In foreign aid, human rights conditionality is the norm by which donor states should make the allocation of bilateral development assistance dependent on respect for fundamental human rights by recipient governments. There are numerous reasons to expect convergence in the adoption of human rights conditionality by the development agencies of European Union (EU) member states. First, the norm has been strongly adopted by European institutions (suffice it to say that the European Commission invariably includes a human rights clause in any European cooperation treaty with developing countries since 1995). Second, the end of the Cold War has reduced the importance of geo-strategic interests for aid allocation. Third, the aid effectiveness agenda strongly supports the principle of donor harmonization, which specifically calls for the application of common approaches in assessing and reacting to political issues in receiving countries. This paper assesses whether three of the biggest European aid donors, that is, France, Italy and the UK, are ‘harmonised’ in the adoption and application of human rights conditionality. First, the paper assesses legal and political documents. Do all three countries normatively support the alteration of foreign aid programmes because of political concerns, such as human rights violations? Second, the paper looks at development agreements with third countries. Do all three countries clarify the human rights obligations of recipient governments when signing agreements on development cooperation? Third, the paper briefly explores two cases of application of human rights conditionality, Zimbabwe in 2002 and Mail in 2012. Did France, Italy and the United Kingdom coordinate their efforts to address human rights violations through the suspension of development assistance? The relevance of the paper is given by the fact that coordination among donors is necessary for human rights conditionality to be effective in pressing recipient governments and improving the human rights situation in recipient countries.
