Dr Georg Wiessala

Dr Georg Wiessala
University of Central Lancashire, UK

“Re-Orienting” the Fundamentals? Human Rights and New Connections in EU-Asia Relations

Abstract:

This paper offers a critique of the place of human rights issues in the area of Asia-Europe relations and in the context of the ‘Asia Policies’ of the European Union (EU). The contribution puts forward, in particular, an investigation of the ways in which matters of human rights underlie, give shape to, and provide agendas for, the EU’s foreign policy interaction with its dialogue partners across the Asia Pacific.

The general theoretical perspective adopted here argues for a much stronger consideration of selected social-constructivist perspectives with regard to the development and future of relations between the Asia-Pacific and the EU. In this way, the investigation places into context the pivotal function of ideas and identities, values and norms, learning, educational exchange and human rights in EU foreign policy towards countries and non-state actors across the Asia Pacific.

Through a number of short, country-specific and regional, case studies (covering, amongst others, ASEAN, the ASEM, Burma/Myanmar, China and Indonesia), the presentation demonstrates that there is both a significant ‘enabling’ and a considerable ‘inhibitory’ potential of human rights and human rights debates in the Union’s relations with Asian interlocutors. The paper suggests some ways in which this can be translated into concrete policy-prescriptions for the EU and its Asia-Pacific partners.

In particular, the analysis sheds light on a number of concrete scenarios for future EU-Asia cooperation over human rights. To this end, this paper presentation proposes and promotes a more inclusive, ‘holistic’, understanding of the significance and the potential of norms, values and the human rights discourse in the framework of future political, economic and cultural East-West contacts.

Biographical note:

Dr Georg Wiessala is a Reader in International Relations and Director of Research in the Department of Education & Social Science of the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, United Kingdom (http://www.uclan.ac.uk). He co-edited The European Union: Annual Review, from 1999 to 2003, and acted as a Committee member of UACES, the UK’s University Association for Contemporary European Studies (http://www.uaces.org). Georg teaches on European Studies and International Relations courses in both the Asia-Pacific and Europe and holds visiting teaching positions at a number of institutions, such as the European Institute for Asian Studies in Brussels (http://www.eias.org) and the Interdisciplinary Centre for European Studies of Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok (http://www.chula.ac.th). His main research interests revolve around European Union Foreign Policy, Human Rights, EU-Asia-Pacific Relations and the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM). Amongst his recent writings is a piece on New Approaches to the Antipodes: Some Themes in EU-Relations with Australia and New Zealand (Asia-Pacific Journal of EU Studies, Vol.2, No.1, 2004). His latest book publications include: The European Union and Asian Countries (UACES/Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), Re-Orienting the Fundamentals: Human Rights and New Connections in EU-Asia Relations (Ashgate, 2006) and Reflections and Reorientations: EU-Asia Dialogue in the New Millennium (Rodopi, 2007).

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