The implementation of the Lisbon Treaty has entailed changes to the way that the EU is represented in the UN General Assembly and at the Human Rights Council, and has strengthened the coordinating role of the EU delegation in New York and Geneva. This paper analyses the effect of those changes on what the EU actually does in the field of human rights in those intergovernmental bodies at the UN. The paper focuses on the resolutions that the EU puts forward in both bodies, and first analyses changes in number of resolutions put forward, changes in the subject matter of resolutions, and changes in the content of regularly-run resolutions, comparing data over the last ten years. The second part then seeks to explain the relative stasis in EU activity that has been revealed. Why has there been so little innovation in the EU’s human rights diplomacy at the UN in this period? The paper considers explanations focusing firstly on the role of the EU delegation (considering questions regarding bureaucratic overload, leadership, credibility and legitimacy), and secondly on the member states (considering questions regarding socialisation, leadership, and costs and benefits of collective action).
