The conclusions, adopted by the Council of the EU on Monday 19 May, are a fundamental step forward, endorsing a new “Toolbox” that provides EU staff and partners with concrete guidance to better integrate human rights in the development cooperation aid, at all stages of the project cycle management. The conclusions also called for further complementarity, coherence and coordination among all EU external policies, highlighting that investment and business activities in partner countries should respect human rights and the importance of Human Rights Impact Assessments (HRIA) for trade and investment agreements.
FIDH has consistently advocated for such an approach, particularly regarding HRIA’s, notably by documenting the impact of trade and investments on human rights and presenting its concluding observations on EU and business obligations.