[Conference] Public interests without borders: investigating the EU’s transnational ambitions

Article 3(5) TEU proclaims that in its relations with the wider world, the European Union (EU) shall contribute “to peace, security, the sustainable development of the Earth, solidarity and mutual respect among peoples, free and fair trade, eradication of poverty and the protection of human rights, in particular the rights of the child, as well as to the strict observance and the development of international law, including respect for the principles of the United Nations Charter”. This conference aims to critically investigate a range of EU legislative initiatives, administrative policies and international agreements aimed, directly or indirectly, at ensuring respect for the objectives enshrined in Article 3 TEU. These objectives can also be interpreted as transnational public goods or public interests that the EU aims to pursue throughout the globe. 

Concretely, these transnational ambitions of the EU are reflected, for example, in the turn to mandatory due diligence to regulate transnational value chains, combat forced labour or prevent deforestation. In this regard, the EU has been leveraging its internal market competencies to incentivise businesses to take a variety of intrinsically public objectives into account when their economic activities impact people and environments outside of the EU. The Union’s attempt at promoting public interests beyond its borders is also visible in its trade policy, leading to the introduction of human rights or sustainability considerations in recent agreements with commercial partners. Finally, the emergence of the EU’s global human rights sanctions regime demonstrates also a growing ambition to police human rights violations and abuses worldwide.  

These developments raise several important questions related, on the one hand, to the practical operation and effects of these policies: How is the EU projecting its regulatory power beyond its territory in practice? How are the EU’s policies and measures affecting target countries? Are they able to achieve their primary objectives, be they to limit human rights violations, to combat deforestation or improve labour conditions outside of the EU? In short, what can we say from a descriptive standpoint about the practices and processes that underpin the transnational ambitions enshrined in a range of EU instruments? On the other hand, the EU’s pursuit of public interests beyond its borders raises also questions related to the legitimacy of these measures. Can the EU be a legitimate actor in determining which public interests need to be pursued and how throughout the world? How is this legitimacy to be secured? Through the involvement of those ultimately affected by these policies? Or, could it be that these policies constitute a repackaging of Europe’s old colonial/civilisational drive? In any event, it seems essential to decentre the European perspective when discussing these developments and to bring to the fore voices and experiences from the target countries. 

This conference aims to contribute to the Asser Institute’s strategic research agenda to rethink public interests in international and European Law and, more specifically, to study critically, in the context of the EU, the decoupling of the pursuit of the public interest from the territorial state and the challenges it poses. 

View the draft programme of this conference

Organisers:

• Antoine Duval (Asser Institute)
• Stephanie Triefus (Asser Institute)
• Narin Idriz (Asser Institute)

Speakers:

• Peter Van Elsuwege (Ghent University)
• Saide Esra Akdogan (Wageningen University)
• Geraldo Vidigal (University of Amsterdam)
• Kunhao Yang (European University Institute)
• Lena Parzsch (Freie Universität Berlin)
• Michael Mason (London School of Economics)
• Rebecca Ravelli (Maastricht University)
• Clara Portela (University of Valencia)
• Alexandra Hofer (Utrecht University)
• Nathanael Tilahun (University of Essex) 
• Caroline Omari Lichuma (University of Luxembourg)
• Aravind Ganesh (University of Sussex)