ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the paradox in order to see what light it throws on the development of an external dimension to the Community’s human rights policy, and in particular on the ambivalence of the Union and its Member States over the rights of third country nationals. In the preamble to the Treaty of the European Union the Member States confirm ‘their attachment to the principles of liberty, democracy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and of the rule of law’. The European Court pointed out that the sanctions Regulation under the authority of which the Irish authorities were acting, was intended to bring to an end the far more serious violations of human rights taking place in the former Yugoslavia. The legal instruments of the Community’s relations with third countries may of course be unilateral and autonomous, or bilateral/multilateral in form.
