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2.45 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Bill Rammell): I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising what is an exceedingly important subject. Never has the debate about the circumstances in which it is right and appropriate to intervene in tyrannical regimes been more important. I have some sympathy with the view that my hon. Friend has expressed—that the international community should act earlier and more firmly to assist those who are subject to oppressive regimes. I think genuinely that the terms of the global debate are changing.
The Government want to be at the forefront of that debate. As the Prime Minister made clear in his speech in Sedgefield on 5 March, Britain's role should be
- "to construct a consensus behind a broad agenda of justice and security and the means of enforcing it."
I respect my hon. Friend's integrity, and have always made clear my view that we were right to go to war, although I fully respect the right and belief of others who reached a different decision. I would not accept his arguments that the actions that we took were counterproductive or that we failed. If he does not believe me or the Government when we say that life is better for the people of Iraq today than it was under Saddam, I urge him to listen to ordinary people in Iraq, where a majority say that life is better than a year ago under Saddam, and more than 70 per cent. say that they think that it will continue to get better. That is the polling evidence, and what Government colleagues who visit Iraq find, and it is backed up by what ordinary people are saying on the ground.
My hon. Friend has also made the case that the international community's response to oppressive regimes has not evolved sufficiently. While I accept that it needs to evolve further, over the years, there has been evidence of significant change. First, political pressure has always been a powerful tool in facing up to tyranny, and it has become more so. Anyone who doubts that ought simply to witness the huge, extraordinary lobbying effort at Geneva at the moment by those nations that fear that they risk being criticised for their human rights records. When I delivered our contribution to the debate in Geneva last week, I saw that at first hand.
Within the European Union, we now build dialogue on human rights into our relations with third countries, and bring the economic and political weight of the EU to bear by linking those dialogues to wider relationships of trade and other assistance. That is absolutely right. Through NEPAD—New Partnership for Africa's Development—African countries have established a peer review mechanism to pressure each other, rightly, into better governance. The African Union is playing an increasingly confident role in enabling dialogue to resolve disputes peacefully. Such collective political action can and does shame Governments into better behaviour, opening the doors to external monitoring, and can be used by reformists and civil society within a country. International institutions such as the UN play a key role in this: setting the standards of acceptable behaviour; providing independent monitoring mechanisms as well as assistance; and finally, providing external legitimacy to successful political reforms.
Sanctions also have a role to play, which we see with regard to the situation in Burma and Zimbabwe. Increasingly, sanctions regimes are better targeted to ensure that their effects are concentrated on the leaders and regimes responsible for repression, and their sources of wealth and influence, rather than on the people suffering under such regimes.
Other forms of direct action have grown in volume and effectiveness, including governance support and reform programmes, economic adjustment, security sector reform, police training and peace support operations. The establishment, now supported by more than 60 countries, of the proliferation security initiative will help further to prevent trafficking of weapons of
mass destruction and related materials through enhanced interdiction efforts, which can help us to face up to tyranny.Let me turn to the issue of reforming the international system. We have achieved a great deal through our efforts to strengthen the international systems and structures that are needed to deliver results. I agree with the thrust of my hon. Friend's comments about the establishment of the International Criminal Court, which marks a new step in the long battle against impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious international crimes. I want to take this opportunity to make it very clear that we urge all states to sign up to the ICC, which we believe can be a key tool in the fight against tyranny.
In the final analysis, when we are facing up to tyranny, military action can be used, in accordance with international law, against those tyrannical regimes. For us, military action has been, and will always remain, a last resort. Over recent years, the UN has been developing its thinking, based on individual cases, on where military intervention is justified for humanitarian purposes. The Security Council can authorise the use of force in response to threats to international peace and security, breaches of the peace or acts of aggression. It has explicitly determined that widespread violations of human rights and international humanitarian law have contributed to situations threatening the peace, and mandated enforcement action in former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and East Timor. I think that most people regard that as essentially just and correct. The Security Council also supported enforcement action to return to power an elected Government that had been overthrown, such as in Sierra Leone and in Haiti. Again, I think that most people would accept those actions and propositions.
On occasions—thankfully rare—the Security Council does not authorise actions that we consider necessary. In a sense, that is the nub of some of the issues that my hon. Friend highlighted. There are no easy solutions in those circumstances. For instance, in the case of Kosovo, we had to ask ourselves how to respond when a Security Council decision could not be reached in the face of an imminent humanitarian crisis in the form of appalling ethnic cleansing the like of which we had not seen on our continent since the second world war. At that time, we made clear our view that states do have a right, in exceptional circumstances, to take military action when it is the only way to avert an overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe, and that that is the case even in the absence of explicit authorisation from the Security Council. My hon. Friend is nodding; I know that he supported that action at the time.
Since 1999, our view has been increasingly supported, although it is not universally accepted. We continue to work to build up a consensus on the circumstances in which a right to intervene applies. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made that very clear in a speech that he made in Chicago in April 1999, in which he rightly suggested the five broad guiding principles that should, in an international context, be the framework within which decisions on whether to intervene for humanitarian purposes are taken.
It is worth repeating those principles. First, we must decide whether we are sure of the case and sure that armed force is the only means of dealing with the
problem. Secondly, we must assess whether we have exhausted all diplomatic options. Thirdly, on the basis of a practical assessment of the situation, we must judge whether there are military operations that we can sensibly and prudently undertake. My hon. Friend suggested that intervention should be applied universally and impartially to all states. The logic of such an argument is strong, but the benefits of intervening have to be weighed against the risk of creating a threat to peace and security. As I said, other options, such as political pressure and sanctions regimes, are available when intervention would be unwise. Fourthly, we must decide whether we are prepared for a long-term commitment once the military action is over: that is critical. Finally, we must assess whether we have national interests involved.That speech was a major contribution to the evolution of international thinking since the end of the cold war. In 1999, we put forward similar suggested criteria to the Security Council, although they did not prosper in discussion at the time. Nevertheless, we are still advancing the case and will continue to do so. At the same time, important work is going on to ensure better action against the threat or use of genocide, most notably to create a focal point for genocide prevention within the United Nations framework.
Mr. Allen: I thank my hon. Friend for a thought-provoking speech so far. May I bring to his attention again the question of trust? The British Government, in particular, are seeking concrete and practical steps to realise some of the things that he is talking about. He alluded to the Prime Minister's Chicago speech. Not a great deal may be seen to have been achieved by the British public and the global public from that speech, good as it was. Is my hon. Friend aware that some of us want to take matters further and ensure that the Sedgefield speech is looked back on as one of the landmarks that moved our country forward in real, practical steps, so that we do not refer to it as a good speech but as something that started a lot of practical action?
Mr. Rammell: I understand my hon. Friend's point. We cannot just make speeches; we must follow things through. We are attempting to do that, but we cannot do it on our own. We must seek international consensus and support. We are taking this debate and the need for change internationally extremely seriously. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is rightly taking a lead in setting out the framework of our thinking and the challenges that the UN need to face. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is taking that agenda extremely seriously. We are continually discussing these issues and this agenda with our partners.
I have visited the UN on a number of occasions in recent months. I recently met leading members of the Secretary-General's high level panel, all with a view to pushing forward this debate and trying to engage others to support us. We have also published a Command Paper on our relations with the UN, and we shall shortly be submitting formally our views to the Secretary-General's high level panel.
The nub of the debate, given what my hon. Friend has said, is his wish to create an international framework in which unilateralism, by whatever state, does not take
place. He wants to see agreed collective international action under the auspices of the UN. Ideally, those are the circumstances in which I would always want us to operate. It is not as easy as just wishing that to happen. I think that the Secretary-General got it absolutely right when he spoke to the General Assembly in September 2003:
- "it is not enough to denounce unilateralism unless we also face up squarely to the concerns that make some States feel uniquely vulnerable."
In that context, and in facing those challenges, I believe that the decision of the Secretary-General to appoint a high level panel to look at how the UN can improve its response to the broad range of threats to international peace and security has been a positive development. The panel is likely to take a broad view of the current threat to peace and security. That is surely correct. Terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, threats to the environment, AIDS, poverty
and disease were not considered part of the security agenda when the charter was drafted, but they manifestly are part of the agenda and the challenge that we are now facing.
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