The European Union has guidelines on ensuring protection for human rights defenders, whom it defines as people “combating cultures of impunity which serve to cloak systematic and repeated breaches of human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

Questions for students of a 101 course on the EU: how does the above definition square with recent developments in the Franco-Libyan relationship? With the EU’s robust relations with Egypt, despite its handling of dissidents? With Spanish Prime Minister Luis Zapatero’s words at the Arab League summit of 2005? In particular, how do the EU’s protective guidelines affect trade relations with Iran? This last is a particularly difficult question to answer, in light of the EU parliament’s condemnation of Iran’s human rights record, and the subsequent suspension on Iran’s part of the EU-Iran “dialogue on human rights.” Any thoughts?