The European Union’ Participation in United Nations Human Rights and Environmental Governance: Key Concepts and Major Challenges

Abstract

Within the span of a few decades, the European Union (EU or Union) has made a remarkable ascent as a global player, evolving from a comparatively marginal actor in world affairs to a resourceful and widely recognized foreign policy force in its own right. This has been most recently reaffirmed with the adoption of United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 65/276 on 3 May 2011 entitled ‘Strengthening of the United Nations System: Participation of the European Union in the work of the UN’, which granted the EU further rights, such as the right to speak and right of reply, in the UNGA. The adoption of this resolution, with 180 states in favour, demonstrated the UNGA’s formal recognition of the institutional changes in the EU brought about by the Lisbon Treaty and, more generally, the evolving nature of the global body (for a discussion of these changes see Chapter 13).