The EU’s Approach to Trade and Human Rights in Southeast Asia: A Comparative Study on the EU’s Policy on Myanmar and Cambodia

Avery Lord — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 19:47:04 +0000

The EU’s Approach to Trade and Human Rights in Southeast Asia: A Comparative Study on the EU’s Policy on Myanmar and Cambodia Avery Lord Wed, 06/17/2026 - 13:47

By: Taufiq E Faruque

Abstract:

The European Union (EU) is a global trading power thanks to the size of its internal market. The
norms and ideals, like fundamental freedom and the rule of law, are always tagged with the EU’s
external trade policy. However, the EU’s normative trade policy often appears inconsistent and
exhibits an asymmetric response on normative grounds, such as breaches of human rights and
democratic backsliding in trading partner countries. This thesis aims to analyze the drivers behind
the EU’s diverging trade measures in the context of two Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in
Southeast Asia: Myanmar and Cambodia. Both Myanmar and Cambodia are recipients of the EU’s
unilateral trade preference for the LDCs – the Everything But Arms (EBA), which allows the
recipients to get quota-free and duty-free access to the EU market for all goods except weapons.
The goal of this scheme is to promote market liberalization and economic development in the
LDCs, provided that they ensure fundamental human rights and labor standards. The 2017
Rohingya genocide, the 2021 military coup in Myanmar, and the increasing democratic
backsliding in Cambodia since 2017 present severe cases of human rights violations and political
persecution. In response, we saw the EU’s asymmetrical policy response, which invoked human
rights grounds and partially suspended Cambodia’s EBA preference. On the contrary, the EBA
scheme for Myanmar continued, despite the scale and nature of human rights violations being more
serious in Myanmar than in Cambodia. This research aims to explain the apparent policy
divergence of the EU on trade and human rights grounds, utilizing these two similar cases with
dissimilar outcomes. In doing so, this research employs role theory as an overarching framework
and utilizes comparative process tracing as its method. The empirical analysis is based on three
assumptions: (1) strategic calculations and institutional learning; (2) the Do No Harm Principle;
and (3) lobbying and political context of the target country. The key findings confirmed the
assumptions and thus the thesis argues that the EU’s role as a normative trade actor was shaped by
a dynamic interplay of strategic, institutional, ethical, and lobbying factors. Myanmar’s high
strategic value, humanitarian concern, and the nature of lobbying pushed the EU to continue the
country’s EBA. On the contrary, Cambodia’s drift towards China, humanitarian considerations,
and the opposition's strategic lobbying for EBA suspension at the EU institutions prompted the EU
to suspend the country’s EBA scheme partially.

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