Human Rights and the Lomé Convention: Debates between the European Community and the Developing World, 1988–91

The article examines intellectual and political debates on human rights that took place between the European Economic Community (EEC) and the Africa, Caribbean and the Pacific Group of Countries (ACP) in the context of the Lomé Convention between 1988 and 1991. In this period, the debate between the two groups exploded and resulted in intellectual compromises, and had significant political consequences for the practical implementation of Lomé. Drawing on recently declassified archival material from the Historical Archives of the European Union, as well as periodicals and archival materials from the United Kingdom and France, the article traces the intellectual and political evolution of the issue of human rights in between the global north and global south. As a development cooperation agreement, Lomé provided a space for representatives of the EEC and the ACP to advance and negotiate their own understandings of human rights, particularly their supposed universality and their connection to development.