Conclusions - hInder the protectIon of human rIghts

This chapter addressed elements of consistency in the external policies of the EU. The question of consistency was raised when, in the general mapping analysis of economic factors, it was pointed out that human rights objectives were not pursued systematically. Human rights objectives were often pursued inconsistently and in an unbalanced way.

as extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and torture’ and to capacitate law enforcement authorities to ensure ‘public safety in compliance with international human rights standards’ (ibid., p.

10). Here, human rights elements are, to a large extent, included in the formulation of objectives and expected results. In addition, several human rights components are included in the chosen indicators.

These include, among others, ‘the percentage of resolved human rights violation cases resulting in victims’ access to remedies’ and the ‘perception of access to justice from poor and vulnerable groups’

(ibid., p. 22).

Summarizing, the ‘governance bias’ of the Philippine case is also evident in stated objectives, expected results and indicators. Human rights standards and principles are vaguely incorporated throughout the socioeconomic programme, whereas in the justice sector intervention, a human rights-based approach is visible all the way through to indicators chosen for assessing results.

Bolivia. Finally, in the case of Bolivia, the application of rights in objectives, expected results and indicators is by far the richest in the justice sector reform. The objective of this intervention is to

‘improve access to essential justice services for the Bolivian population (in particular rural and indigenous communities) at a national and local level […] with particular focus on the poor and vulnerable’ (European Commission, 2014f, p. 7). This focus on marginalized groups is also reflected in the indicators for the justice sector reform, which includes an indicator on the number of court cases involving vulnerable groups (ibid., p. 18). Except for that, however, none of other indicators included under this sector contain references to human rights or principles of a rights-based approach.

Also the intervention on illicit drugs includes a reference to human rights in its objectives, but except for that, no human rights elements are mentioned (ibid., pp. 8-9). Finally, the ‘water resource management’

intervention does not contain any explicit human rights elements neither in its objectives nor in expected results or indicators. Most of the indicators relate to the relative or absolute part of the population with access to water services, the number of water services suppliers etc. (ibid., pp. 21-22).

These are certainly human rights-relevant indicators. Yet, they are unable to assess results for the most marginalized groups in society, which would have been included, had a human rights-based approach been applied throughout the intervention framework.

Compared to the other cases, the Bolivian case is characterized by a relatively superficial integration of human rights across sectors. Despite the fact that human rights standards and principles are mentioned to some extent in all sectors, they are not thoroughly incorporated beyond the narrative descriptions of interventions.

F. Conclusions

In external policies, and especially in the field of development, inclusive economic growth has been part of the policy emphasis, yet the degree to which human rights were integrated in more than in a

superficial way was difficult to pinpoint in the general mapping study. The impact of human rights integration in trade and development policy implementation was difficult to discern.

In this chapter, we have examined how human rights are integrated into the external programming plans under the EU’s two largest development funding instruments, the EDF and the DCI. Regrettably, it has not been possible to examine the relatively recently established national human rights country strategies as these strategies are not publicly available and open to scrutiny. However, from the 50 odd NIPs and MIPs that are available, it is possible to obtain a substantial level of insight into how human rights are integrated across sectors and with respect to synergy between economic sector concerns and human rights.

In the present analysis, we have therefore examined the consistency of human rights programming in external action and the level of planned synergy between economic and broader developmental concerns and human rights. We have pursued these analytical points from the point of view of general human rights integration in programming, human rights integration in specific sectors and regions, and in terms of human rights integration in results-based management of planned development.

Specifically, the chapter addresses to which degree the EU is pursuing human rights-based approach in its country planning in the South. Object of analysis is also how synergy is envisaged between the two basic pillars of economic growth and democratisation and human rights in the planning of the programs in the South. Finally, and related to the former question, in which sectors are human rights elements integrated with most vigor and what does the nature of human rights integration indicate about the overall implementation of a human rights-based approach?

To examine the research questions set out above, the chapter combines a quantitative content (word count) analysis with documentary case studies of selected countries.

Examining whether a human rights-based approach was pursued in EEAS programming, it is found that approximately a fifth of the NIPs/MIPs refer to the human rights-based approach. Although only a minority of the planning documents can thus be said to explicitly commit to the HRBA, a substantively larger share does so implicitly by subscribing to its key principles. The vast majority of the documents feature core components, including a particular focus on vulnerable and marginalized groups (84%), transparency (76%), accountability (71%), the rule of law (71%) and participation (63%). Other principles, such as a focus on non-discrimination and equal access to services (51%), empowerment (51%) and inclusion (39%), are mentioned to a lesser, but nonetheless substantial, extent. While a human rights-based approach is therefore not a strong explicit element, it does prevail implicitly in terms of a general adherence to the HRBA principles.

However, when considered from the perspective of sector-level programmes, the picture changes somewhat. Only eight of the 127 sector programmes, corresponding to 6%, contain an explicit reference to the rights-based approach, and – except vulnerable/marginalised groups – none of the principles are mentioned in more than a third of the interventions. Thus, while the key principles of rights-based development are widely mentioned in the documents, they appear to be less consistently implemented in sector interventions.

A clear conclusion, moreover, is that the incorporation of human rights into the formulation of sector programmes under the two largest development instruments of the EU appears to be strongly biased towards intervention in the areas of governance, democratization and justice. Moreover, the integration of human rights into EU development activities seems to differ stronger along sectorial lines than along geographical lines. While human rights standards and principles are implemented more consistently across regions, mainstreaming throughout all sectors is far from realised according to the planned work.

The average number of HRBA principles mentioned under each sector programme is therefore significantly lower in interventions related to education, health and social services (2.0), agriculture (1.9) and energy and infrastructure (0.9), whereas the integration of principles is higher in the governance sectors (3.7). Furthermore, it is relevant to stress in the context of this analysis that the sectors with the most important economic implications, i.e. agriculture, energy, and infrastructure, are also the sectors where human rights principles are found at a very modest level.

The latter observation is confirmed in the case studies. The five case studies reproduce the ‘governance bias’ already identified, but also show that human rights integration in the economic sectors of agriculture, energy and infrastructure is at the weakest level in the programming documents.

A general conclusion is therefore that the synergy envisaged between human rights planning and economic growth and transformation through development cooperation is modest, in some cases non-existent. Some case country documents leave the impression that the agricultural sector program, for instance, has been written by economists or technical experts who have not really been exposed to human rights thinking – or who have not managed to take in any lessons from the human rights training undertaken. Generally, therefore, a low and very modest overlap exists between economic programming and human rights. The study also indicates that economic and social rights are much more weakly present in programming compared to justice and governance efforts (for a similar conclusion, see Marx et al., 2015).

Finally, the case studies indicate, as far as results-based management planning is concerned, that human rights objectives and indicators are present with some strength in the governance sector, while less so in the socio-economic sector programs. This goes even for a programme like the one in the Philippines. In one case, though, weak objectives of plans in the education sector in Nepal are compensated by a stronger emphasis on human rights in the education indicators.

Overall, this chapter confirms a general finding of the previous mapping, namely that human rights are unevenly and inconsistently integrated in economic and social planning. Economic and broader development initiatives are hardly fostering strong human rights implementation in the EU external development action and planning.

In document hInder the protectIon of human rIghts (Sider 124-127)