Human Rights Watch Claims EU Commitment to Rights Falters Under Stress
Human Rights Watch is an international nongovernmental organisation that works to observe, investigate, and defend human rights and justice. Founded in 1978, the organization has field presence in over 80 locations worldwide and collaborates with domestic human rights activists to produce annual reports summarizing the conditions of civil liberties in almost 100 countries and territories. The 2021 report may be read here.
Launching the report, the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, challenges the idea that autocracy is on the rise. He points to the willingness of citizens to participate in risky street protests in order to defend their civil liberties. He also suggests that the failure of autocratic regimes to adequately tackle issues such as the climate crisis, poverty, the Covid-19 pandemic, and modern technology threats, and their tendency to attack human rights defenders, activists, judges and journalists is what will ultimately lead to their demise.
The report shines a bright light on the shortcomings of the European Union in protecting human rights, and on the discrepancy between its rhetoric and practice. Benjamin Ward, deputy director in Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia division, also stated that the EU’s commitment to human rights often falters when the going gets tough.
One area in which the EU fell short of expectations was maintaining respect for the rule of law in countries such as Poland and Hungary, which were repeatedly criticized in 2021 for undermining judicial independence, media freedom, rights of women and of LGBT people and civil society groups. Besides some rulings of the European Court of Justice on the matters and criticism, the EU failed to take more forceful action, such as conditioning funding for these countries or availing of Article 7 procedure to suspend certain membership rights.
Multiple EU countries also responded poorly to the pandemic’s effect of exacerbating hate crime, discrimination, inequality, and poverty. Similarly, there have been pushbacks against migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees, along with externalizing responsibility and failure to investigate abuses. A law allowing the State to externalize asylum seeking claims was passed in Denmark, country which also removed temporary protection of people coming from Damascus. Groups working to defend rights of refugees reported prosecution in Greece, Italy, and Cyprus.
On a more positive note, the European Commission adopted legislative proposals to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, and a strategy to protect the rights of people with disabilities through 2030. The European Union continued to play leading roles in UN and climate initiatives, however its actions were hindered by the necessity of reaching a unanimous decision between member states in foreign policy.
The EU is currently working on adopting critical legislation mandating human rights and environmental due diligence for companies. There are also works to reform the EU’s generalised scheme of preferences, which reduces the import duties of products coming into the European market from vulnerable developing countries. The implementation of the 27 international conventions on human rights, labour rights, environmental protection and good governance in the countries benefiting from the scheme are continuously monitored by the EU and compliance is a prerequisite to availing of it.