Universal Declaration of Human Rights and UN Convention on Genocide

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I join the warm congratulations that were paid to the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) on securing the debate and the support that he had from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and, of course, the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell), to whom we all send good wishes. All three of them have very long-standing commitments to global justice and to the defence and protection of human rights around the world. It is fitting to be having the debate in the week when the 75th anniversary of both the universal declaration of human rights and the UN convention on genocide will be marked. This is an important time for reflection, both on how far we have come and, as others have said, how far we still have to go.

A number of events in and around Parliament have marked these anniversaries. There was an excellent showcase event on Wednesday hosted by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and several all-party parliamentary groups. I know that the all-party parliamentary group on international freedom of religion or belief hosted a similar event. Many organisations have also produced very important briefings in advance of the debate, and I hope to draw and reflect on some of them.

This is an issue of deep concern to residents in Glasgow North. It is a constituency of really considerable social and economic diversity, but the constituents are united in their support for justice, peace and respect of human rights around the world. In fact, it boasts not one but two Amnesty International groups. I have regular correspondence and in-person meetings and lobbies with not just Amnesty members, but other constituents from similar organisations who are equally passionate about these issues. I am very proud to be able to speak on their behalf.

One of the most important aspects of the declaration is its universal nature; it applies to everyone, everywhere, equally. Fundamental human rights are just that: they are fundamental, essential and an intrinsic part of human dignity and freedom. They can be denied, or they can be only partially or not even fully realised, but a right in itself cannot be taken away. A prisoner of conscience, arbitrarily detained in a dictatorship, still has a right to freedom of speech under articles 9 and 19. A child experiencing severe malnutrition in a famine-hit country still has a right to food and clean water, just as a homeless people here in central London or in Glasgow North has a right to a roof over their head—both those scenarios come under article 25. A refugee and asylum seeker today in the United Kingdom still has a fundamental right both to seek asylum and refuge and to work, even if the UK statute book says otherwise.

The universal nature of human rights means that we are all affected. If one person is denied their rights; if one person is not able to live in true and full human dignity; then in some way all our rights and all our collective and individual dignity is diminished. It is to our shame that so many people experience denial of their rights around the world. It is our responsibility, and indeed in this place our special duty and privilege, to work for a world in which everyone’s rights are respected and realised.

I have a few examples. The United Kingdom Government are right to recognise the challenge that China presents to established economic and governance systems around the world. Many of the consumer goods and services that we take for granted here in the UK and other western countries are dependent on labour and produce from China. Far too often, there is a risk that that labour has been forced and used as a means to persecute ethnic and religious minorities. A number of my constituents have had to flee China in fear of their lives because they practise the disciplines of Falun Gong or Falun Dafa. To their immense credit, from their homes in Scotland, they take action to call out the oppression of their fellow practitioners in China today. They would very much like to hear the Minister joining those condemnations, along with condemnation of the treatment of Uyghur Muslims and certain branches of Christianity, not least the locking up of Catholic prelates and clerics, and indeed the general intimidation of anyone who dares to criticise the Chinese Communist party.

It is also my privilege to chair the all-party parliamentary group on Eritrea, a country often described as the North Korea of Africa. I hear that phrase particularly from citizens of Eritrea itself who have fled to the UK in the most difficult and dangerous circumstances. Despite the incredibly high rate of asylum grants to people from Eritrea by the UK Government, the Government now want to be able to deport to Rwanda anyone from Eritrea who arrives by irregular means. But there is no safe and legal route for anyone who has spoken out against the regime in Asmara to leave that country, let alone to arrive in the UK. The UK Government effectively want to ban asylum claims from one of the most oppressive regimes on the planet.

I invite the Minister, perhaps along with the new Illegal Immigration Minister, the hon. and learned Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), to meet some of the young Eritreans who I met here in Parliament on Tuesday and hear their testimonies about the brutality that they have escaped—arbitrary detention, the arrest of family members, forced conscription and torture—and then explain to them why the UK Government’s position is that they are not welcome here and should go back to France, a country where they do not speak the language. The Ministers might also like to listen to their concerns about the Eritrean regime continuing to gather intelligence on their activities here in the UK, and the methods that it uses to levy a 2% tax on the income of expatriates.

Among the organisations at the IPU’s marketplace on Tuesday was ABColombia, which I have worked with both before and since being elected into this House, and with which I had the privilege of visiting Colombia back in 2018—I know that the hon. Member for Rochdale takes a keen interest in the situation in that country as well. Many of the communities there that face challenges to their human rights experience these less at the hands of the Government and more often as a result of the actions of multinational companies. For example, AngloGold Ashanti wants to displace peasant farmers in the Cajamarca region by opening what its marketing sales makes sound like a small artisanal gold mine. In fact it is called La Colosa, and would involve essentially blowing the top off a mountain, with all the attendant risks to land, water quality and the way of life for people living in hundreds of surrounding square kilometres.

In the north of the country, the multinational Glencore has chosen to sue the Colombian Government for millions of dollars because the constitutional court made a decision to prevent the expansion of its Cerrejón coal mine, which would violate the fundamental rights of the Wayúu indigenous peoples. It is more important than ever that the UK Government seek to find ways to incorporate the Ruggie principles on business and human rights into appropriate legislation and regulations, so that companies based in the UK or that trade on the London stock market are held to the highest possible standards.

One of the biggest themes of the 75th anniversary of the UDHR has been the role of people who defend human rights. A human rights defender could be anyone: a journalist, activist, lawyer, health professional, teacher or other community leader who works to defend human rights and expose injustice.

I remember meeting some of the human rights defenders in Columbia. That phrase—to me, anyway—conjured up an image of grizzled campaigners who had been doing that their whole lives. But what struck me was how remarkably young some of those people were, and how prepared and willing they were to take incredible risks to their wellbeing and future livelihoods to speak out in defence of their communities.

As Amnesty International and others have said, around the world such people are being increasingly stigmatised, intimidated, attacked and subject to unjust prosecutions. One of the particularly salient cases they highlighted was that of Ahmed Mansoor, who has been imprisoned in the United Arab Emirates after speaking out about the detention, torture and unfair trials of other dissenting voices. While much of the world’s attention is currently focused on Dubai as it hosts COP28, will the Minister say whether the UK’s delegation will raise Ahmed Mansoor’s case with the UAE Government or, indeed, whether anybody else visiting that part of the world might also do so?

Several of us here have been able to meet and hear testimony from other human rights defenders who visited Parliament earlier this week, including those supported by Freedom from Torture, Survivors Speak OUT, and the Centre for Applied Human Rights at the University of York, which also has projects across the UK. Many of them echoed those calls for mandatory supply chain due diligence to protect human rights and the environment in the production of the goods that we all take for granted.

I was also asked to raise the decision by the UN Security Council to adopt a UK-drafted resolution lifting the arms embargo on Somalia. What reassurances have the Government received that a fresh flow of legitimate arms to Somalia will not be used by the regime against peaceful protestors and human rights defenders in that country?

As almost everyone has said, we cannot have a debate today about human rights and working to prevent atrocities without discussing the tragedy unfolding in Palestine—a tragedy that has led the United Nations Secretary-General, for the first time during his term of office, to invoke article 99 of the UN Charter, which empowers him to call to the attention of the Security Council a situation that may threaten

“the maintenance of international peace and security.”

The message that I have heard from thousands of constituents in the past two months—from totally unprecedented numbers, as I suspect is true for many of us here today—is that there must be an immediate and lasting ceasefire on both sides. Aid must be delivered, the process of rebuilding must begin, and there must be a just and peaceful political process that delivers a settlement agreeable to all, in line with the global consensus on, and support for, a two-state solution. There must be accountability for the atrocities perpetrated on, and since, 7 October.

The UK Government should be prepared to co-operate with the International Criminal Court’s exercise in gathering evidence of potential breaches of international humanitarian law. They must also be explicitly clear that they are not supplying weapons to the region that will end up being used to commit such breaches. More broadly, as the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) said very powerfully, the Government need to step up their efforts to prevent such atrocities from happening in the first place.

Despite the pledges that were made in 1948, genocide has repeatedly been perpetrated. The lessons of the holocaust have clearly not been fully learned, whether it is the killing fields of Cambodia, the slaughter of the Tutsi in Rwanda, the massacres in Srebrenica or the atrocities committed against the Yazidi people by Islamic State/Daesh in 2014. Monitoring organisations identify as many as 20 emergencies worldwide where persecution and killings may be meeting the definitions of genocide.

The UK Government have to adopt a whole-of-Government approach to adopting an atrocity prevention strategy, and they should look again at proposals for a genocide prevention response Bill, such as that recently introduced in the House of Lords. The hon. Member for Strangford was right to draw attention to how persecution of religious communities is a particular part of the growing trend of mass intimidation, persecution and, indeed, killing, around the world, and the extremism that appears to be driving that.

It is shameful that we should end up having this debate on the day after the United Kingdom Government announced proposals in their own legislation to override so much of the global human rights framework. By their own definition—found in two of their own Bills this year—their approach to people who come to the United Kingdom seeking refuge and asylum might not be, and in fact probably is not, compliant with their duties under the European convention on human rights. My constituents in Glasgow North do not support this Tory Government’s approach to people who arrive here from many of the countries discussed today. They flee war, oppression and persecution, and then find themselves being oppressed and their rights to claim asylum being denied in the very country where they are seeking sanctuary. We will oppose the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill next week, just as we opposed the Illegal Migration Act 2023. The day will come soon when Scotland can have its own independent migration policy, and make it clear that refugees are welcome here.

Perhaps looking to the future is a good note to begin to end on. Yesterday, many of us will have met inspiring young activists who came to Parliament from across the country to talk about the climate emergency and the need for climate justice. The rights of the planet itself and the rights of future generations should not be forgotten as we mark the anniversaries of the human rights declaration and the genocide convention. I thank Darcey and Isobel from The Holy Cross School in New Malden, who took time yesterday to explain many of the works of art and design on display in the Attlee Suite. They captured their generation’s response to the climate challenge and the need for action now, by this generation of politicians and global leaders, to ensure a just and equitable distribution of the planet’s resources for everyone who lives here, now and in the future.

This has been a valuable opportunity to reflect on 75 years of the global human rights framework, and the many challenges and barriers to fully realising the vision first set out in 1948. That vision is shared by many of our constituents and championed by many of the Members present, especially those who secured the debate. The Government, and indeed the official Opposition, must understand that this is where true consensus in modern politics can and must be found. Pandering to ever more extreme views that seek to minimise the importance of fundamental human rights, or that seek to other or even dehumanise sections or groups within society, is not a route to effective and stable governance, but to ever-more discord and trouble. We have a responsibility both to everyone on the planet today and to future generations to live up to the declaration of our post-war predecessors, and to keep on striving for a day when human rights truly are universal.