Suchergebnisse

Defence date: 16 January 2007 ; Supervisor: Prof. Bruno De Witte ; This thesis explores the impact of international human rights law on the changing trends in international development policy and practice. The subject matter is analysed through a case study of European Union development cooperation policy and its relations with the group of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states.1 Whilst there is a burgeoning literature on this subject, known as the nexus between human rights and development?,2 the discovery of the convergence or union between human rights and development may have come of some surprise to non-jurists and to those within in the field of development. According to professionals engaged in this domain, development is usually defined and identified with economic growth, trade, capital flows and the transfer of technology.3 As Johan Galtung argues, both concepts (human rights? and development?) have evolved in distinct historical contexts, therefore, any connection or compatibility has more to do with Western history and culture than anything else.4 Furthermore, as Sano states, whilst both human rights and development were institutionalised in the global system in the post-World War II climate, both have different roots and have emerged in different contexts.5 In light of these claims, an obvious point of departure should consider what is meant by the terms development? and human rights? and briefly describe the interlinkages between these previously distinct domains. To this end, the idea of a gradual convergence of human rights and development will be introduced6 and this will be followed by a discussion of where EU development cooperation policy fits into this debate. In the remaining sections of the introductory chapter, the aims of this thesis and research questions will be outlined. A description of the methodology used, literature review and an overview of the chapters will also be presented.

The article presents the second Revision of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP)-European Union (EU) Partnership Agreement (Cotonou Agreement (CA)) and contains an outlook on the future of the relations between the EU and the ACP Group of States, taking also into account the restructuring of the EU's external relations under the Lisbon Treaty and the establishment of the new European External Action Service (EEAS). The second Revision of the CA was signed in June 2010.Ten years after the conclusion of the CA, its second revision sought to find a balance between the increasing trend towards differentiation within the ACP Group and the unity of the ACP Group of States. The EU side felt that developments in the regional dimension had to be addressed, such as the relations with the African Union as a key interlocutor for peace and security in the pan-African dimension and the conclusion of (interim) Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). Moreover, the 2010 Revision coincided with the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty on 1 December 2009. The restructuring of the EU's external relations under the Lisbon Treaty and its impact on the relations between the EU and ACP also influenced the 2010 Revision, as the ACP were concerned about the loss of their special status under the new treaty regime. In addition, at the administrative level, the bilateral relations with the ACP countries will be dealt with by the EEAS and not by the former Commission's Directorate-General for development, which means a potential loss of exclusivity for the ACP Group.

Foreword Fishing is a vital source of food, jobs and income that contributes to food security and poverty reduction in many African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) coastal states. But most of these countries, especially Senegal, Mauritania and Namibia, rely heavily on a small number of exported species. Even so, the fisheries sector provides ACP countries with real longer-term economic opportunities because the EU imports 60% of the fish consumed in its home market. The heavy toll taken of stocks and ecosystems by over-exploitation of fishery resources is undermining all sustainable development efforts in regions like West Africa. This makes proper resource management and effective control systems vital to avoid over-fishing and the collapse of fish stocks, so that ACP countries can benefit significantly from this sector of the economy. Fisheries relations between the ACP States and the EU are governed by a range of instruments, especially ACP national fisheries policies, the EU's Common Fisheries Policy, development cooperation instruments and the bilateral fisheries agreements entered into by the EU with individual ACP States. Bilateral agreements give European fishing fleets greater access to fishery resources in exchange for the payment of financial compensation, which is a major source of income for ACP States. These agreements introduce a series of problems in the picture with regard to: (i) sustainable exploitation of marine resources and environmental protection, (ii) protection for artisanal fishing communities, maximizing the benefits of fishing through value-enhancement, and (iv) monitoring systems. These issues of ACP-EU fisheries relations are also addressed in Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) negotiated by ACP countries with the EU. The revision of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) to achieve more sustainable fishing and greater protection of the marine environment should deliver a net gain to ACP fishers. Against this background, CTA works with the ACP Secretariat, European Commission and Commonwealth Secretariat to give ongoing support to ACP countries, not least by providing a forum for ACP and EU experts to exchange information. Over 350 experts and policymakers from ACP and EU Ministries of Trade and Fisheries, along with representatives of the Brussels-based ACP Group, the European Commission, the private sector, NGOs, fisheries associations, international organisations, EU development cooperation agencies and research bodies took part in two technical seminars held in Brussels in April 2003 and December 2004, followed up by an electronic consultation to further explore the two big issues of market access and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU). This publication reviews the main approaches of these players to issues at the top of the ACP-EU fisheries relations agenda. Improving access to information The recommendations highlight the key role of information and communication technologies (ICT). CTA provides services and products that improve access to information for agricultural and rural development in ACP countries. For example, CTA works together with key partners in the fisheries sector to facilitate in situ or electronic discussion fora, as well as capacity-building and training programmes, and funding participation by ACP experts to present the ACP case in international meetings. CTA also provides information portals (websites) on the fisheries sector - "Agritrade", "Knowledge for Development", as well as "ICT Update", a newsletter specifically on ICT applications in the fisheries sector. For those without Internet access, CTA continues to support a range of other media like rural radio, mobile phones, the print media like the magazine Spore/Esporo, and a wide range of publications, many focused on the fisheries sector. It has also very recently launched a new series of easily-reproducible "how-to" guides providing technical information in easy-to-understand terms, offering yet another opportunity to engage with fishing and fishers. Growing demand from our ACP partners and the importance of the fisheries sector prompts me to reaffirm the commitment of CTA and its partners to further developing these services, providing platforms through which to leverage empirical knowledge, and facilitating the exchange of expertise and experiences. I should also like to take this opportunity to thank all our partners and the ACP and EU authors who so kindly undertook to formulate and finalize the presentation of this wealth of experiences. I hope you will find it instructive reading. Dr. Hansjörg Neun Director, CTA ; This publication reviews the main approaches of the players to issues at the top of the ACP-EU fisheries relations agenda.

This article examines the role of the European Union's (EU) Joint Parliamentary Assembly (JPA) with the Africa-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) group of states. Bringing together 105 countries from four different continents and characterized by a more than forty-five-year long continuity and a high degree of institutionalization, the JPA is a unique institution in the EU's network of inter-parliamentary diplomacy. Despite its increased importance in the past decade, the role of the JPA remains understudied in academic literature. The analytical framework for examining this role consists of two parts. While the first part is based on a document analysis and expert interviews, the second part investigates the JPA members' own role conceptions by means of semi-structured interviews with delegates from the European Parliament and national ACP parliaments. We argue that the role of the JPA is (1) to advocate the empowerment of the ACP national parliaments, (2) to socialize parliamentarians towards a democratic culture, and (3) to monitor the implementation of the Cotonou agreement. The conclusion reads that, while the role of the JPA has been strongly extended, there are some serious endogenous and exogenous problems that have a major impact on its activities and its influence.

In the last decade the European Union (EU) has been negotiating with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of countries to establish Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). In this article, EPAs are located within the context of the wider shift in EU trade policy towards bilateralism. This is done with reference to recent work in International Political Economy (IPE) emphasizing the "domestic-societal" and "systemic" drivers of preferential liberalization. Although these pressures are not necessarily sufficient to explain the EPAs, they do account for why they have gone beyond the original remit of "World Trade Organization (WTO) compatibility" and why aspects of the agreements bear close similarity to the EU's supposedly more commercially oriented bilateral agreements. Adapted from the source document.

While the European Community has exclusive competence for trade policy, the competence over development policy is shared with member states of the European Union (EU).Given that trade is communitarised, it could be assumed that it is a strong instrument for the EU that can be well used for development. Trade is a particularly prominent feature of the EU's relations to the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of developing countries, and Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) are the envisaged new trade pillar of ACP-EU-cooperation. This study analyses the development relevance of the EU's trade policy towards the ACP countries as formulated in the EPA, with a view to drawing conclusions on how to strengthen the trade development nexus. It specifically assesses the way in which the EU as a multilevel system has operated in the EPA negotiations. It is notably argued that the EU system needs to be more flexible to respond to issues of development concern in the trade negotiations, e.g. market access and support measures for ACP states. Efforts are furthermore required to improve the coordination of European policy-making on trade and development. Both the EU's communitarian and bilateral policies will need to engage in a more complementary fashion to support productive and trading capacities in the ACP and developing countries.