Ukraine: Special Tribunal

Debate between Geraint Davies and Stephen Doughty

Tuesday 9th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Doughty]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. Indeed, he tempts me further forward, but let me refer to some of the other international support. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania made a joint statement on October 16 last year. I have mentioned the European Union, and the President of the European Commission made a statement on 20 November 2022, as did France. Indeed, there has been a growing chorus of other Governments, academics, legal experts and those who have been involved in similar processes in the past.

We can look at other tribunals that have been created, such as the special tribunals that were created for the former Yugoslavia and for crimes in Sierra Leone and Liberia. There are distinct differences, but we can learn important lessons from them. Indeed, the House of Commons Library refers to the Dutch Government’s willingness to hold a special tribunal. Although that is distinct from the ICC and its position in The Hague, the seat of international justice, the Dutch Government have indicated their willingness.

We have heard about the different options during this debate. That includes, first, amending the ICC’s Rome statute, although there are serious workability issues around that; secondly, a so-called hybrid model, but, as we have heard, President Zelensky does not feel that that is the right way forward; and thirdly, an international court established by the UN General Assembly with the agreement of Ukraine. We could also have a treaty between interested states, creating a special tribunal, and we have heard of a fifth option, which is the model that the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) referred to in relation to the Council of Europe.

There are two critical issues that we would need to address in any model. First, there is the issue of immunities. There are questions in some of the options about whether immunity would come into play. Secondly, there is the question of selectivity, but I do not think that those need to necessarily stand in the way of the model. As has been said, a number of international legal experts and countries believe that those can be overcome by the special tribunal model.

Let me be clear that the brutality—the sheer wickedness—of what we have seen in Ukraine requires some very creative, robust and ambitious thinking. That is why Labour Members, and many hon. Members across the House, have supported the Ukrainian proposal for a special tribunal. These are some of the worst crimes that we have seen and the most incontrovertible case of aggression. Also, establishing a special tribunal and finding against Putin and Russia, as I very much hope it would, would lead us to a place where we can potentially take further action to give practical help to the people of Ukraine—for example, on the sequestration of Russian state assets. If we can establish and prosecute that original sin—that original crime of aggression—it could help to underpin the international legal basis for other actions that could lead to direct support for the Ukrainian people, as well as achieving the fundamental aim of justice for the country and its people for the crimes they have suffered.

I will end by quoting President Zelensky. In recent days, he said:

“But we know that the lasting peace after victory is achieved by nothing else but the strength of values. First of all, it’s the strength of freedom and of law, which must work to the full to ensure justice. Not hybrid promises instead of human rights, but real freedom. Not hybrid impunity and symbolic formalities, but full-scale justice. Not hybrid peace and constant flashes of violence on the frontline, but reliable peace. When one respects values—true freedom, true justice, true peace is respected”

and that is

“exactly what we need now.”

We should show the same ambition and the same passion for justice, the rule of law and a lasting settlement for the people of Ukraine, after the brutality that they have faced. I am very interested to hear what the Minister has to say about the processes leading towards setting up a special tribunal.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

Last but not least, I call the Minister.

Welsh Affairs

Debate between Geraint Davies and Stephen Doughty

Thursday 2nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Diolch yn fawr iawn. I give great thanks to my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), for her excellent speech, and to my other neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), for introducing this great St David’s day debate. I also thank the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake), partly because my father is from Aberystwyth in Ceredigion. That part of the family goes back, through my mam-gu, to Henry Richard. On my mother Betty’s side, the family has been in Swansea for five generations.

I will use this opportunity to mention Betty Boothroyd. Shortly after I was first elected to this place in 1997— I am the longest serving Member in the Chamber apart from you, Mr Deputy Speaker—Betty Boothroyd gave me her autobiography to give to my mother, and it was signed, “From one Betty to another. Keep your son in order!” My mother was very happy about that. As you will know, Mr Deputy Speaker, Betty Boothroyd was a great authority, a warm person and a fantastic tribute to this House.

We are all proud of Wales, of what Wales has done, and of the opportunities that we had in Wales, but I think we in here all accept that Wales has been particularly hard hit by years of austerity and now by the cost of living and inflationary crisis, with people who are, on average, poorer, older and sicker than the rest of the UK. The average earnings in Wales are something like 73% of the UK average, compared with Scotland, where they are 93% of the UK average. Because of that, we get a Barnett consequential of £1.20 for every £1 spent on services. Incidentally, Scotland gets £1.26, even though it is richer.

In recent years, and in the last 13 years in particular, austerity has hit public services, jobs and benefits disproportionately hard in Wales. I credit the work that has been done in various constituencies to help the poorest in need. We have seen the amazing emergence of food banks, and I regret the normalisation of food banks. Across the UK, one in four people are in food insecurity, and that is not where we should be. We need to think again about how we can move forward from this situation.

There were complaints from the hon. Member for Delyn (Rob Roberts) about the health service. It is worth mentioning that the cost of treating someone who is malnourished through poverty is three times the cost of treating someone who is well nourished. In Wales, the health service is facing more people, and it is costing more to treat them, because of the level of austerity that has been inflicted. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) mentioned the need for a proper windfall tax to get the country back on track. It is important to remember that we need to get our fair share of investment in Wales.

I mentioned rail investment at Transport questions this morning. Unlike Scotland and Northern Ireland, we are not getting our so-called Barnett population share of the High Speed 2 money. The estimated cost has gone up to something like £100 billion, which works out at £3,500 for every household in the UK—it is an amazingly high cost. HS2 is a north-south spinal route that will reduce the time it takes to get from London to Manchester from two hours and 10 minutes to one hour and 10 minutes, but it still takes three hours to get to Swansea. It will displace investment from south Wales in particular to Manchester and elsewhere. The Barnett consequential should be a £5 billion investment, but we are not getting that. This is on the back of us getting 1.5% of the UK rail enhancement investment over something like 20 years for 5% of the population and 11% of the rail lines. It is time the Government looked to give us some money so that we can modernise, electrify and increase productivity and the wealth and health of the nation.

As I pointed out this morning, Transport for Wales has generated £2.5 billion of shovel-ready schemes to be delivered over the next 15 years—they are ready to go. I hope the Secretary of State will support me in calling on the Department for Transport to work with Transport for Wales and co-fund shovel-ready projects, to move them forward sooner rather than later. We want to increase productivity, we want wages to go up, and we want to deliver net zero, and that is vital.

[Stephen Doughty]

My hon. Friend is making important points about rail infrastructure. He will know that I have long campaigned for St Mellons Parkway to be built in the east of Cardiff, and we now have crucial funding from the levelling-up fund to create an essential link in the centre of Cardiff. I heard again and again from businesses that those rail links to Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool would help to grow their businesses and opportunities. For that, they need investment from the UK Government in those lines into Wales.

[Geraint Davies]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and I would go further: in south Wales specifically, one of the things we need to look at is the link between Swansea, Cardiff and Bristol. That is a regional economy of 3 million people, and obviously it is part of the Union because it goes outside of Wales, but we only get about one service an hour, compared with Manchester to Leeds, which gets something like eight services an hour. There is a lot of talk about the northern powerhouse, but we need linkages in Wales, and between south Wales and the west, to make that hub work. Rather than everything having to go out of London, we should have localised economic prosperity in that way.

The point I am trying to make is that we need to alleviate poor health and low wealth through investment in infrastructure. We also need to invest in research and development, and in a green future. Something else that I raised this morning is that we are at a cliff edge in Wales, where we face the loss of 1,000 jobs in universities from 60 projects that are focused on generating green growth in the future. The structural funding from the EU is suddenly coming to an end, and the shared prosperity fund is delivered through local authorities, rather than being centrally divided among universities across the UK, as the structural funds have been in order to fire up new green projects.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon mentioned one of those projects, which is the cladding of homes to create their own power stations. There are also projects to dig up plastic waste from landfill and convert it into carbon nanotubes to be used in electric car batteries, medical instruments and mobile phones. There are projects to convert slag heaps from steelworks that represent billions of pounds of liabilities into billions of pounds of assets by a simple process using water, which converts them into iron ore, zinc and hydrogen. There are projects that take off-peak renewable energy that is currently not being used—the renewable energy that is not going into the grid at breakfast time and teatime—and convert it into hydrogen to be put into the gas grid, for instance, or into hydrogen transport.

All those cutting-edge projects are suddenly going to end unless we get bridge funding of £71 million for Welsh universities in particular, and £170 million for 166 projects across the UK. Again, that issue has been highlighted in the Financial Times. I hope the Chancellor will stop those projects from collapsing, because that R&D is vital for future green growth and exports, and that the Secretary of State will urge him to provide that bridge funding so that we can move forward.

There is a lot more we could be urging the Government to do, including a carbon border tax to ensure that if we do get the steel in Port Talbot and elsewhere to be produced through arc furnaces, so that it is less carbon intensive, carbon-intensive imports from China and elsewhere pay a tax, as will happen in the EU. Otherwise, we will end up in a situation where we are substituting clean south Walian steel with dirty Chinese steel. Following what is, in my view, the good news of the Windsor framework, which recognises and acknowledges the opportunities for Northern Ireland to link into the single market and trade with the United Kingdom, I also hope that trade from Wales to Northern Ireland and to Ireland will be facilitated through more rail infrastructure, so that we ensure our economy is vibrant and we do not simply see businesses moving from Wales to Northern Ireland.

I very much hope that we can get back on track. We are in an awful place. There has been a normalisation of food banks. They are meant to be one-off crisis points, but people are now increasingly dependent on food pantries and other facilities for an ongoing supply of food. We need to move away from that position by investing in transport and in our prosperity and productivity, and reach a situation where there is less strain on the health service and where we can be strong again. That requires investment across the piece, so that as a Union and a nation, we can be strong again for the future. Happy St David’s day.

Council of Europe

Debate between Geraint Davies and Stephen Doughty

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Doughty]

I think that the right hon. Gentleman points out the importance of maintaining contacts with all those who are opposing Putin’s regime. Indeed, I think that Vladimir Kara-Murza was mentioned. That is a case that we are all deeply concerned about. It is important that we maintain contact through many bodies, including the Council of Europe, with those who would stand up for democracy and human rights in Russia and against the actions of the Putin regime.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) for the work he does as a rapporteur. He made some very important points. I would reference his point on the attacks on the judiciary in the UK; I think that some of the comments we have seen are very damaging. He, like many others, raised the issue of the ECHR and Rwanda, which has obviously been a crucial point.

On that, I echo the comments of the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper): there is no point in the Government blaming anyone but themselves on this issue. Ministers have been pursuing a policy that they know is not workable and that will not tackle criminal gangs. Despite that, they paid Rwanda £120 million and hired a jet that now has not taken off, all because they wanted someone else to blame in a confected row. They ignored the warnings about the policy, including on the potential treatment of torture victims—which of course is a crucial issue for the Council of Europe. It has rightly been referenced in this debate, but I think the Government need to take a hard look at themselves to understand why they are in the position they find themselves in this morning.

The Council of Europe has done excellent work in many areas since its foundation. I mentioned the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, which makes unannounced visits to places of detention. The Committee of Social Rights also verifies that rights to housing, health, education and employment are being implemented. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale mentioned the anti-corruption work of GRECO, and the Council of Europe also works with other bodies, including the OSCE, the EU, the United Nations and other international bodies, which use Council of Europe reports in pursuing their own excellent work in these areas.

The ECHR itself—I would say this again as a salutary warning to those who make unwarranted attacks on the ECHR—has delivered more than 16,000 judgments. Let us remember the wide range of those judgments, including on the right to life, the prohibition of torture, the prohibition of slavery and forced labour, the right to liberty and security, the right to a fair trial, the right to respect for private and family life, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, the prohibition of discrimination, and indeed the protection of property. Of course, one of the Court’s most high-profile cases was its ruling that Russia was responsible for the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. That is the scope of the ECHR’s work and it needs to be more fully understood. As has been mentioned, the abolition of capital punishment—something I have long campaigned for—has been a precondition for accession to the Council of Europe since 1985. Indeed, the Council of Europe has played a critical role in ensuring that we do not have the death penalty in member states.

The Istanbul convention has rightly been referenced, and I have a question for the Minister on that. We need to acknowledge that violence against women is a human rights violation and a form of discrimination. The Council of Europe has carried out work on the fight against discrimination for reasons of sexual orientation or gender identity. These are critical issues, particularly when we see backsliding by some members. This is a matter that I hope the Council will pay increased attention over the months and years to come.

I reiterate Labour’s unshakeable commitment to maximising opportunities to work alongside allies and partners on issues of human rights, the rule of law and democracy through as many multilateral institutions as possible, and a critical institution is the Council of Europe. Today’s world is too precarious and, frankly, dangerous to operate unilaterally, as unfortunately we have seen the Government do on too many occasions recently. I hope the Government and the Minister will reiterate our commitment to working through the Council of Europe on these issues, because we face some deep threats across our continent and the world, and the Council of Europe will be key to tackling them.

Beyond reiterating its solidarity with Ukraine and expressing an unwavering commitment to its sovereignty, the Council adopted an action plan for Ukraine, including measures to protect displaced people, to support legal professionals, to document human rights violations—which is critical when we see some of the horrific atrocities currently taking place in Ukraine—and to protect the rights of vulnerable groups, including children and the Roma. As the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) said, it is important that links with civil society in Russia and Belarus are strengthened. That grassroots work is critical in fighting back against the Putin war machine and the Kremlin’s unrelenting disinformation campaign across Europe.

[Geraint Davies]

Would my hon. Friend accept that it is important to accept the credibility and importance of the statutory role of the Council of Europe’s Court? If other countries fail to abide by these rules, that could collectively undermine the fundamental values of human rights, democracy and the rule of law that we are trying to push forward. The Government should think twice before putting stuff in the media about the Council of Europe and the convention when they are found in need by the Court.

Tigray

Debate between Geraint Davies and Stephen Doughty

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), the Chair of the International Development Committee, for securing this debate and for the work she and her Committee have done on this matter. I also thank everyone else who has contributed today, and particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), for Putney (Fleur Anderson), for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) and others. I also want to thank all other Members, because what has been clear today is the level of concern; the comments made by the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) and the hon. Members for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson), for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon) have all illustrated the horrific reports we are getting from Tigray and the wider concerns of this House.

As the SNP spokesman, the hon. Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith) said, this is not a party political issue; this is about concern for the people of Ethiopia and Tigray, and about our wider humanitarian and human rights responsibilities. That is why the Labour Front Benchers and I have repeatedly raised this issue with Ministers and had many discussions with the Minister, as well as with the Ethiopian Government and other parties directly.

I commend all those humanitarian and human rights agencies doing remarkable work on the ground and, as has also been mentioned, the journalists reporting in very difficult circumstances, whose reporting is so crucial for us to understand what is going on in situations such as this. Attempts to intimidate and threaten them have been deeply disturbing.

I have been absolutely horrified by the allegations of abuse on all sides: the reports of ethnic cleansing, religious persecution, attacks on women and children, torture and war crimes—some of this stuff is simply horrific. As ever in these situations it is the civilians who suffer. The tragedy is that we are yet to see full human rights investigations and actions on those who have perpetrated these crimes, we have yet to see full humanitarian access and we have yet to see a sense of humanity break through the fog and the horrors of this war.

I share the concerns expressed by many Members about this becoming a forgotten crisis—we have all been deeply concerned about what is going on in Afghanistan, but we must recognise that crises and tragedies are happening in so many other places, whether that is in Yemen, across the Sahel, in Ethiopia or the disturbing events we have seen in Guinea in recent days. We as a House and, I hope, the Government are keeping a full awareness of all these situations and taking action wherever appropriate.

I want to touch on some of the comments that have been made. My hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood spoke very powerfully in the Adjournment debate earlier this year about the sexual violence we have seen, which I will come on to later. The shocking figure that an estimated 10,000 rapes had happened is simply horrific. All sides have been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Secretary-General described the situation in Tigray as “hellish”, and that very much bears out what we have heard today. Thousands have already died; 4.4 million people are now in phase 3 or above of the integrated food insecurity phase classification, with 1.7 million facing food insecurity in the Afar and Amhara regions as well, and 400,000 people in famine-like conditions. We all remember that tragedy of the early 1980s and the consequences of human-made conflict for civilians, which led to absolutely devastating famine.

It is very important that we focus on the experiences of ordinary people living in Tigray, especially women and girls who are facing the consequences of this conflict. The Amnesty International report on sexual violence was particularly damning about the sadistic brutality being inflicted on women by people on all sides of this conflict, with rape and sexual violence used systematically to torture and dehumanise women and, in some cases, children; women being kept as sex slaves; women being subjected to genital mutilation—an act that is, horrifically, often conducted in front of family members to impose further psychological damage. Of course, women and girls are at risk even if they survive these attacks, because only 53% of health facilities have clinical capacity for management of rape and sexual violence, and only one in 10 health facilities overall are functioning, many of which are controlled by—or at least access to them is controlled by—those who have been committing crimes.

In the Amnesty International report, the father of a 10-year-old child who was raped in November 2020—I will not go into the details as they are simply too horrific to read out—said

“he was not able to get his daughter—who suffered terrible physical and psychological damage—to the hospital for four and a half months”.

He said he wanted to take her to the hospital in one location, but the armed forces who committed the abuses were administering it, so he had to seek support at another location, where she did in the end receive medical help, but only after months of trauma. That is utterly horrific. Women often have no way of receiving help for the consequences of these actions.

The area is also experiencing wider famine conditions, because of the impact of locusts, climate change, covid and other diseases. The pressures of this current conflict come on top of all those other issues, because this was already an area with significant challenges. In terms of the wider humanitarian situation, 5.2 million out of 6 million people living in Tigray are now in need of humanitarian assistance and 13.6 million people are estimated to be food insecure across Ethiopia as a result of the conflict, as well as the wider circumstances. According to OCHA,

“only 25% to 50% of the normal cereal production will be available this year”.

I will ask some questions about the situation facing people who have been internally displaced and refugees. There are now 2 million internally displaced people according to USAID, with nearly 50,000 refugees arriving in South Sudan since November 2021. There is a spill-over of internally displaced people into the Afar and Amhara regions as well. We have heard from many Members today about the challenges of getting humanitarian assistance into the region. One of the reports from OCHA said that only 10% of the 3,500 cargo trucks carrying lifesaving materials had been able to enter the region. The USAID chief, Samantha Power, was very clear when she said:

“This shortage is not because food is unavailable, but because the…Government is obstructing humanitarian aid and personnel, including land convoys and air access”.

I am interested in the UK Government’s comments on her remarks.

There are reports that EDF soldiers forcibly entered World Food Programme and UNICEF offices and destroyed communications equipment belonging to those two agencies. What does the Minister have to say about those recent events, and who does he view as responsible for them?

I mentioned the refugee situation, and I am particularly concerned for the 24,000 Eritrean refugees. Because of the previous conflict, there are many refugees in the region already. The Mai Aini and Adi Harush camps in the north-western zone have been cut off from assistance and apparently have not been reached since mid-July. It has been reported that both those camps have run out of food and the refugees are facing violence and intimidation by armed groups. What assessment has been made of the situation of refugees and IDPs, the numbers, the needs and the attacks? There were disturbing reports of people being forcibly relocated from refugee camps earlier in this crisis. What has happened to them? What assessment has been made? What has been the involvement of Eritrean or other irregular forces in attacks in that region?

In the last couple of days we have seen some pretty horrendous information from the UN about the Semera-Abala corridor, which has been inaccessible since 22 August, and that 200,000 litres of fuel are required for the humanitarian response, which is not available. Cash, needed to pay for services locally, has not come in the levels needed to provide those services. UNICEF reported that 100,000 people face severe or acute malnutrition this year.

The acting humanitarian co-ordinator in Tigray, Grant Leaity, said

“all parties to the conflict must allow and facilitate the rapid and unimpeded passage of impartial humanitarian relief to avert this…catastrophe.”

He is very stark in what he says about risks of famine and significant levels of mortality. We heard from colleagues about reports of 150 people allegedly having died directly of starvation. That report is from the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front and cannot be independently verified, but it tallies with the figures we have heard from the UN and other agencies, which have spoken of 400,000 people already living in famine-like conditions.

I will end by asking the Minister some specific questions. Yesterday, the WFP announced that it faces a funding gap of $426 million for its operations across Ethiopia, to meet the needs of 12 million people in 2021. The US increased its funding to the WFP by $149 million in June. I wonder what the UK will do specifically to support agencies such as the WFP. We have also heard about women’s programmes that have been cut.

We have been clear that the decision to cut the aid commitment from 0.7% to 0.5% was completely wrong, and that is exemplified in situations such as this. I know that the Minister does not want to answer this question directly, but I will ask him again: is our total support to Ethiopia going up or down this year? He has spoken about giving £42.7 million, plus £5 million for refugees in Sudan—obviously that is welcome, with the focus on Tigray—but if the total support for Ethiopia is going down, that money is being diverted from other needs. There are many needs elsewhere in Ethiopia, so that is deeply concerning. I worry that we will find ourselves in a situation similar to Afghanistan, where cuts simply have to be reversed. We need to be putting resource in because the needs are so great.

I have mentioned access issues. Have the Government raised the road access issues for fuel and food trucks in recent days? There seem to have been particular problems in the last few weeks. The Security Council report mentioned that Turkey and Sudan have been attempting to act as mediators, and other regional powers have also been attempting to act as mediators in the conflict. What is the Minister’s assessment of those regional and international efforts? Is the UK offering any particular diplomatic and good-offices support to attempt to reach a peaceful settlement between the parties?

I understand that the Foreign Secretary spoke to Prime Minister Abiy in early August. Has there been further contact with Prime Minister Abiy, Ethiopian Ministers and other parties to the conflict since that time? I welcome that the Foreign Secretary did that, and I am sure that the Minister himself has been in contact with people, but it would be useful to understand who and when. Have we identified anybody for Magnitsky-style sanctions yet? The US Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions on the chief of staff of the Eritrean defence forces for alleged crimes in Ethiopia. Have we issued any sanctions? I know that the Minister will not speak about potential sanctions, but have we issued any? What role have we been playing at the Human Rights Council? What discussions have we had with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights?

We have a huge responsibility. We have a particular relationship, friendship and history with Ethiopia through our aid programme, and the world has a responsibility to protect civilians in such crises. This House and the British public have a keen interest in the situation in Ethiopia; we all want to see a prosperous, secure and inclusive Ethiopia, but sadly that seems very far from the present situation.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

The Minister has about 15 minutes if he allows two minutes for the Chair of the International Development Committee to respond. With luck, there might even be time for a couple of interventions. Over to you, Minister.