EU and Member State competences in human rights

This report is submitted in connection with Work Package 8 of the FP7 FRAME (Fostering Human Rights Among European Policies) project. The report falls within Cluster Two, tasked to look at the actors in the European Union’s Multi-Level, Multi-Actor Human Rights Engagement. Work Package 8, ‘Coherence Among EU Institutions and Member States’, examines the principles, competences, actions and interactions of EU institutions and the Member States that characterise human rights policies and that lead to coherence or incoherence in the EU and Member States’ promotion of human rights. Having examined the potential for ‘horizontal’ coherence and incoherence in the Work Package’s first report, 8.1, ‘Report on coherence of human rights policymaking in EU Institutions and other EU agencies and bodies’, this report examines ‘vertical’ coherence and incoherence, produced by the interaction between the EU and its institutions and the Member States.