ABSTRACT
Recurrent claims of selective and inconsistent implementation of the EU’s human rights clause questions the fairness of the Union’s human rights policy. If the EU’s actions do not match its rhetoric, it will be accused of hypocrisy. In this chapter I present novel empirical insights regarding the question of whether the EU delivers on its human rights conditionality policy. Scholarly literature has largely followed rationalist theory arguing that the EU’s decisions are driven by economic interest or security considerations. I find that existing studies have used a biased selection of cases. A combination of theoretical assumptions and methodological choices appears to be guiding the selection process, something that warrants a reconsideration of the theoretical implications for the EU’s rights-based approach. I highlight the need for systematic empirical scrutiny and suggest that the current focus in (in)consistency represents an unsatisfactory criterion for analysing the fairness of the EU’s policy. Instead, future literature could analyse whether the EU engages in meaningful coherence, factoring in whether such inconsistencies are logically and morally justified. Ultimately, I argue that, rather than being an inconsistent foreign policy actor, the most pressing issue for the Union’s rights-based conditionality policy is being perceived as an actor that wields an imbalanced form of political association.
