have access to the level of expertise needed; and to ensure that Union programmes always pass the human rights test and that those intended for NGOs promoting human rights are user-friendly.

If it accomplishes these, it will have done the EU and human rights a great service.

Peter Ashman has been director of the European Human Rights Foundation since 1992. The foundation is a Dutch-registered charity, established in 1980, which provides technical assistance on human rights and civil society development to the European Commission. It runs an EU-funded programme making small grants to human rights NGOs.