Report on mapping, analysing and implementing foreign policy instruments in human rights promotion

This report provides a framework for mapping, analysing and implementing foreign policy instruments in the promotion of human rights. It is part of FRAME Work Package 6 ‘Regional Partnerships and Bilateral Cooperation’. Its main role is to support the regional case studies to be prepared as part of the research in the Work Package.

The objective of the report is to map and assess the human rights instruments the EU uses as part of its regional and bilateral relationships as well as the consistent and qualitative integration of human rights in the EU’s external policy.
It provides the theoretical and methodological basis to the case studies, which will analyse to what extent human rights issues structure bilateral dialogue and whether the EU’s rhetorical emphasis on human rights issues is backed by acts: other instruments (e.g. financial instruments and strategic partnerships) through which it can provide incentives to promote and protect human rights in its partner countries. Thus a general aim of Work Package 6 is to assess the consistency of the EU’s discourse and policy of external human rights promotion, as it appears in bilateral relations. This report offers a discussion of the role of human rights tools and instruments in the EU’s external action at a more general level, while the case studies will look into the operation of these tools in the context of particular bilateral partnerships and regional cooperation.