‘Do as I Say not as I Do’: EUtopia, the Ceecs and the Credibility of the EU Human Rights Regime

This article examines EU’s involvement in human rights from the perspective of a promoter of human rights norms. It is argued that a human rights EUtopia has emerged, i.e. there is a gap between the real and normative EU -when it comes to human rights – which affects the credibility of the EU’s huma...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ingi Iusmen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: European Institute of Romania 2009-06-01
Series:Romanian Journal of European Affairs
Subjects:
Online Access:https://rjea.ier.gov.ro/wp-content/uploads/articole/RJEA_Vol_9_No2_DO_AS_I_SAY.pdf
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Summary:This article examines EU’s involvement in human rights from the perspective of a promoter of human rights norms. It is argued that a human rights EUtopia has emerged, i.e. there is a gap between the real and normative EU -when it comes to human rights – which affects the credibility of the EU’s human rights regime. The EU lacks a solid legal entrenchment of human rights and there are different degrees of human rights protection in the Member States which amount to different hierarchical concepts of human rights. There are legal shortcomings regarding EU’s human rights promotion to third countries, while the Copenhagen human rights conditionality attached to EU accession was vaguely stated and was not underpinned by EU internal human rights templates. Furthermore, the screening process of the candidates- by the use of double standards – entailed EU’s involvement in matters falling outside its own internal remits. Hence the credibility of the EU human rights regime is jeopardised by its attempt to export human rights externally– hence the normative and utopian claims – without having a real, substantial legal entrenchment of human rights internally.
ISSN:1582-8271
1841-4273