The formation of the EU negotiating strategy at the UN: the case of human rights

Abstract

Existing research on the European Union’s (EU) activities at the international level typically pertains to how the EU acts, bargains and performs. However, scholarship less frequently examines how the EU formulates its negotiating strategy at international negotiation fora. Our analysis attempts to fill this gap by presenting an analytical framework to map the different features and parameters that determine and condition the EU negotiating strategy in multilateral contexts. We identify four features in two phases that shape the EU negotiating strategy: (a) goal-setting, (b) field analysis, (c) available means and (d) employed tactics. Each of these features contains additional parameters that, overall, define and constrain the EU’s negotiating strategy. To test the relevance of our analytical framework, we delve into the determination of the EU human rights negotiating strategy at the United Nations.