International Human Rights Day

Suella Braverman Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

In today’s world, most of the major human rights treaties have been ratified by the vast majority of countries, yet I believe that the human rights mission is struggling. Although I admire and am grateful for the aims, the means have faltered.

In much of the Islamic world, women lack equality, religious dissenters are persecuted and political freedoms are curtailed. Political authoritarianism has gained ground in Russia, Turkey, Hungary and Venezuela. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities are treated inhumanely in countries as diverse as Russia and Nigeria. The United States, which denied a fair trial to detainees in Guantanamo Bay, has lost credibility on civil liberties. Even slavery, which was supposedly abolished, continues to exist, with nearly 30 million people being forced to work against their will. Why do more than 150 countries of the 193 that belong to the UN still engage in torture? Why do women remain subjugated in many parts of the world? Why do children continue to work in mines and factories in so many countries? It was not supposed to be like this.

Based on the plight of millions of people, I say that, sadly, human rights law has failed to accomplish its objectives. I have the sense from my experience as a barrister that human rights were never as universal as people had hoped. The belief that they could be forced on countries as a matter of international law was shot through with misguided assumptions from the very beginning. Part of the problem is the imposition of top-down solutions on developing countries. I believe that it is time for a new approach.

I applaud and respect the aspirations of the universal declaration of human rights by the UN General Assembly in 1948, which arose from the ashes of the second world war and heralded a new, brighter era of international relations. It provided a long list of rights, most of which are the familiar political rights that are set down in many conventions or that have been constructed by courts over the years.

The weaknesses that would go on to undermine human rights law were there from the start. The universal declaration was not a treaty in the formal sense. No one believed at the time that it created legally binding obligations. It was not ratified by nations, but approved by the General Assembly, and the UN charter did not give the General Assembly the power to make international law. Moreover, the rights were described in vague, aspirational terms that could be interpreted in multiple ways by national Governments, who were wary of enshrining duties. At that time, the US did not commit itself to eliminating racial segregation. Several countries, such as the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Saudi Arabia, refused to vote in favour of the universal declaration and instead abstained.

The words in the universal declaration may have been stirring, but I question how much they have influenced the behaviour of Governments. Yes, countries have changed, but in Saudi Arabia, which ratified a treaty banning discrimination against women in 2007, women are still treated unequally in all areas of life, and child labour exists in countries that have ratified the convention on the rights of the child, such as Uzbekistan, Tanzania and India. In a very rough sense, the world is a freer place than it was 50 years ago, but is that because of the human rights treaties or because of other events, such as economic growth and the collapse of communism?

There are three key problems. The first problem with human rights law is ambiguity. A lack of precision allows Governments to rationalise almost anything that they do, as a result not of sloppy draughtsmanship but of the choice to overload the treaties with hundreds of poorly defined obligations. The sheer quantity and variety of rights, which protect virtually all human interests, can provide no guidance to Governments. Given that all Governments have limited budgets, protecting one human right might prevent a Government from protecting another.

Let us take as an example the right not to be tortured. Brazil is one of the largest democracies, and it is rarely considered a human rights violator, but unfortunately the local police often use torture because they believe that it is an effective way to maintain order and solve crimes. If Brazil’s national Government decided to wipe out torture, they would need to create honest, well-paid investigatory units to monitor the police. They would also need to fire their police forces and increase the salaries of the replacements. They would probably need to overhaul the judiciary, and possibly the entire political system, as well. Such a Government might reasonably argue that their resources should be put to other uses, such as building schools and hospitals. Such value judgments compromise the universality of human rights and undermine the status that it supposedly possesses. Problems such as those arise because the task of interpreting human rights has been left to trusted institutions such as the United Nations. Sadly, the UN is weakened by a lack of consensus between the nations and the lack of an accountable structure and hierarchy.

The second problem is that there is a misassumption running through our rights culture relating to the predominance of the individual over the communal interest. The importance of the individual is seen as the defining axiom upon which we should base our policy and gauge its success. This assertion of individual instincts is frequently transposed into rights and is becoming paramount. It now prevails over consideration of how our choices might affect others and have consequences for those born later, and of how they might be measured by past experience. The third problem goes to the core of our social values. Where is the reverence and respect for the habits, cultures and customs of our country? Tradition has deteriorated, and British values have declined at the expense of permissiveness. I hope for a fairer society in which value is stored in the commonality of our men and women.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), and I congratulate the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), and my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) on securing this debate.

The burden of the argument put forward by the hon. Member for Fareham (Suella Fernandes) seems to be that universal declarations and standards are of no use without the means of enforcing them—I think that was her argument, broadly speaking. We could turn that on its head and argue that without those principles there is no basis by which to bring about improvement around the world.

[Suella Fernandes]

indicated assent.

[Mr Howarth]

I am glad the hon. Lady agrees with that. It is important that we have the principles, even though they are not always enforceable at all times and in all places.

I decided to take part in the debate because a constituent contacted me earlier this week and I wanted to read out what he had written. I will not name him, because I have not asked his permission. He wrote:

“In 2015, thousands of Christians around the world have been victims of unspeakable violence. Over 200 Christians were abducted by self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) in Syria. Some were released, others remained captive, and still others were brutally executed. Iraqi Christian and Yazidi women and girls have been traumatised and brutalised as sex slaves by IS.

Elsewhere, Christians were attacked, jailed, tortured and executed because of their faith. The global persecution of Christians has continued relentlessly and, without a sustained response, it will only get worse.”

That is absolutely true about the persecution of Christians.

Groups such as ISIL in the so-called caliphate, Boko Haram and al-Shabaab carry out atrocities, falsely in the name of Islam, that all too often involve brutality and the appalling treatment of women. In a very un-Islamic way, they invoke the great religion of Islam to justify their existence. We have to speak out about that and we have to be prepared to take action. I think in a way that that was what the hon. Lady was saying.

[Suella Fernandes]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the aims are laudable but the means by which they have been implemented fall short, thereby undermining the method and the initial aspiration? We should be trusting in our traditional belief in our communal values.

[Mr Howarth]

I think I did summarise that point of view. That was the argument I understood the hon. Lady was making.