What is it about?

This article examines how trade dependence on major economic partners shapes states’ human rights behavior, focusing on relations with the European Union and China. It analyzes whether and how differing patterns of economic dependence condition governments’ responsiveness to human rights expectations, and shows that reliance on these distinct partners is associated with divergent human rights outcomes. The study highlights how economic ties can structure incentives for compliance, accommodation, or resistance in the human rights domain.

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Why is it important?

The article speaks directly to debates about the political consequences of globalization and the role of economic power in human rights governance. By comparing dependence on the EU and on China, it challenges simplistic assumptions that trade integration uniformly promotes or undermines human rights. The findings demonstrate that who a country trades with matters, not only how much it trades, and they have implications for understanding leverage, influence, and competition among major powers in shaping global human rights norms.

Perspectives

I approach this topic from an interest in how economic relationships quietly but powerfully shape states’ room for maneuver in human rights politics. Rather than treating external influence as abstract or uniform, this study reflects my effort to unpack the concrete incentives governments face when they depend on different partners with distinct normative expectations. The article is motivated by a broader concern with how shifts in the global political economy affect the prospects for human rights promotion in a multipolar world.

Professor Sara Beth Kahn-Nisser
Open University of Israel

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: The EU, China, trade dependence and human rights, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, July 2019, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/09557571.2019.1641067.
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