Human rights policy versus practice: An evaluation of the implementation of the human rights policy of the Netherlands in its relations with China, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico and Rwanda in the period 1999-2004

This study contains an assessment of the efforts of the Dutch government in the field of human rights in Indonesia, China, Iran, Rwanda and Mexico. It aims to review the implementation of Dutch human rights policy (including efforts in the EU and UN frameworks) and to assess its effectiveness in a selected number of case studies. The main questions were:

• Has the human rights situation in the countries been analysed and have concerns been acknowledged by the Netherlands;
• Have policy objectives been formulated and strategies developed to achieve the objectives;
• How has the policy been implemented?
• Have concerns been addressed in other fields of foreign policy, such as development co-operation and economic relations?
• Has the Netherlands been effective in a few selected situations per country?

With regard to this last point, the assessment of effectiveness of the policy in a number of case studies, it was investigated to what extent the political efforts of the Netherlands (bilateral and within the EU) contributed to an improvement in the human rights situation or prevented a deterioration of the situation in these cases.

Geographic Coverage

Netherlands
Mexico
Iran, Islamic Republic of
Rwanda

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