Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, for initiating this important debate. I also congratulate him on his role in the OSCE. The Minister and I have come straight from a debate on the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (Immunities and Privileges) (Amendment) Order 2017, so this makes a refreshing change. I have to make sure that I do not confuse all my notes. There were not too many volunteers for that debate. However, I am glad that we have an opportunity to hold a relatively short debate on this issue. It is important because we do not devote sufficient parliamentary time to this aspect of international relationships.

Other noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Dubs, have said that the key role of diplomacy and multilateral dialogue is something that we need to focus on increasingly in the very fragile world that we are living in. A lot has happened since Helsinki, and of course our world view from here is clearly different from the world view in Russia. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, for the email I received just before lunch and I have read the documentation, but one element that was missing was something about the world view we have compared with that of Russia. The Russian narrative is one of post-war grievance, fear of encirclement and regime change; that is what underpins its position. The serious point about that world view is not whether it is justified or true, it is the fact of whether the leadership in Russia holds it and whether that governs its reactions. I have no doubt that the view is held and therefore our response has got to take that into account, whatever it is. Like the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, I do not for a moment suggest that dialogue means that we do not raise concerns about human rights abuses or about the need for democratic action.

This comes to that point, and I hope that the noble Baroness will respond to the questions about how we can continue our support for the OSCE, in particular in its key working areas of diplomacy, multilateral dialogue and monitoring on the ground. Noble Lords have mentioned that important work and our focus today is of course on Crimea and Ukraine in the context of the work undertaken by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission. That monitoring work across the 57 nations is particularly about how we can uphold democratic values. It is key to ensuring that those values are kept at the forefront of our activities.

Something I want to focus on is the reports we have had from Crimea. On Tuesday there were reports from lawyers and human rights activists saying that the Russian authorities in Crimea are increasingly imprisoning human rights activists in psychiatric hospitals. They are no longer denying them in an overt way, rather they are using other means to deny people their human rights. Reports have been made of some 43 Tatar activists having been abducted since the annexation by Russia. What have the Government done in terms of these reports? How are they being taken forward and are we engaging with the Russian authorities and international bodies to address this issue? Of course there have been specific incidents in both Crimea and Ukraine, in particular that involving armed men intervening in the activities of the special monitoring mission and the use of armed force in relation to the use of what I suppose we should call a drone to conduct monitoring. Does the Minister share the view of the chief monitor of the SMM on the firing on unarmed civilian monitors? Have the Government taken account of that and what steps are we taking within the OSCE to ensure that those responsible are held to account?

In the brief time that we have, I conclude by saying a little about what the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said. With those two competing world views, how do we use multilateral organisations—I am not necessarily saying that the OSCE is enough—to take the temperature down? How do we ensure that we manage to avoid incidents that could escalate? Clearly, there is a role for the OSCE in this regard, particularly in terms of an investigative function. That is not only to examine the details of specific incidents but, most importantly—and again the noble Lord introducing this debate referred to this—to enable a learning process whereby incidents can be avoided. We learn from them so that we can better manage them and avoid them in the future. I am particularly keen to hear from the Minister how she sees that might be taken forward in the OSCE’s toolbox for the future.