EU Coordination in Multilateral Fora as a Means of Promoting Human Rights Laws Abroad

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2024 9(1), 423-442 | Article | (Table of Contents) I. Introduction. – II. The legal principles governing EU coordination in international law-making fora: a weakness or a strength of Member States' external sovereignty? – III. The case of the Maritime Labour Convention: the journey of human rights from the EU to China via international law. – III.1. The Conven-tion and the EU's role in its elaboration. – III.2. The EU's rationale for uploading human rights standards into international law: a rights-oriented approach. – III.3. The impact of the Maritime Labour Conven-tion in China. – IV. Conclusion. | (Abstract) This Article presents two arguments and explores the relationship between them. First, the principles governing coordination between the EU and its Member States in multilateral fora (mainly, sincere co-operation and unity in the EU's representation) serve to increase the Member States' influence in inter-national law-making. Thus, there is a trade-off between the autonomy of Member States to determine their own positions in multilateral fora, and their capacity to influence such fora: the lesser the former, the greater the latter. Second, such an influence can be used by the EU and its Member States to pro-mote human rights laws abroad, “uploading” high standards into multilateral treaties, which are subse-quently “downloaded” by third states through ratification and implementation. Therefore, there is a link between the mentioned EU external relations law principles (which are a “condition” for a success-ful promotion) and the obligation to promote values set in arts 3(5) and 21 TEU (which provides the “direction” of the promotion). Consequently, when Member States complain about excessive EU intru-sion into their autonomy through common positions in multilateral fora, they should bear in mind that they are not only bound by the above-mentioned legal principles, but that their obligation to promote certain values abroad is also at stake. The case of the EU's influence on the Maritime Labour Conven-tion and its impact on Chinese law and policy is used to illustrate the arguments.