FCO: Human Rights Work

Richard Ottaway Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)]

I am pleased to open this debate on the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs report on the human rights work of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. We are lucky to live in a functioning, flourishing democracy, underpinned by the rule of law. Sometimes, we are accused of going too far in our quest to protect the sanctity of human rights, particularly those of criminals who seek refuge on British shores, but it is a price that we pay for freedom and a fair society. The question is whether we have a moral duty to export the values and rights that we hold so dear. Of course we do, but perhaps not at the expense of our national interests. Matching the UK’s support for human rights and democratic values with its pursuit of trade, security, energy and strategic interests is central to much of the Foreign Office’s work.

In addressing the conflict between interests and values, a good starting point is the Prime Minister’s speech to the Kuwait national Parliament in February 2011:

“For decades, some have argued that stability required highly controlling regimes, and that reform and openness would put that stability at risk. So, the argument went, countries like Britain faced a choice between our interests and our values. And to be honest, we should acknowledge that sometimes we have made such calculations in the past. But I say that is a false choice.”

A careful balance needs to be struck between our interests and our values, and the Committee’s report on the Foreign Office’s human rights work in 2011 explored that. In general, we found that the Foreign Office, which I congratulate on its report, was doing a lot of excellent work, at times under difficult circumstances, but we believe that Ministers should be bolder in acknowledging contradictions between the UK’s interests overseas and its human rights values. Such contradictions are a theme that recurs constantly in inquiries by the Foreign Affairs Committee. A good example is our report on the Arab spring; some witnesses thought that a conflict between the two could not always be avoided.

Giving evidence in the current inquiry into Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, Sir Tom Phillips, a former UK ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told the Committee only a couple of weeks ago about working with the grain of particular societies in Saudi Arabia to advance UK values. He added, significantly:

“I never interpreted the working-with-the-grain mantra as meaning that one should not be clear when necessary about our principles on any particular issue.”

Throughout our human rights inquiry, the issue surfaced again in relation to Bahrain and Burma.

The Committee’s human rights report concluded that, in pursuing interests alongside values, the UK runs the risk of operating double standards. It urged the Government to be more transparent and to set out the contradictions in the public domain. The Government rejected our recommendation, but I invite the Minister to consider whether the approach that we proposed would in fact be more open and realistic. Could it expose the Government to less criticism in the long run, without sacrificing our principles?

The Committee noted that nearly two thirds of the FCO’s report was taken up with commentary on human rights in countries of concern. The section on countries of concern is a valuable source of information, but it has difficulties, such as certain controversial omissions and vague criteria, although I note that the Government response says that the FCO will report fully on the criteria in its next report. We warned that the list of countries of concern would lose credibility if political and strategic factors were allowed to colour decisions on designation. Such decisions, we said, should be based purely on the assessment of human rights standards and should stand up to objective comparison.

Bahrain is a case in which we questioned the Foreign Office’s judgment. At least 35 people died and 2,000 were arrested following repression in early 2011. The report by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, although substantial and respected, is being implemented slowly, and there is still much to be done. I am keen to keep an open mind on the issue, as we are still in the midst of our inquiry into the UK’s relations with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain and have yet to hear their Governments’ side of the argument. However, the injustices in Bahrain in February and March 2011 were undeniable, and the events in Bahrain did not seem any less serious than those in other countries that were listed as countries of concern. I know that the Foreign Office is not persuaded—it says that Bahrain has a better record than many countries in the region—but it is only fair to give notice to the Minister that one of the first things that Committee members will do when the FCO publishes this year’s report is to turn the pages to see whether Bahrain has been designated a country of concern, as we believe it should be.

Deportation with assurances was another area highlighted in the Committee’s report. Countries receiving deportees from the UK give assurances that their human rights will be respected on their return. Arrangements are already in place with Jordan, Lebanon, Ethiopia, Algeria and Morocco. As a Committee, we are aware of the widespread criticism that promises by Governments with a chequered record of treatment of detainees are, to quote one of our witnesses, not worth the paper that they are written on. The case of Abu Qatada, which has provoked great anger and frustration in recent weeks, is a prime example. I welcome the Government’s response that David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism, will conduct a one-off review of the policy on deportation with assurances and that the conclusions will be made public. However, the Committee asks the Foreign Office to provide more information on the arrangements for monitoring detention conditions. The Foreign Office agreed in its response to provide details of the monitoring bodies and the arrangements for following up monitoring. When will that information be provided?

We also concluded that the DWA arrangements are of such significance in Parliament that greater accountability is warranted. We suggested that the text of the memorandum of understanding underlying the arrangements should be laid before Parliament and that Members should have 14 days to object. The Government rejected the recommendation, pointing out that memorandums of understanding are not legally binding, but I hint to the Minister that the FCO missed the point slightly. We are talking about agreements of considerable political significance and concern to Members throughout the House. I urge him and his Foreign Office colleagues to rethink.

There is some debate about whether pressure should be applied in public or in private. We devoted a section of our report to the FCO’s use of public pressure such as sanctions, boycotts and the like, but sometimes private pressure is the way forward. Sir Tom Phillips, the former UK ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told us that he strongly advocated private pressure for reform on human rights in countries such as Saudi Arabia, though he did not rule out public pressure.

It is generally accepted that there are occasions on which public pressure, particularly concerted multilateral action, can be valuable in indicating widespread disapproval of a foreign state’s human rights practices; whether or not it works is another matter. It would not be difficult to argue that the EU sanctions on Iran have been effective in contributing to the current parlous state of the country’s economy, but it would be harder to make that argument for the sanctions imposed on Burma by the EU.

The EU agreed last April to a partial suspension of its sanctions against Burma, for one year. The Committee was satisfied that enough progress had been made towards reform in Burma to justify that. We believe, however, that there is still some way to go. By current estimates, there are still some 200 political prisoners in Burma. We urge the FCO to press for better access for independent observers to Rakhine state, where violence against the Rohingya minority reached a peak last year.

The EU Foreign Affairs Council will need to agree whether to extend the partial suspension of sanctions next month. We would be grateful to the Minister if he told us what the FCO’s preferred outcome is for those discussions. If he is in favour of continuing the partial suspension, will the UK make that conditional on further commitments to reform by the Burmese Government? Will he clarify his statement in answer to a parliamentary question in February, when he said that, if unanimity at the EU Foreign Affairs Council cannot be reached,

“sanctions will fall away in their entirety”?—[Official Report, 28 February 2013; Vol. 559, c. 668W.]

On denying entry visas on human rights grounds, hon. Members will be familiar with the tragic case of Sergei Magnitsky—a lawyer who died in pre-trial detention in Russia in November 2009, following the denial of medical treatment. No one has yet been convicted of any offence in relation to his death. In passing, I register my dismay at the decision of the Russian authorities to proceed with the posthumous prosecution of Mr Magnitsky for defrauding the state. I hope that the Foreign Office will make it clear to the Russians that that is a vindictive and callous action, which we condemn.

The UK can refuse to grant a visa for a non-European economic area national to enter the UK if there is

“independent, reliable and credible evidence that an individual has committed human rights abuses”.

The Government have come under pressure to deny UK entry visas to those people thought to have played a part in Mr Magnitsky’s death. Perhaps the Government have already done exactly that, but we do not know, because the Government’s policy is not to routinely publicise the identity of those who are banned from entering the UK. We concluded that there was value in publicising the names of those who were denied entry to the UK on human rights grounds, if that power was used sparingly.

The Government response confirmed that they could disclose the names of those denied entry “when justified”. That is all very well, but how often do the Government feel that publication is justified? It seems to me that it is very rarely, and I wonder whether the Government are missing an opportunity to draw attention to our determination to uphold high standards of human rights by shaming those who blatantly disregard them.

As we have touched on the subject of Russia’s questionable human rights record, I also draw attention to Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former head of the Yukos oil company, who fell out with the Kremlin after challenging official corruption. He is currently serving his 10th year in a prison cell, on grounds that are distinctly flaky and based on a trial that did not comply with the standards that we would recognise in the west.

In conclusion, I reaffirm our praise for the FCO’s work on this highly sensitive and morally complex area. The FCO is working in the real world, and the Committee’s job is to support it as a critical friend. We hope that some of our recommendations will help the FCO to strike a better balance, so that its global influence and credibility grow stronger. We live in an age of 24/7 news, where intelligence can be disseminated worldwide at the click of a button. We also have the unprecedented emancipation of previously suppressed peoples, and they might be suspicious of the motives of foreign countries meddling in their affairs. It would therefore be a naive Foreign Office that imagines that it can pretend to act solely in the interest of human rights, when it has its own citizens and national interests to protect.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Havard. I am pleased to take part in the debate.

I shall take as my starting point the end of the speech by the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) on how the late Robin Cook, as Foreign Secretary, introduced the concept of an annual human rights report from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In return, the Foreign Affairs Committee must monitor it and put forward proposals, and then we get a debate in Westminster Hall, which seems to be a poor return for the amount of work put in by both the FCO and the Committee, particularly as the debate is limited to an hour and a half. I reiterate what I said last year, and I have said every year about the debates: the debate should be for at least three hours, in the main Chamber on a Thursday afternoon or another appropriate time—possibly in Government time. If we are to be taken seriously as a country concerned with human rights and with the influence that we can bring to bear on human rights around the world, we have to take ourselves seriously. Although I respect all hon. Members taking part in the debate, it needs to be given greater prominence. I am sure the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway), would agree, because it would mean that he could speak in the main Chamber, rather than here.

[Richard Ottaway]

I am inscrutable.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

He is utterly inscrutable. He and I had an interesting debate in Cambridge two weeks ago, and he was less inscrutable then.

I wanted to raise many issues, but I shall try to be brief to take on the points you made, Mr Havard, about the length of the debate. We should consider the fact that the parliamentary process of human rights monitoring is complex. We have the Human Rights Act 1998, which applies to UK law. I am a strong supporter of it and our participation in the European convention on human rights and the European Court Of Human Rights. You, Mr Havard, chair the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which the 1998 Act set up. I welcome the Joint Committee and its work. It has been a valuable way to monitor what has gone on, but I remain to be persuaded that, with all the other responsibilities the Foreign Affairs Committee has, it would not be better to have an international human rights Committee of the UK Parliament to deal with international human rights issues and to put forward the strong cases that many Members make on many occasions about human rights issues around the world.

Things have moved on, in that Britain is a signatory to the International Criminal Court and our courts have pronounced a universal jurisdiction for human rights offenders and potential war criminals where there is prima facie evidence against them. That was a huge step forward. We have spent a lot of time raising human rights in Chile and the need to put General Pinochet and others on trial for what they did there, so I welcome the universal jurisdiction declaration. Much less welcome however is that Parliament has reduced its applicability by limiting the arrest warrant to an application by the Director of Public Prosecutions rather than an application from an individual citizen to Westminster magistrates court. That has not done our reputation much good.

When the Minister responds to the debate—obviously there are many issues and I guess he will not be able to reply to all of them—I would be grateful if he could answer this narrative issue. I welcome the way in which our representatives at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, which I quite often attend on behalf of a non-governmental organisation, regularly and effectively take up the issue of the death penalty; they are to be commended on that. It is quite noticeable that on every single report that comes up from a country that retains the death penalty, the UK representative gets up and objects to its use in that jurisdiction; I absolutely welcome that.

I am interested in taking international human rights and human rights law further. The International Criminal Court is an enormous step forward—there is no question about that—but the non-participation of certain countries in it, particularly the United States, obviously weakens it. Since the first world war, the US has had mixed feelings about involvement in any international organisation. What pressure was the Minister able to bring to bear on the United States regarding its participation, or indeed on the many other countries that still need to participate?

I am an officer of the all-party group on human rights, and a vast number of human rights abuse issues are brought to our attention. We try to take them up in the best way we can with our very limited resources. I want to bring up a general issue, but I will first deal with some specific countries.

I notice how rapidly human rights issues can change. In the “Human Rights and Democracy: The 2011 Foreign and Commonwealth Office Report”, one country that has not been listed for particular attention is Bangladesh. Yesterday, there was a demonstration outside this building concerning the current wave of attacks on minorities and the conduct of the war crimes tribunal in Bangladesh. Amnesty International reported last week:

“A wave of violent attacks against Bangladesh’s minority Hindu community shows the urgent need for authorities to provide them with better protection…Over the past week, individuals taking part in strikes called for by Islamic parties have vandalised more than 40 Hindu temples across Bangladesh.”

The report goes on to describe the attacks against religious minorities. To the credit of those who attended the small demonstration yesterday in Parliament square, there were representatives from Hindu, Buddhist, Christian and Muslim organisations. They wanted to see the retention of the secular constitution in Bangladesh and to question the conduct of the war crimes tribunal.

I have no problem whatever with any country deciding to investigate what were the most abominable abuses of human rights and the war crimes committed during the independence war of 1971. However, the case would be strengthened if international observers were specifically appointed to attend all the sessions, to give it a degree of support and approval, which was done in war crimes tribunals in other parts of the world. It is not to say that the war crimes tribunal is a bad thing—I think it is a good thing—but observer presence should be strengthened.

While I understand the deep anger that many people feel and the terrible sense of loss that many have suffered, I cannot, under any circumstance, support the death penalty for anything; indeed, that is now a narrative of our policies. I hope that we will make that clear, and also make it clear that the mobs that are attacking minority communities or anyone who is not seen to approve what they want are totally unacceptable. We should be saying that clearly to the Bangladeshi Government. I do not blame the Bangladeshi Government for the activities of the mobs, because those activities are largely directed against the Government, but all Governments have a responsibility to protect minorities and people in what is an extremely difficult situation. There is a large Bangladeshi community in this country.

The right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling rightly drew attention to the situation in Palestine. I was in Gaza three weeks ago, on a delegation with colleagues from the Liberal Democrat and Conservative parties, organised by Interpal. The issue of human rights and the treatment of prisoners are very current. Issues such as Palestinian parliamentarians still being held in prison, the frequent use of executive detention and the hunger strikes that have taken place, and continue to take place, among the prisoners are not going to go away.

Effectively, 1.7 million people are in a prison called Gaza, with very limited access to Israel and no access whatever, as far as I can see, to the west bank through Israel. The population is imprisoned unless Egypt can be persuaded to open the Rafah crossing fully, which would in turn make Gaza part of Egypt rather than part of Palestine. That may well be the intention of some, but we must be firm that the continued corralling of people in Gaza is an abuse of their human rights on a collective scale.

There is something tragic in talking to brilliant young people in Gaza. Some 55% of the population are university graduates—the best educated population in the whole region—but unemployment is at 70%. Their life chances and career possibilities are limited. It is a cauldron, of course, that explodes from time to time, and unless the fundamental issues are addressed, that cauldron will continue to explode.

I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) said about Sri Lanka and the treatment of Tamil people. I hope that the Government will continue to put all the pressure they can on the Sri Lankan Government. Above all, I hope that the embassy and particularly the Home Office will follow up cases in which someone is forcibly removed to another jurisdiction.

My final general points are about thematic issues. Dalit people in India and many other countries suffer a collective abuse of human rights because of a perverted view of Hinduism. Hundreds of millions of people suffer from that. We have an opportunity to support what the House of Lords has done and defend its amendment to our legislation that would mean that it will be illegal to discriminate by caste and descent in this country. That is illegal in the Indian constitution, but collective discrimination takes place on a massive scale. While the Department for International Development has done well in targeting aid programmes, which ensures that that does not happen in any project that we fund, we must be as tough as possible with the Indian Government and other Governments in whose territory discrimination by caste and descent takes place.

Around the world, there are individual and collective abuses of the human rights of people in the circumstances that we have outlined. There is also an appalling lack of human rights, dignity and access to democracy for large numbers of desperately poor migrants around the world. They are the people who are exploited in big cities and who die when they try to cross the Mediterranean, get to the Canary islands in the Atlantic or travel through Mexico to get to the United States, where they hope to gain some kind of economic salvation. We must address the collective human rights issues of millions of people around the world who suffer the most appalling privations and often death while trying to find a place of economic and political sanctuary. It is up to us to be more alert and aware of the causes. That is surely what being in a democratic Parliament is about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

May I ask you, Minister, to give Mr Ottaway a couple of minutes at the end of the debate?

[Richard Ottaway]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

Mr Ottaway is indicating that he does not need more time.

[Richard Ottaway]

I give my time to the Minister.

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

Excellent. Thank you very much for that. I call the Minister.