In 2014, Sweden created the first feminist foreign policy (FFP). Other states have since adopted FFPs as tools to further gender equality at a time of women’s rights regressions. Following a government shift in 2022, Sweden also became the first to dismantle the framework. The policy, its implementation and revokal guide the analysis, providing an understanding of the rise and fall of Swedish FFP. This thesis expands existing knowledge of the policy and sheds light on its underexplored impact and dismantlement. In conducting a critical policy analysis of the official FFP document, this work draws upon Bacchi’s WPR approach. This study shows that the policy constructed gender inequality as a structural issue and barrier to human rights as its overarching problem. In addition, the study performs a qualitative content analysis of key governmental documents, evaluations, and media sources, based upon a framework of norm entrepreneurship, soft power, and hard power. Pursuing the FFP, norm entrepreneurship and soft power aided implementation, while hard power and arms trade caused struggles. The policy revokal was framed by a harsher political and security context, where the FFP was seen as at odds with Swedish interests and values – thereby signalling a step back from normative ambitions.

Since the 1990s, EU has used human rights clauses as conditions in their trade agreements. In this thesis I will examine how these clauses has been utilized in agreements with Mexico, Morocco and Peru, how they differ from each other and furthermore study the effects that these may have had on the human rights situation in the countries. For the first part of my thesis I compared the content and the terms of clauses with each other, and the result was that they were quite similar but some important differences. In Mexico's agreement, there was an article which stipulated what cooperation on human rights should look like. In Peru's agreement, there was a section on labor rights. But besides that, it was the Universal declaration of human rights that all the clauses were based on. The second part of the thesis is to understand the impact that these agreements may have had on the different countries. The study showed that some improvements have been made, but they have been slow. From the material it could be deduced that there have been more improvements in Peru and Morocco than in Mexico. In the final step of my study, I wanted to link the results to a Press Freedom Index from Reporters Without Borders. This was to get a final indicator on the human rights situation. From the index it’s clear that the situation has not improved in Mexico, while it seems to have stagnated in Morocco and Peru.