BITTERSWEET HARVEST: A Human Rights Impact Assessment of the European Union's Everything but Arms Instiative in Cambodia

While there is ample evidence of state and corporate complicity in the serious and systematic human rights violations that have surrounded the development of industrial sugarcane plantations in Cambodia, nobody has been held accountable and those affected have been denied access to an effective remedy at the local and national levels. Unable to obtain redress through Cambodian institutions, affected communities have turned to Europe in search of accountability. However, they have found that there is no effective, independent accountability mechanism at the European Commission or anywhere within the EU structure that is available to people affected by EU policies or the activities of European companies outside of Europe’s borders. In the absence of such a mechanism, the EU’s legal and policy commitments to human rights abroad ring hollow to the people they are meant to serve. While the European Commission has recently committed to embed impact assessments and evaluations in trade policy-making and address all significant impacts, it has apparently not extended this commitment to the EBA initiative. This report underscores the urgent need for assessment and reform of the EBA scheme. If human rights safeguards are not integrated into the trade scheme, its poverty reduction goals will continue to be undermined and the EU will remain in violation of its international human rights obligations.