ABSTRACT
This chapter develops the analytical framework that I draw on in the book. I start by summarising the present debates on the EU’s development policy and discussing the role of human rights within these debates. Using a global justice perspective, I proceed by looking at the normative underpinnings of a rights-based development policy and anchoring the understanding of such an approach within procedural justice debates. Drawing on Eriksen’s (2016) threefold conception of justice, I develop expectations regarding what a rights-based approach to development entails. In the subsequent part of the chapter, I draw on Günter’s theory of application to develop a novel hypothesis for why the EU, at times, steps out of its high-visibility approach to human rights conditionality and chooses diplomatic measures instead of human rights sanctions.
