Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence



APPENDIX 1

Letter from the Chairman to the Foreign Secretary concerning the Government Response to the Committee's First Report, Session 1998-99, Foreign Policy and Human Rights, 13 July 1999

  The Committee this morning considered the Government's repose to its report on Foreign Policy and Human Rights. We recognise that there are a number of issues arising from our recommendations which can best be addressed following the publication of the Government's Annual Report on Human Rights for 1999, which we understand will appear in the near future. Once the Annual Report is published, the Committee will of course wish to take evidence from the Minister responsible, and I shall be writing to Tony Lloyd about this in due course.

  There were a number of instances, which I outline below, where the Committee felt the Government had not addressed its recommendations in an adequate fashion.

1.  RECOMMENDATION 11: INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

  The Committee is most disappointed that time has not been found to bring forward the appropriate legislation to ratify the Court's statute in the current Session. It urges the Government to bring legislation before the House at the earliest opportunity in the next Session.

2.  RECOMMENDATION 19: EU REPORTS ON HUMAN RIGHTS

  The Committee continues to believe that the strongest representations should be made for the release of the full texts of EU reports in the field of human rights. The Committee recommended that the reports should be placed in the public domain: it does not regard the offer of their release to members under controlled conditions as adequate. Other human rights organisations are able to publish detailed reports of human rights abuses without endangering the safety of named groups or individuals: indeed, such disclosure often affords a degree of protection.

3.  RECOMMENDATION 27: COUNTRY STRATEGY PAPERS (CSPS)

  The Government's reply did not make it explicit that such papers would include the core issues specified by the Committee, viz. the status of ratification of core UN human rights instruments, the strategy to be adopted to achieve full ratification, and monitoring of the extent to which the obligations under these instruments are being carried out.

  The Committee would find it helpful to be updated regularly with a list of the countries for which CSPs are current, and to be supplied with copies of the relevant paper before it visits a country for which a CSP is in force. In particular the Committee would be grateful for a copy of any CSP on Russia before its visit in October. We expect that the role of the British Council in promoting human rights should be an integral component of each country strategy.

4.  RECOMMENDATION 35: INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION CONVENTION 138

  The Committee is concerned that no announcement has yet been made on the Government's position of ratification of Convention 138, despite its undertaking in the Response that such an announcement would be made "in the near future".

5.  RECOMMENDATION 36: REPORTING FROM POSTS

  The Committee would appreciate an assurance that a report on the human rights situation should be a specific feature of every Head of Mission's regular reporting discipline.

  I hope that you will be able to provide an early response to the points outlined above.


 
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