Book Review: The EU and Human Rights
| Author | Yvonne Donders |
| Date | 01 June 2001 |
| Published date | 01 June 2001 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1023263X0100800206 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
8 MJ 2 (2001) 201
Book Reviews
Philip Alston, with Mara Bustelo and James Heenan (eds.), The EU and
Human Rights, Oxford University Press, 1999, 946 pages, paperback,
£ 29.99.
§ 1. Introduction and Background of the Book
The book The EU and Human Rights forms a comprehensive study of all the different
aspects of the human rights policy of the European Union. This human rights policy has
strongly developed since it was officially recognized in the Treaty on the European
Union (1993). While the Treaties establishing the European Communities (1957) did
not contain provisions on the protection of human rights as such, the TEU does make
explicit reference to human rights in the Preamble and in articles F(1) and F(2) (current
article 6 EC). This development was further confirmed by the Treaty of Amsterdam
(1999), which affirms that ‘the Union is founded on the principles of liberty,
democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and the rule of law’
(article 6 TEU). The Treaty of Amsterdam furthermore lays down a procedure for the
suspension of rights of Member States that seriously and persistently violate human
rights (article 7 TEU). According to article 49 TEU, States wishing to accede to the
European Union must satisfy strict human rights requirements.
The developments within the human rights policy of the EU have always been critically
followed by scholars, politicians and other interested parties. The EU is often criticized
for lacking a coherent and consistent human rights policy, internally as well as
externally. The celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights in 1998, marked the beginning of initiatives taken by the Community
institutions to reflect on their internal and external human rights policies. The book The
EU and Human Rights is the result of one of these initiatives taken by the Commission.
The EU and Human Rights was the result of a large project initiated by the
Commission, carried out under the auspices of the European University Institute in
Florence. Different experts, at least one from each EU Member State, were asked to
Book Reviews
202 8 MJ 2 (2001)
study a specific EU human rights topic and to put forward concrete policy proposals.
The contributions of the various authors and their recommendations were evaluated and
bound together by a drafting group into a report and a set of recommendations. These
recommendations were adopted by the Comité des Sages as the Agenda to be launched
by this Comité at a Conference held in Vienna in October 1998. The Agenda was called
‘Leading by example: a human rights agenda for the European Union for the year 2000’
(hereafter Agenda). The report of the drafting group and the contributions of the
different rapporteurs were published in The EU and Human Rights in 1999. The report,
with some minor changes, forms an introduction of more than 60 pages to this volume
and the Agenda is annexed.
In short, two parallel developments took place: the launching of the Agenda as a policy
document and the publishing of The EU and Human Rights as an academic work. Both
are tuned to each other and overlap, but have a different purpose. The academic part of
the project, resulting in the volume, formed a follow-up to a study published in 1991 by
Cassese, Clapham and Weiler called Human rights and the European Community.1 This
book mainly dealt with the human rights issues inside the EU, but hardly focused on the
external aspects of an EU human rights policy. The present volume fills this gap and
focuses on both the internal and the external aspects. As a matter of fact, the main
underlying principle of the book is the presumption that the internal and the external
part of the EU human rights policy are two sides of the same coin.
§ 2. The EU and Human Rights
The EU and Human Rights contains 28 contributions, divided into eight parts, which
deal with the legal, institutional, philosophical and policy aspects of the internal and
external dimension of the EU activities and human rights. It has become, as stated in the
preface, ‘the most wide-ranging survey yet to be undertaken of the role of the European
Union in relation to human rights’. The various parts concern the following topics:
A. INTRODUCTION
The introduction of this volume embodies, with some minor changes, the report
prepared by the drafting group for the Comité des Sages. The analysis includes an
overview of the history of the human rights policy of the EU and suggestions for
improving this policy. The introduction forms the ‘umbrella’ and the synthesis of the
different contributions and might therefore be considered the conclusion, instead of an
introduction. It forms the central part of the volume in the sense that it overviews all
aspects of the EU human rights policy, including the various levels and subjects
involved in the human rights policy of the EU and the role of the various institutions in
1. A. Cassese, A. Clapham and J. Weiler (eds.), Human rights and the European Community: European
Union - the Human Rights Challenge, (Nomos, 1991).
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