Sous-commission Droits de l'homme (DROI) - Parlement européen

On 16 June Members will have a discussion with Richard Bennett, UN Special Representative on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, on the alarming human rights situation in Afghanistan, despite Taliban's initial promises concerning upholding human rights. The discussion will focus on support to civil society and, equally importantly, integrating a gender perspective.

These two aspects are at the heart of DROI'S concerns and the European Parliament strongly condemns both ongoing harassment, intimidation and killings of the human rights defenders, and brutally trampling women's and girls' fundamental freedoms.

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The next meeting of the Subcommittee on Human Rights will take place on Wednesday 15 June 2022, 09.00 - 12.00, 13.45 - 15.00 and 16.45 - 18.45, and Thursday 16 June 09.00 - 12.00 in room: Altiero Spinelli (3G3)

EP Calendar 2022
DROI Meetings 2022
Urgency Resolutions on human rights
Book by HR/VP Josep Borrell Fontelles on "European foreign policy in times of COVID-19"
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On Thursday, the European Parliament adopted three resolutions on the respect for human rights in China, Nicaragua and Georgia.
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Human Rights

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Since 2012 media freedom has been in general decline. While statistics for the 2002-2021 time-period show that the number of killings of journalists has declined somewhat in recent years (since 2013), there has been a marked erosion of legally enabling environments and an increase in other damaging forms of targeted attacks on the media. These include non-lethal physical violence; legal, digital, psycho-social, gender and identity-based intimidation; and state-led capture of the media landscape, often accompanied by politically-motivated denigration and exclusion of critical media voices. Our findings show: (i) political journalism remains most at risk; (ii) major social shocks or crisis (exemplified by the COVID-19 pandemic) have been widely used as pretexts for intrusive government measures to constrain media freedom; and (iii) media pluralism and independence are declining. Impunity remains unacceptably high with most cases of killings remaining unresolved. Imprisonments are on the rise while online spaces are becoming increasingly hostile and replete with gender-based hate speech. Countering the wide range of overt and covert threats will require an unequivocal reversal of global trends towards authoritarian controls and suppression of independent media. To undertake this, the European Parliament and concerned institutions need access to reliable data which reflects the realities of the multiple threats that impede the work of journalists globally.
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On 23 February 2022, the European Commission (EC) published its proposal for a corporate sustainability due diligence directive. This In-depth Analysis for the European Parliament Sub-Committee on Human Rights (DROI) initially presents the EC proposal and its main features, contextualising these against broader European and international developments in business and human rights regulations. It then undertakes an in-depth comparative analysis of the EC’s 2022 draft Directive against (i) the position adopted by the Foreign Affairs Committee (AFET/DROI) in its opinion for the Legal Affairs Committee of 25 November 2020; (ii) the final EP position as adopted in March 2021. This is followed by evaluation of the EC draft Directive’s approach on key elements relating to human rights and environmental due diligence from the point of view of human rights standards and in light of the rationale presented in the EC’s Impact Assessment Report (23 February 2022) and Annexes (29 March 2022). Overall, the analysis provides an assessment of the extent to which key positions of AFET/DROI and the Parliament regarding human rights due diligence, as well as relevant international and regional legal standards, policies and guidance, are either reflected in the EC draft Directive or might be better reflected in it.
Source : © European Union, 2022 - EP

Source : © Union européenne, 2022 - PE

Durée de la vidéo : 70'

Clause de non-responsabilité : L'interprétation des débats facilite la communication mais ne constitue en aucun cas un enregistrement authentifié des débats. Seuls le discours original ou la traduction écrite révisée du discours original peuvent être considérés authentiques.
Source : © Union européenne, 2022 - PE

Durée de la vidéo : 42'

Clause de non-responsabilité : L'interprétation des débats facilite la communication mais ne constitue en aucun cas un enregistrement authentifié des débats. Seuls le discours original ou la traduction écrite révisée du discours original peuvent être considérés authentiques.
Source : © Union européenne, 2022 - PE

Durée de la vidéo : 36'

Clause de non-responsabilité : L'interprétation des débats facilite la communication mais ne constitue en aucun cas un enregistrement authentifié des débats. Seuls le discours original ou la traduction écrite révisée du discours original peuvent être considérés authentiques.
Source : © Union européenne, 2022 - PE

Durée de la vidéo : 107'

Clause de non-responsabilité : L'interprétation des débats facilite la communication mais ne constitue en aucun cas un enregistrement authentifié des débats. Seuls le discours original ou la traduction écrite révisée du discours original peuvent être considérés authentiques.
Source : © Union européenne, 2022 - PE

The aim of the hearing is to engage in a debate with policy-makers and scholars on progress and challenges towards the universal abolition of the death penalty and to discuss how to strengthen strategies and international cooperation to this end. There is a clear overall trend on the declining use of the death penalty worldwide. However, large-scale executions and the resumptions of the application of the death penalty in certain countries are of great concern.
The EU pursues universal abolition of the death penalty in the world as a matter of utmost priority in its human rights foreign policy. The European Parliament is at the forefront of EU actions promoting and supporting the abolitionism, publicly raising its opposition to the use of death penalty in individual cases and using its influence with governments and parliaments worldwide through parliamentary diplomacy.
Location : SPINELLI 3G2
Watch the hearing live
Programme
Source : © European Union, 2022 - EP

Source : © Union européenne, 2022 - PE

Source : © Union européenne, 2022 - PE

Durée de la vidéo : 65'

Clause de non-responsabilité : L'interprétation des débats facilite la communication mais ne constitue en aucun cas un enregistrement authentifié des débats. Seuls le discours original ou la traduction écrite révisée du discours original peuvent être considérés authentiques.
Source : © Union européenne, 2022 - PE

Durée de la vidéo : 101'

Clause de non-responsabilité : L'interprétation des débats facilite la communication mais ne constitue en aucun cas un enregistrement authentifié des débats. Seuls le discours original ou la traduction écrite révisée du discours original peuvent être considérés authentiques.
Source : © Union européenne, 2022 - PE

Persecution of minorities on the grounds of belief or religion
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The case of Osman Kavala in Turkey
Reports of continued organ harvesting in China
The continuous crackdown of political opposition in Cambodia
Source : © European Union, 2022 - EP

Jointly with the Committee on International Trade, the Subcommittee on Human Rights will hold a public hearing on human rights and trade nexus in the context of non-self-governing and occupied territories, on Wednesday 16 March. The debate will assess the implementation of international human rights law in non-self-governing and occupied territories, including how trade policy can support the promotion of human rights considering the specific situation of these territories.
Location : ANTALL 6Q2
Draft agenda and meeting documents
Video of the meting
Source : © European Union, 2022 - EP

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the President of the European Parliament has established a number of measures to contain the spread of the virus and to safeguard Parliament's core activities. The current precautionary measures do not affect work on legislative priorities. Core activities are maintained to ensure the smooth running of the institution's legislative, budgetary, and scrutiny functions.
The next meetings of the Subcommittee on Human Rights will take place on:- Thursday 21 April 2022 from 13.45 - 16.15 in meeting room: SPAAK 3C50: Joint JURI/DROI Interparliamentary Committee Meeting on Corporate responsibility for serious human rights abuses in third countries

EP Calendar 2022
DROI Meetings 2022
Urgency Resolutions on human rights
Book by HR/VP Josep Borrell Fontelles on "European foreign policy in times of COVID-19"
Source : © European Union, 2022 - EP

There is a general perception in Western countries that the role of values as a foreign policy driver is currently on the decline. This study in the series ‘global trends in external policies’ seeks to contribute to the debate by investigating what is meant by ‘values’, whether their importance is on the wane and, if so, how this manifests itself, and how the European Union (EU) can respond to these trends. The broad concept of values has therefore been split into five categories. Socio-cultural values are implicit drivers of foreign policy. In the case of the EU, these are characterised by diversity. ‘Political values’ is used as a term to describe the fundamental principles of political and public action, defining the relationship between the state and its citizens. For the EU, these are often referred to as the triad of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. Economic values characterise the nature of the prevailing economic system in a country. The EU advocates a social market economy. The term ‘Earth values’ refers to the inclusion of environmental considerations in external policies. The EU has become a leader in promoting sustainability. Resulting from the preceding four are ‘international order values’, which characterise the overall international outlook of actors. The EU’s international order value is ‘principled pragmatism’. This study compares the EU’s values with those of four reference countries: the US, Turkey, Russia and China. The US in the West comes closest to many of the EU’s values, but does not overlap completely. Turkey and Russia are in the EU’s Eastern neighbourhood and increasingly disagree with the EU on values. Chinese values overlap least with the EU’s values. The study confirms a decline in the influence of the political values preferred by the EU. This decline appears to correspond to a clear West-East spectrum. However, the study also notes an opposite trend of increasing influence of Earth values. For these, a Eurocentric spectrum appears more adequate. For economic values, the definition of trends depends on benchmarks and methodology. The international order notion of ‘principled pragmatism’ has been extended to ‘EU strategic autonomy’. Values are often considered as part of EU strategic autonomy and some policies, such as EU accession or trade policy, incorporate them. A values-based approach to external policies should differentiate according to the partner country and the value category concerned. Whereas cooperation on political values does not appear to be fruitful with certain countries, continued efforts on economic or Earth values may still be possible. The study explores what such a differentiated approach could mean for the four reference countries in the near future. Such an approach should also take into account the differing perceptions of partner countries. Although positive avenues of cooperation on, for example, Earth values are still possible, geopolitical tensions, partly rooted in differing values, are overshadowing this path.
Source : © European Union, 2022 - EP