EUROPEAN REGIONAL APPROACH COMPARED TO UN

To what extent does the European regional approach to human rights protection offer advantages over the United Nations international approach?



To what extent does the European regional approach to human rights protection offer advantages over the United Nations international approach?

Introduction

To a great extent the European regional approach to human rights protection offer advantages over the United Nations international approach. European regional approach or in other words European integration has brought substantial advantages for its citizens unlike United Nations, but these advantages are not always well understood and even less acknowledged. While citizens are increasingly disappointed at the results in the economic field and reticent towards what is perceived as intrusive and unnecessary regulation, they welcome efforts to provide more coherence and effectiveness in the field of security and external relations and judicial cooperation. Based on a number of examples, a series of ways in which the EU delivers concrete advantages can be identified. Alter (2001) mentions they cover:

• Areas where action by definition is required at EU level such as the Single Market and Single Currency or where the EU would be the most appropriate level such as the coordinated response to health pandemics; • Areas where the EU provides value added through the weight it enjoys by speaking with one voice. Trade negotiations are the best known example, but climate change and intervention in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) are also illustrations;

• “Levelling up” where Member States converge to a similar high level of provision. Health care, gender equality and regional convergence are examples. Levelling up can be achieved by competition as well as cooperation, as illustrated by the diffusion of mobile telephony (Alter, 2001);

• Progress in one area can lead to progress in other areas. The Schengen agreement brought the need for much greater coordination of the external frontier and judicial cooperation within it, which resulted in more effective policies in these areas;

• Action at EU level is more effective when it is combined with and relayed by action at Member State level. Both climate change and gender equality illustrate how positive interaction between the EU and Member States bring advantages to both (Maduro, 1998).

Two Specific Rights and Relevant Case Authoritie: A Discussion

Following lines discuss specific rights and relevant case authorities. Let's first mention that European integration has brought substantial advantages for its citizens, but these advantages are not always well understood and even less acknowledged. BEPA has therefore been asked to lead a project on the “Advantages of Europe” to identify concrete cases where the EU has made a positive contribution to well being. BEPA did so by analysing EU action in a number of policy areas. This note attempts to identify examples of such advantages drawn from that assessment.

It sets out to identify value that the EU has added and has not been conceived as a propaganda exercise (Maduro, 1998). This implied establishing a counter-factual of what the situation would have been like in the absence of ...