Exporting peace? : the EU mediator’s normative backpack

NOUWEN, Sarah Maria Heiltjen

doi:10.1017/elo.2022.9

Exporting peace? : the EU mediator’s normative backpack

dc.contributor.author	NOUWEN, Sarah Maria Heiltjen
dc.date.accessioned	2022-04-11T13:29:08Z
dc.date.available	2022-04-11T13:29:08Z
dc.date.issued	2022
dc.description	Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 April 2022	en
dc.description.abstract	On the occasion of the launch of the European Law Open, this article analyses two policy documents of the European Union (EU) on its ambitions in peace mediation, to think about what it could mean for European law to be open to the world. Reading these documents – ‘the Concepts’ – through the lens of the theme that I have been assigned for this opening issue – ‘Europe in the world’ – one discerns an outward-looking EU searching for a greater role in the international field of peace mediation. One also sees instances of eurocentrism: a set of assumptions about the superiority of European (or ‘western’) ways of knowing and doing. In these Concepts, the EU envisages sending EU mediators into the world – either to mediate themselves or to support mediation efforts by others. The Concepts also contain increasingly long lists of EU values to be carried along and distributed during peace mediation. But the Concepts do not consider that in the countries where the EU mediator arrives, this backpack filled with normative baggage may bring other associations. Without more explicit recognition of the EU’s obstinate baggage, the EU is unlikely to be an effective peace mediator or, indeed, a credible global actor. More generally, critical reflexivity could help the EU to address the lingering Eurocentric tendencies that these Concepts reveal. Such critical questioning by the EU of its own assumptions, as well as learning from perspectives from outside the EU or the past, can be a process of focusing on Europe in order to decentre it. That, then, could also be a mission for this bold new European journal.	en
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf	en
dc.identifier.citation	European law open, 2022, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 26-59	en
dc.identifier.doi	10.1017/elo.2022.9
dc.identifier.endpage	59	en
dc.identifier.issn	2752-6135
dc.identifier.issue	1	en
dc.identifier.startpage	26	en
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/1814/74423
dc.identifier.volume	1	en
dc.language.iso	en	en
dc.orcid.upload	true	*
dc.publisher	Cambridge University Press	en
dc.relation.euicluster	EUI Interdisciplinary Research Cluster
dc.relation.euicluster	Decentering Eurocentrism
dc.relation.ispartof	European law open	en
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess	en
dc.rights.license	Attribution 4.0 International	*
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/	*
dc.subject.other	EUI Interdisciplinary Research Cluster
dc.subject.other	Eurocentrism
dc.title	Exporting peace? : the EU mediator’s normative backpack	en
dc.type	Article	en
dspace.entity.type	Publication
person.identifier.orcid	0000-0002-1212-935X
person.identifier.other	44115
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