The Implications of the EU-Turkey Refugee Agreement on the EU’s Role as an International Human Rights Actor

CESAA Essay Competition 2018 – Postgraduate winner: Katie HelmeWhile the European Union (EU) discursively frames itself as a values-driven actor, the recent influx of individuals seeking asylum within its borders problematises this image. The EU-Turkey refugee agreement, signed in March 2016, has been embraced as a mode to offset the burden of mass migration to the EU and to reassert the EU’s image as an international human rights actor. This paper contends, however, that the agreement negates the EU’s capacity to actively promote human rights norms externally by: 1) compromising on its high standards in order to achieve internal cohesion and redress waning solidarity between member states; 2) transgressing EU and international laws and norms; and 3) relegating the previous approach it has taken to seeking structural reform in Turkey. Ultimately, this paper concludes that the EU’s participation in the refugee agreement with Turkey delegitimises the EU as an international human rights actor