Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

The Minister and I could agree on much of this. The fundamental issue arises from the EU representative in Bogota who was not clear in his reply to the specific question as to how the human rights clause might be made transparent or enforceable. The issue that arises for the EU and Ireland is whether we can have an economic agreement first and that human rights will follow, which is a residual theory of human rights.

As a delegation, we were interested in and in agreement on the need for the human rights requirement to be up-fronted. In other words, that the process of establishing human rights becomes something that happens on the same day as does economic development.

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