(Bio)Fueling Injustice? - Europafrica

and other key human rights conventions which protect economic, social and cultural
rights (ESCR), and which are especially relevant for the analysis of agrofuel impacts. A
question is to know whether and how these obligations apply when a policy in an EU
Member State has an impact on the enjoyment of ESCR in third countries: What are –
for instance - the obligations of EU Member States for the impact of their biofuel policy
in Africa?
International monitoring bodies such as the UN Committee on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights and UN Special Rapporteurs have repeatedly stressed that States’
obligations with regards to ESCR apply towards people affected by them within and
outside their territorial boundaries. In September 2011, a group of experts in
international law gathered in Maastricht, under the auspices of the International
Commission of Jurists and Maastricht University, to discuss the extent and the scope
of obligations under the ICESCR, and they adopted the Maastricht Principles on
Extraterritorial Obligations of States in the area of Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (ETO Principles). 485 This gathering built upon two previous Maastricht
documents that were influential in the field of ESCR. 486 The ETO Principles are drawn
from international law, and they aim at clarifying the content of States’ obligations to
realise ESCR beyond their borders. According to the ETO Principles, States have to
respect, protect and fulfil ESCR both within their territories and extra-territorially
(Principle 3). The scope of a state’s extraterritorial obligations is specified according to
situations where its jurisdiction applies (Principle 9). ETOs do not limit or undermine
the obligations of a state towards people on its territory. For instance, if EU Member
States breach extraterritorial obligations with effects in an African country this does not
waive the local (African) country’s responsibility.
Specifically in the EU context, the EU Member States recently indicated that their
national policies should not harm human rights abroad. In a text on Export Credit
Agencies – which are usually state-owned financing institutions that provide credits for
investments in politically unstable countries –, the Council and the European
Parliament indicated in the Preamble that
The Member States should comply with the Union's general
provisions on External Action, such as consolidating
democracy, respect for human rights and policy coherence for
development, and the fight against climate change, when
establishing, developing and implementing their national export
credit systems and when carrying out their supervision of
officially supported export credit activities. 487
The European Commission has also indicated that “certain human rights standards of
the United Nations have an internal and external dimension for the Union.” 488
Applied to the EU Member States, the ETO Principles offer a guidance to analyse their
obligations with regards to their biofuel policy. Another question is then to define
which institution is responsible for the impact of the EU biofuel policy. As it is a
policy with a strong component at the Union level, it might be argued that the EU itself
must comply with international human rights law and bears responsibility for the impact
of its biofuel policy. This is a controversial area, as the EU has not ratified the
ICESCR. As it currently stands, the relationship of the EU to the international law of
human rights remains “largely ad hoc and unsystematic”, 489 and it is difficult to
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