Comparing integration discourses in human rights and environmental policy in the European Parliament.

The integration of overarching norms guiding EU policy into sectoral economic policies have been high on the agenda of EU institutions for a number of years, not least triggered by the EU’s commitment to the global sustainable development goals (SDGs). A number of legislative initiatives and recently adopted regulations speak to the fact, that especially efforts to integrate either environmental or human rights norms into international trade and investment relations have picked up some speed. In this context, the European Parliament (EP) has played a notably active role in adopting targeted resolution and publishing own initiative reports, apart from reacting to Commission proposals. Interestingly, in the literature on policy integration the role of the EP has been largely neglected. As a “working parliament” with a differentiated committee structure and procedures in place for mediating not only across party lines, but also for balancing committee biases, the European Parliament might be institutionally well adapted for internal coordination and the adoption of coherent policy positions. Yet, we start from the assumption that the meaning of “coherence” or “policy integration” is not merely a matter of institutional design, but the result of the discursive construction of meaning along the policy process. We trace this construction process in the interface of environmental policy, human and social rights protection and economic development cooperation. In focusing on this particular policy nexus, we hope to make a new contribution to the policy integration literature which has been dominated by studies on environmental and climate policy integration. Similarly, studies on the coherence of EU development cooperation ask how universal humanitarian norms are balanced in asymmetric economic relations. Hence, the quest for better integration comes from two – separate – universalistic normative angles, environmental or social sustainability, into policies addressing economic growth. Little attention has been paid to the fact that also environmental and social or human rights objectives may come into conflict with each other, e.g. if the compliance with environmental standards undermines the livelihood of smallholders. We will also address the question how the two non-economic norms, where the EU claims international leadership, are being balanced in EU policy-making. The Parliament has developed a reputation not only as the EU’s environmental and climate champion, but has also taken a leadership role related to human rights and global sustainability policy. Therefore, the EP may be considered the most likely EU institution to develop a comprehensive approach to an integration of environmental and human rights policy. Assuming discursive shifts towards an integration of human rights and environmental concerns to precede shifts in policy-making, we analyze EP debates and at its adopted policy resolutions, initiative reports and legislative opinions, e.g. on timber regulations or corporate due diligence policies. Analytically, we use a discourse network analysis to uncover different discursive concepts and connections in the EP policy-making. We consider Committee Reports as well as Debates Protocols for our analysis and follow the goal to reconstruct the discourses, visualize different policy positions and uncover relations between these positions and actors advocating them.