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ABSTRACT
Despite the policies of several global actors, like the European Union, Armenia and Georgia have not attained democratic consolidation, including full respect for human rights. This article compares the EU’s promotion of human rights in Armenia and Georgia by uncovering the perceived rationale, the varying institutional postures andthe impact of the policy. It captures the 2006–2014 time-frame beginning with the involvement of these countries in the European Neighbourhood Policy through signature of the Action Plans and ending with Armenia’s backtracking from the EU in favour of accession into the Customs Union/Eurasian Economic Union. The novelty of the research rests on several foundations. Ontologically, EU’s human rights policy (a) has been side-lined to the advantage of democracy promotion, (b) has not been analysed through the lenses of the partners, (c) has not been institutionally dissected. Epistemologically, there has been no comparative work of the kind on the two South Caucasian countries. Methodologically, the temporal cut is justified by the comparable policy of the EU. The article draws on discourse and content analysis, as well as in-depth semi-structured interviews with key officials and experts in Armenia and Georgia. It introduces a scale estimating the mean and measuring the impact.
Acknowledgments
The authors are thankful to the editor of the Journal of Contemporary European Studies and the three anonymous reviewers for a meticulous reading of the draft and provision of competent advice, which helped to ameliorate the final version of this article.
Disclosure statement
There is no conflict of interest.
Notes
1. Three generations of human rights have been identified: the first generation comprises civil and political rights, the second generation – social and economic rights, and the third generation – solidarity or collective rights. These are embedded in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 1948, the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms enacted in 1950 and the European Social Charter of the Council of Europe opened for signature in 1961, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights – both adopted by the UN in 1966. Other legal instruments are the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and the Conventions of the International Labour Organization. In contrast, the third generation rights have received limited recognition, e.g. via the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights adopted in 1981 (Viljoen Citation2009; Council of Europe Citationn.d.).
2. Besides, the EU, its member states, the United States (US), as well as international organizations, such as the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the United Nations, as well as governmental agencies have been frontrunners of democracy promotion since 1990 s (Author 2). Acknowledging their role in fostering respect for human rights in Armenia and Georgia, this article tackles the perceived rationale, the institutional architecture and the impact of the EU per se. Thereby, any potential pitfall of ascribing influence to other actors is eliminated.
3. This will also allow to probe the alleged ‘one-size-fits-all’ stance of the EU’s policy deemed as germane up to the 2015 review of the ENP following the Arab Spring making the Union switch to ‘differentiation’.
4. The notion of ‘external relations’ signified the period prior to the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty; thereafter the term ‘foreign policy’ has been used (Vasilyan Citation2019).
5. Discourse analysis envisages qualitative interpretation, while content analysis obligates quantification.
6. After assigning the scores, the latter are added and subsequently divided by the total number to deduce the mean.
7. The Property Rights Alliance index was launched in 2019. Meanwhile, there are indices relating detention conditions or Human Rights Defender.
8. ‘Human rights’ itself is positioned under the sub-dimension of ‘deep and sustainable democracy’.
9. While other officials from EU member-state embassies did not react, the interview at the Italian Embassy in Georgia was valuable, especially, since Italy has not been promoting democracy bilaterally but streamlined its policy through the EU. All the interviewees gave their consent to have their names and positions mentioned. Yet, for ethical reasons, only their professional affiliations are identified.
10. This was post-factum justified by then President Serj Sargsyan as urged by the security logic. However, it was also conditioned by trade, energy, and social factors (Vasilyan 2016Citation2016).
11. It was replaced by the Instrument for Contributing to Stability and Peace in 2014.
12. Starting in 2013, the projects lasted for a year or two. Meanwhile, not only ‘Human Rights Activism and Monitoring’ was checked but also other relevant human rights ‘thematic areas’.
13. One interviewee in Armenia and three respondents in Georgia articulated the concept ‘normative power’ explicitly; others hinted at the normative essence of the EU implicitly. In the meantime, they ranged from EU to state and non-state actors.
14. Those officials were the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton, European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy Stephan Fule, European Commissioner for External Relations Ferrero-Waldner and President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso.
15. Interviewee 1.
16. Interviewee 2.
17. The EU Advisory Group ceased its activities after Armenia’s retreat from (pre-)signature of the AA/DCFTA (Author 4).
Interviewee 3.
18. Interviewee 4.
19. ‘Relevance’ entails the appropriateness of the specific (human rights) initiative/institution/instrument for the respective country. The ‘added-value’ implies the advantage of the specific initiative/institution/instrument. ‘Effectiveness’ means successful attainment of the objectives by the latter. ‘Efficiency’ presupposes achievement of the objective in a cost-effective manner, i.e. maximal result with minimal effort. ‘Sustainability’ denotes durability of the output even in case of no funding.