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

Abstract

Human rights are considered as a cornerstone of Dutch foreign policy. Despite the importance of the policy area, only a few limited evaluations of human rights programs have been carried out during the past decade. The policy and operations evaluation department (IOB) therefore included this policy area in its evaluation programme and carried out a policy analysis and five sub-studies. 'Human rights policy versus practice' presents the results of one of these sub-studies. Between November 2004 and April 2005 Dutch political efforts in the field of human rights in Indonesia, China, Iran, Rwanda and Mexico were assessed. The aim of the sub-study was to describe the implementation of Dutch human rights policy and, for a selected number of case studies, to gauge its effectiveness. To this end, an evaluation framework was designed, documents were reviewed and a large number of key actors were interviewed. The results presented in this report reflect the main issues arising from...