Human Rights and EU External Policy: In Search of Unity

The European Union (EU) plays a key role in today’s international community. Yet, in terms of specific areas, aims and tools, EU external policy is still characterized to a significant degree by fragmentation. Considering that human rights can be viewed as an aim that every specific external action should ultimately serve, human rights could play an increasing role in granting coherence to this broad policy as well as to the nexus between internal and external actions. The need to investigate how human rights horizontally inform EU external policy is therefore stronger than ever. By addressing some specific preliminary aspects of this topic, the authors introduce the multi-layered analysis of the relationship between human rights and the EU external policy that the book overall explores.