The EU Guidelines (2008) are a tool for missions of EU Member States and contain recommendations on supporting human rights defenders in non-EU countries, as well as in multilateral fora. They have been developed by the European External Action Service and solely apply on the protection of human rights defenders in the framework of foreign diplomatic missions. They apply to the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

The EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders are supplemented by the “Guidance Note for EU Missions” (2014). This is a non-public document that guides EU and its members diplomatic staff on the implementation of the EU Guidelines on HRDs in third countries. Among others, it includes a checklist of tools and actions used to address specific threats faced by HRDs and which EU institution is in charge of the response in each case.

Find the original document here in English (European External Action Service).

The document has also been translated into Swahili, into Thai and into eight local Philippine languages (Hiligaynon, Cebuano, Tagalog, Ilokano, Meranaw, Bicol, Kapampangan and Waray/Leyte)