Suchergebnisse

Does EU participation in the multilateral system lead to the goal of effective multilateralism? This book examines 8 multilateral organizations, showing how EU policies harm the organizations they mean to help. The multilateral system is too heterogeneous for a one-size-fits-all approach; we must understand multilateralism working in practice.

In the aftermath of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the European Union created a strategic vision for its foreign policy. The concept of 'effective multilateralism' emerged and has been at the centre of debate around the EU's role in the multilateral system ever since. What exactly does it mean, and how does the EU go about pursuing it? This book argues that effective multilateralism is a two-way street between the EU and multilateral organizations, and for too long it has been assumed that natural synergies must exist between them. By exploring how the EU promotes its policies and interests in eight multilateral settings (including the UN Security Council, the IMF, the WTO and the UN General Assembly) much is learnt about the EU. Not only can EU policies sometimes do harm to multilateral organizations, but also examples of EU policy failures can, paradoxically, further the overall goal of 'effective multilateralism'.

This article questions how the EU has acted to increase the complexity of the human rights regime through the process of incorporating a new issue area into its scope and to what extent has it benefitted from that process. By examining the breadth of the regime complex, between 1991–2021, this research shows how UN bodies, regional organisations, and civil society associations increasingly consider the death penalty a human rights issue instead of an exclusively domestic legal one. The article draws on a comprehensive archival review tracing the process of reframing capital punishment, the actions undertaken by the EU contributing to this process, and the benefits it receives from increased regime complexity. This leads to an affirmative answer to the previous questions, arguing that the EU's actions in its foreign policy, anti-death penalty stance, and promotion of civil society, facilitated a reconfiguration of the human rights regime complex towards the rejection of capital punishment. It also provides important insights into the limitations of the literature on EU actorness in the UN system, which trains its eye primarily on legal representation and member-state cooperation. While this applies to formal international organisations, characterising the post-1945 multilateral order, utilising the study of regime complexity provides a more precise assessment of EU action in the fragmented and increasingly informal institutions constituting global governance today.