Beyond the Heaven–Hell Binary and the One-Way Traffic Paradigm: The European Union, Africa and Contested Human Rights in the Negotiations of the Samoa Agreement

Abstract

This article, drawing on Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) and embracing the decentring agenda in European Union (EU) external relations, discusses the substance of human rights promotion in the negotiations of the Samoa Agreement. It documents how the EU has concentrated on civil and political rights, whereas Africa has advanced an innovative approach to economic, social and cultural rights underpinned by the right to development. More importantly, going beyond the ‘heaven–hell binary’, which draws neat lines between the good North and the bad South, and the ‘one-way traffic paradigm’, which claims that human rights flow from the North to the South, it shows that the human rights corpus may be slowly evolving from its paradigmatic western orientation towards a truly universal project: the EU and Africa have started recognising each other as being holders of diverse yet legitimate perspectives on human rights.