European Convention on Human Rights: 75th Anniversary
Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts(3 days, 2 hours ago)
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Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I declare interests as the author of the Penguin Allen Lane book Human Rights: The Case for the Defence, as a new member of our delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and as a lifelong human rights lawyer and campaigner. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on his well-deserved appointment as chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and on that outstanding opening of his debate marking the 75th Anniversary of the convention which protects the civil rights of around 700 million people in 46 states.
I have been working with the convention on an almost daily basis for around 30 of those years, both for and against UK Governments domestically and in the Strasbourg court that has rendered it perhaps the most effective international human rights mechanism in the world. Most formatively, I was a government lawyer in the late 1990s during the passage and implementation of our Human Rights Act and at Liberty, the National Council for Civil Liberties, from 2001 until 2016.
We have been eloquently reminded of the history of why Conservative politician, jurist and Nuremberg prosecutor David Maxwell Fyfe was deputed to lead the convention drafting process after the Council of Europe was founded by the Treaty of London in 1949. If there was ever any doubt about the direct relationship between justice and peace, the 1930s had ended it. This was especially so in Europe, where two, too proximate world wars had begun. It could be no surprise that those seeking to rebuild the lands of Milton, Molière, Mozart and Michelangelo should have made co-operating around human rights enforcement a priority. If we have sometimes been a little complacent in the intervening years, surely that is over now, as war and far-rightism once more stalk Europe, and respect for the rule of law is far from secure, even in that great old constitutional democracy across the Atlantic.
In any event, I can report, first hand, the many ways in which the convention has come to the aid of people in the United Kingdom where both their common law and legislators had previously failed them. Before Strasbourg’s intervention, victims of rape were subjected to days of degrading cross-examination in person by their alleged assailants, contrary to Article 3. Similarly, abusive parents who beat their children to a pulp could be acquitted of the grave offence of causing grievous bodily harm by deploying the defence of reasonable chastisement of a child. Indeed, I would go as far as suggesting that victims of crime may be among those who have most benefited from the convention’s effect upon our domestic law, before and since the Human Rights Act 1998 brought rights home to be directly enforceable here.
There are numerous examples too of the UK’s privacy, free speech, non-discrimination and other vital rights and freedoms being ensured and enhanced by the convention. It would be far from liberal or progressive, and certainly deeply unconservative, not to treasure it.
Chagos Islands
Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
We have been through this in the House several dozen times, but I am happy to take the question again. I invite the noble Lord to consider a situation where we had allowed for the legal processes to continue. The advice that we received was that it was likely that the advisory decision would be followed by a decision to which we would have to adhere. Our view—this is a judgment—is that we would be in a stronger position to negotiate ahead of a binding judgment rather than afterwards. Noble Lords can disagree with that, but it is the reason for our timing. It is also the reason for the 11 rounds of negotiation under the previous Government. It is also true that there are Members opposite and Members in opposition in the other place who know that very well.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I am always grateful to my noble friend the Minister for the very careful tone with which she discusses these very sensitive subjects in a non-partisan way, despite obscene provocation to the contrary. I wonder whether she agrees that it is all very well to talk about ICJ rulings being advisory and to laugh them off, but we would not have been in the ICJ without the overwhelming support of the UN General Assembly. If we want the global South, and countries in Africa in particular, to think differently about China and to respect us going forward, we need to respect institutions such as the UN General Assembly.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
My noble friend makes a very clear point. For the record, I am happy to come here and take questions and challenge on this issue—it is important and right that the Government are held to account on it. She made a point about the geopolitics of this, with which I agree. One also needs to think about the practical, day-to-day functioning of a base in the middle of the Indian Ocean and our reliance upon third countries to enable it to function as well as we need it to. There would have been an impact on that, should we have waited for a binding judgment.
Council of Europe: 75th Anniversary
Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts(11 months, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Chakrabarti
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs what plans he has to mark the 75th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of London establishing the Council of Europe on 5 May.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Markham, in particular, who is not currently in his place, for becoming impatient and intemperate during yesterday’s Oral Questions. I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton) (Con)
I am worried already.
We value the role of the Council of Europe and we are a major contributor to the organisation. The Council of Europe’s commitment to peace, freedom and democracy is best evidenced by its swift decision to expel Russia following the brutal invasion of Ukraine and the launch of the register of damage, which will allow individuals to file claims for loss, injury and damage caused by Russia’s invasion. The 75th anniversary will be celebrated at the ministerial meeting in May.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I am sincerely grateful to the Foreign Secretary for an equivocal Answer to my Question. We all know that he has an awesome responsibility at the moment to practise statecraft globally and to seek to explain it at home. With that in mind, when he is considering institutions such as the UN, NATO, the Council of Europe and, dare I say it, the European Court of Human Rights, would he categorise them as international and worthy of our continued commitment and support, or foreign and worthy of repudiation and occasional contempt?
Rules-based International Order
Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Chakrabarti
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs what steps he is taking to champion a rules-based international order.
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton) (Con)
My Lords, an open and stable international order is in our interest. We use it to deliver on issues of domestic and global importance, such as the Bletchley AI safety declaration. We invest in it, as the fifth-largest UN budget contributor. We support reform of it to ensure that it benefits everyone, and we hold to account those who undermine it, including through steadfast support to Ukraine, sanctions against Russia and ensuring maritime security in the Red Sea. In a dangerous and uncertain world, this stable international order is more essential than ever.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary for the clarity of that Answer on the importance and scale of his task. I wonder whether that task was helped or hindered by two developments yesterday. The first was fresh advice from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees that the Rwanda scheme, now updated by the Rwanda treaty and the safety of Rwanda Bill, is still contrary to international law. The second development was comments by the Prime Minister on GB News that the Court of Human Rights is a “foreign” court and that he is prepared to defy it.
Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)
We do not believe that the Rwanda scheme is contrary to international law. I would characterise it by saying that things like the refugee convention were written for another age, when there was not mass international travel or the ubiquity of mobile phones. We are saying that, yes, this is out-of-the-box thinking and it is quite unorthodox, but you have a choice, frankly: when you have people arriving from a perfectly safe country into another safe country, you have to deal with that trade. That requires some fresh thinking. It is not possible to put people straight back in a boat and take them back to France, which is why the Rwanda scheme is being introduced. It is within the law and it is novel, but I believe it can work.
Climate Change: Impact on Developing Nations
Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Oates, and I join in the tributes to the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, for bringing this vital debate. I also congratulate the right reverend Prelate on a wonderful maiden speech.
What we are now doing to the world by degrading the land surface, polluting the waters and adding greenhouse gases to the air at an unprecedented rate, is new in the experience of the earth. It is mankind and his activities which are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways. We are seeing a vast increase in the amount of carbon dioxide reaching the atmosphere. The annual increase is 3 billion tonnes, and half the carbon emitted since the Industrial Revolution remains in the atmosphere. At the same time, we are seeing the destruction on a vast scale of tropical rainforests, which are uniquely able to remove carbon dioxide from the air.
We should always remember that free markets are a means to an end. They would defeat their object if, by their output, they did more damage to the quality of life through pollution than the wellbeing they achieve by the production of goods and services. Each country has to contribute, and industrialised countries must contribute more to help those that are not.
A framework is not enough. It will need to be filled out with specific undertakings and protocols, in diplomatic language, on the different aspects of climate change. These protocols must be binding and there must be effective regimes to supervise and monitor their application; otherwise, nations that accept and abide by environmental agreements, thus adding to their industrial costs, will lose out to those that do not.
These are not my words, though I cite them in a forthcoming book. They are not even borrowed from the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, or the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, who is to follow me, or David Attenborough, or Greta Thunberg. Whose words are these? For noble Lords who do not immediately recognise them, the clue was in the earlier speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley. I am citing Lady Thatcher’s 1989 address to the UN General Assembly. Daily Mail, please take note.
The problem with Paris is that it contains no individual binding obligations, let alone sanctions relating to the meeting of targets. The regime, as we have heard, lacks a sense of international or historical fairness, given that some of the greatest industrial polluters since 1850 are both most the enriched and least affected by the damage.
Alongside other proposals that have been put to the Minister—and I guess to all five of the warring families of the party opposite—I urge a move back towards internationalism and improving the rules-based order, not just in relation to human rights, as has been advocated by the right reverend Prelate and possibly even the noble Lord opposite, but climate security. We need more internationalism and less unilateralism.
People say that Lady Thatcher responded in that way because she was a trained chemist, and I have no doubt that that was part of the special contribution. However, she was also a lawyer. Lawyers are denigrated by some current Conservatives, but I believe that those two sides of her education inspired that very important speech: science and law. We need both to deal with this crisis.
UN: Individuals Displaced by Conflict
Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for raising this issue and for the points that he has made, but we believe there is already a robust and comprehensive ecosystem of laws and norms to protect civilians displaced by conflict. However, he is right that the UK should use our position of leadership to highlight this issue politically and raise it on the global stage—and we do so. We regularly engage in UN discussions, including at UNGA and the UN Security Council, and underline the responsibility of all states engaged in armed conflict to respect international humanitarian law and international refugee law and act in accordance with our obligations under them. The UK has been one of the most consistent and loudest voices on the subject for some time.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for—I think—being clear that His Majesty’s Government still support the refugee convention, as I think he suggested that they are promoting it on the world stage. Will he commit to promoting it with his Home Office colleagues as well?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees is a key partner for the UK. It provides protection and humanitarian assistance to refugees and other displaced persons. We have provided the UNHCR with more than £70 million in 2022-23, including £25 million for the Ukraine response.
Council of Europe: Death Penalty
Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Baroness Chakrabarti
To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they remain (1) opposed to the use of the death penalty, and (2) committed to the United Kingdom’s membership of the Council of Europe.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, it is a long-standing policy of the UK Government to oppose the death penalty in all circumstances as a matter of principle, and we have no plans to reintroduce it. The United Kingdom is committed to its membership of the Council of Europe, which remains an important forum for our human rights and foreign policy agenda.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
I am grateful, as always, to the Minister for his Answer. Noble Lords will appreciate that I tabled this Question some weeks ago in direct response to comments by the Prime Minister’s appointee as deputy chair of the Conservative Party about the death penalty, but also because of consistent comments on and off the record by Justice and Home Affairs Secretaries at the other end of the Corridor. By contrast, the Minister is a strenuous advocate for rights, freedoms and the international rule of law. Is this contradiction at the heart of government sustainable, let alone helpful?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, what I can say to the noble Baroness is that when I speak from this Dispatch Box, I speak for the Government and I emphasise and stress what the Government’s policy is, and that will continue to be the case.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)
My Lords, given that the rights adumbrated in the ECHR are anticipated—predated, sometimes, by centuries—by the laws of this country, what does my noble friend the Minister fear would be the right we would lose if we were to abrogate the convention?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
I think we have heard one of the points from the other side of the House. It is extremely important that the United Kingdom is a guardian of the rule of law internationally. We also make the case very strongly that as we ourselves have evolved, we hope that other countries have evolved. In 1965, I believe, we abolished the death penalty. We worked constructively with other countries towards achieving that aim. Of course, the conventions that we set up and create need to adapt and evolve, but the convention to stand against capital punishment and the death penalty is, I believe, the right one, and long may it continue.
Ethiopia: Peace Process
Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, it is good to hear the noble Baroness in such good voice. We welcome the peace agreement between the Ethiopian Government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front to end the conflict in northern Ethiopia. The agreement makes provision for an AU-chaired committee to monitor and verify its implementation. We are ready to provide support towards implementation of the agreement and have communicated this offer to the African Union and the Ethiopian Government. We have also called on the Eritrean Government to support the agreement by withdrawing their troops from Ethiopia.
Iran: Women Protesters
Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts(2 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I assure my noble friend that we have been very robust. He raises a very important issue and colleagues in both the FCDO and the Ministry of Defence have made that case very powerfully.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister is a strong and sincere advocate for human rights at home and across the world. Just yesterday, a young woman reporter covering a protest for her media outlet was detained by the police for seven hours without interview before being released. That happened not in Iran but on the M25. Is it really time to be increasing police powers and scrapping our Human Rights Act?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I speak both for the Government and the FCDO. I thank the noble Baroness for her kind remarks about me personally. The issue of media freedom both at home and abroad is an important one. The United Kingdom has led on this; indeed, I was in Vienna on Friday discussing this very issue of protection of journalists. I do not know the full details of that specific case, but I am sure that my colleagues in the Home Office will have noted it and I will ensure that the noble Baroness gets a reply in that respect.
Alaa Abd el-Fattah: Hunger Strike
Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts(2 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend asked a quite specific question. I am sure the numbers can be confirmed by our colleagues in the Home Office. I am sure that they are being treated fairly, being given access and have their rights respected, in accordance with the standards of how we expect prisoners should be treated. That is an important attribute that we have for any person in any detention in any British prison.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his answers so far, but put very simply, does he agree with the following proposition: friendly nations do not deprive each other of consular access to their citizens? That is what hostile nations do. If His Majesty’s Government cannot protect Alaa in Egypt, it will be harder to protect British citizens all over the world.