Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)

MS KATE ALLEN, MR TIM HANCOCK AND MR STEVE CRAWSHAW

21 DECEMBER 2004

  Q20 Mr Olner: Our Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, has obviously welcomed the report. I wonder whether you welcome the report as well in that it would give a clear path to take action by the UN against states that are not very good on human rights. For instance, had this been in place before the Iraq war, the Iraq war might have taken place with the full sanction and permission of the United Nations to stem the human rights abuses that you, Mr Crawshaw, said were taking place in Iraq.

  Mr Crawshaw: To be exact, it gives a framework. It might have done but there are very limited circumstances where such strong action would be needed. More often, there are diplomatic and political actions. From Human Rights Watch's point of view, the failure to intervene in Rwanda in 1994, to take the most notable example, was undoubtedly wrong. We broadly welcome it but there is one thing that not only do we welcome but we hope the British government would follow through. There is talk of the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva and it suggested making that a universal body. Although there are clearly problems with the Commission on Human Rights, making it universal is a way of weakening it rather than strengthening it. It would be a pity to go in that direction. On the contrary, one wants to strengthen the team rather than dilute it. One enormously important recommendation which comes in the report on page 68 is that we ask the permanent members of the Security Council in their individual capacities to pledge themselves to refrain from the use of veto in cases of genocide and large scale human rights abuses.

  Q21 Mr Olner: Does that mean that the Security Council—France, Russia and China—would not be able to use a veto or threaten to use a veto in the action against Iraq?

  Mr Crawshaw: If I can move from a hypothetical of the past where each of these would need to be looked at very carefully, on Darfur where everybody is agreed there have been very grave crimes against humanity, whatever name they give them, one would really hope that action will be taken in terms of accountability. It is possible that powerful Security Council governments would think of using their veto against that. Britain could play an important role in   having an agreement that Security Council governments would make a pledge precisely as recommended in this report. If the British government were to do that, it would be a very worthwhile action indeed. The Prime Minister has already welcomed the report in broad terms.

  Mr Hancock: It is quite important with the high level panel report that there is going to be a temptation to focus on some of the really big, headline catching questions like humanitarian invention, Security Council composition as well as the use of the veto. It is really important that some of the less headline grabbing human rights elements are also examined. Specifically, Security Council resolutions, where they contain human rights related elements. The High Commissioner for Human Rights should be able to follow up on those and report to the Security Council how they have been implemented. The report welcomes the degree to which the Secretary-General and the High Commissioner have been trying to mainstream human rights and draws attention to the very low level of funding. Humanitarian intervention and Security Council membership are really important issues but we need to look at the whole report and make sure we are looking at that through a wide human rights perspective, not just the big questions.

  Q22 Mr Olner: Can I ask whether you think that this high level report and what flows from it will one day help to solve problems like we have in Palestine? One of the criticisms that is raised is that there have been plenty of UN resolutions made against Israel and its occupation of Palestine but very few carried through. Would this be a way of strengthening whatever action needs to be taken on behalf of the Palestinians?

  Mr Crawshaw: It is possible. On that particular issue the key starting point is that one does not need more structural changes. If both sides had a full understanding that there are no circumstances in which gross human rights abuses, the killing of civilians in whatever circumstances, whether it be the murder of them in a café or people walking along the street being killed by the Army, and constantly framing the issue in terms of what the other side has done justifying what you have done is quite the wrong understanding. That would be my starting point.

  Q23 Mr Maples: Do you think the United Nations Commission on Human Rights is doing much useful work or are the bad offenders too often overlooked in the name of some international political correctness so that no action motions are very often filed? I forget who holds the chair this year but in one of the last two years it has been one of the worst human rights offenders of all. It is probably better to have it than not to have it at all but does it do any useful work in terms of the common agenda that the British government and your two organisations have?

  Ms Allen: We recognise the politicalisation of the Commission that has taken place and that does make life at the Commission difficult at times. The block voting is a difficulty but the Commission is hugely important. If we look at this year's Commission, we would certainly welcome the resolutions that took place on the elimination of violence against women and the recognition that the protection of human rights is a fundamental part of also dealing with the issue of terrorism. We were disappointed on some of the country resolutions, the no action resolution in terms of Chechnya. We were also disappointed that there was the replacement of the Special Rapporteur of the DRC[7] with an independent expert and we were pretty dismayed that the resolution on Sudan was such a weak one. It is very concerning that as the events in that country are unfolding the Commission's resolution was a weak one. It is a mixture but what we need to do is find ways to strengthen the Commission because it is a very important part of the work of protecting human rights and its various mechanisms are hugely important in terms of the way in which human rights are protected.

  Mr Hancock: On a slightly pessimistic note about the spread of the use of no action motions to the UN General Assembly, a no action motion was recently brought up with respect to Zimbabwe which prevented the UN Third Committee considering that country's record. It is a tremendous shame to see that moving from Geneva to New York so there is a frustration there. The Commission does some useful work and it is something we have to try to make work.

  Mr Crawshaw: Perhaps having it is better than not having it. It is an enormously problematic institution. It could be useful. It is a kind of back handed compliment that so many abusive governments are so eager to neutralise the work of the Commission. They are absolutely not headline grabbing but things like the appointment of the UN Special Rapporteurs, for example, never get headlines but they do have a very important drip, drip effect. The blocking of rapporteurs needs to be confronted when it happens as it constantly does. Letting those rapporteurs in, letting them see the various areas where there are captures, prisons, executions or extraditions can be helpful. At the moment, it is enormously regrettable that the body is not doing the work it should do in the way that it should.

  Q24 Mr Maples: Are there institutional changes that could be made in the structure of the United Nations human rights machinery that would help or are we just facing a lack of political will or a political block opposing progress?

  Ms Allen: I would say political will and also funding for the Commission's work.

  Mr Hancock: It is definitely political will. There is a need for all the countries concerned to realise that country scrutiny is an essential part of what the Commission is meant to do. That will inevitably mean western countries taking some uncomfortable decisions. This year we have an independent expert on terrorism mandated to work for a year so it would be good to see that extended on a more permanent basis. That might be a signal that those countries most engaged in what is called the war on terror are willing to have transparency in their activities. That would be leading by example but there is definitely a political need for many other regional blocks to stop behaving like blocks and acknowledge the problems that are there in the world and address them. With the machinery, there definitely is a need to look at the funding of the High Commission for Human Rights because they receive very little money as a percentage of the UN budget—I think it is about 2%—and we have a situation where the committee that deals with discrimination against women looks like it may not be able to consider the UK's fifth periodic report because it has such a backlog. We definitely need to look at the machinery but solving the machinery problem is not going to sort out the political problem.

  Mr Crawshaw: I mentioned earlier the suggestion from the panel that one might make it a universal body which seems to be very weakening. On the contrary, it would be some kind of soft criterion and at least you are signed up in principle to some of the core international basics. One thing it seems to us at Human Rights Watch might also be useful is if it became a permanent body which may sound like yet more pen pushers, but in practice we have a body which meets for just a few weeks every spring and does not have any clout. If it was there permanently throughout the year, a very good case could be made for suggesting that when a crisis is breaking out that would become a forum of authority which would be expected to respond and put things into motion. That would be one possible step forward.

  Q25 Sir John Stanley: I put this to both your organisations. We are now into the Bush second term. Do you anticipate that the American administration is going to be as uncooperative with the International Criminal Court in the second term as in the first and do you think that the British government could be doing anything more to try and move the American position?

  Mr Crawshaw: Yes and yes. In the second term they are absolutely as determined not just to weaken the Court, which has been their desire from the start, but to kill off the Court. I would urge the Committee to be seized of the importance of this moment. I referred briefly at the beginning to the issue of Darfur where the US government has described what happens in Darfur as genocide. Whatever you call it, we can all agree this is precisely the kind of issue that the Court has been created for. The core reason, horrors like this, is why the Court was created, to be able to prosecute without the cumbersomeness of creating a separate tribunal. If the American administration succeeds in blocking a referral to the International Criminal Court for Darfur, it is in danger of successfully sending the signal: why do we need a court like this in any case? We had these terrible crimes; the Court was not useful there. When the Court comes up for review in a few years' time, it will have simply run out of steam. In other words, this is now perhaps the most important moment in the Court's history. The Bush administration is very confident. Although I am glad to say it has been partly blocked on many of the immunity deals it was trying to strike, it still hopes that it can simply kill the Court dead. The coming year is going to be a very important test for that.

  Ms Allen: We would agree with that.

  Q26 Sir John Stanley: The second half of the question was against what you have indicated is an unchanged position with the Bush administration. This looks like a more or less hopeless cause but do you think there is anything useful that the British government could be doing in trying to shift the American position?

  Mr Crawshaw: Yes, absolutely. Having put the pessimistic part of the story which is absolutely true—there are many reasons for pessimism—it must also be remembered that the US government has described it as genocide. In other words, it has publicly stated the terrible nature of the crimes being committed in Darfur, in large part in its own constituency. It would like something to be done about what is happening in Darfur. Human Rights Watch, as you know, has headquarters in New York. American colleagues also believe that the British government has the key role to play in this issue. If one is fortunate and if there is consistent diplomatic pressure, both private and public, the Americans could be persuaded simply to abstain on that issue and to allow the referral to go through. There have been other, much more detailed issues where it has allowed the ICC to exist. If they can be persuaded to stand aside and let the rest of the world and the rest of the Security Council governments make the decision to allow these terrible crimes to be  punished, that will be very important. Unfortunately, although the governments here and elsewhere have said what a strong supporter they are which in many ways is true, throughout the last couple of years and especially last June when there was a key moment of confrontation, the British government refused to get involved in any way so it was left to all the other governments on the Security Council to block the Americans who eventually backed down.

  Q27 Sir John Stanley: I would like you to elaborate a little more on what you said in answer to the first part of the question. You said that the US administration was trying to kill off the ICC. I think that was the phrase you used. Is that something of an exaggeration? It is not open to any country, even the United States, to kill off the ICC. Our Committee has been to the ICC. We have seen it in the Hague and we were very reassured by what we saw and its determination to try and carry out its remit. Can you explain why you think that the US is in a position unilaterally, for example, to block a reference of what has been going on in the Sudan to the ICC, because mechanically I do not think it is possible for the US to do that. Please explain what is behind your thinking.

  Mr Crawshaw: You will be aware of why the US mistrusts the Court. It is partly because it thinks it will gang up on it and partly it is a more generalised mistrust of international justice. On the mechanical side, senior US officials have said that they would wish the Court to wither and die. In effect, if you make the Court seem pointless, there will no longer be the impetus for it. The people in the Hague are trying very hard to make it stronger and stronger so that it is no longer possible for it to wither and die. On the Sudan case specifically, if the Sudan was a member of the Court and ratified the ICC[8] treaty, you are quite right. It could not be blocked. For example, the referrals on the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda have happened and the United States is unable to be involved in any way. The only way it could be involved is by using what I might call financial blackmail, saying, "We will withhold a large chunk of aid unless you do this." The Sudan is different. Because it has not ratified the treaty, special mechanisms come in so that the special Security Council referral is needed for the ICC to become involved. It is partly in that connection that I referred to the UN paper as well, saying that government should make a pledge never to use their veto in cases of genocide or large scale crimes against humanity because one feels that the United States might wish to use its veto at the Security Council. As against that, it is important to remember there are very many US voters who would like to think that their government would do everything possible to prosecute the criminals who have been involved. There is absolutely everything to play for and the United States could back down gracefully. It would be a fine thing if they did.

  Q28 Sir John Stanley: The US administration would face almost universal odium if it exercised its Security Council position to block a reference on the appalling atrocities in the Sudan to the ICC. Is that a realistic possibility?

  Mr Crawshaw: Unfortunately, it is, but I would be very pleased for all those in this room to put that same point very clearly to the British government. There is another possibility which has been suggested in Washington. It is interesting to see which way the British government decides. That is, instead of it being referred to the International Criminal Court, for it to go to one of the ad hoc tribunals along the lines of what we have seen in former Yugoslavia, Rwanda or the mixed tribunal we see in Sierra Leone. Those ad hoc tribunals have served a good purpose but frankly the British government itself has criticised them for being very expensive, very unwieldy, they take a long time to set up and they are time consuming. The ICC cuts through all of the problems those ad hoc tribunals have which would be a way of the US saving its own face, saying, "Yes, we want a prosecution but not at this foreign ICC based in the Hague." Put in crude terms, that would be a way that they might frame it.

  Q29 Mr Illsley: You say in your memorandum that the British government were happy to support the United States if they had not withdrawn their resolution in relation to the International Criminal Court. Is that signalling that there is now a change of heart on the part of the British Government in relation to the Court, given that we were prepared to go along with the United States in their attempts to avoid being subject to it?

  Mr Crawshaw: They would say not. The Minister will be here and you could ask others within the Government. They would say one needed to have patience. Maybe this resolution might have gone through in June and perhaps next year's resolution would not go through. The British government continues to insist. I think, perhaps genuinely, it saw itself as the honest broker between the United States on the one hand which loathes the Court and the European Union who are very strong supporters of the Court on the other. It felt that it was taking, if you like, a middle road between those two. I would emphasise that I include very strongly my US colleagues in our international justice programme, who felt that the opposite was happening. By allowing the United States to go away, it would encourage the United States to be bold for the following year and the year after that. It was a very important victory, the fact that the United States was gently allowed to get its way.

  Q30 Mr Illsley: When you say the UK is somewhere in the middle ground between the United States who loathe the Court and the European Union, a strong supporter, I seem to recall a few years ago we were the strong supporters. To suggest that we now occupy the middle ground tends to suggest that our support for the Court is slipping as well.

  Mr Crawshaw: As you have seen in the Foreign Office report, it does say that Britain is one of the strongest supporters. I would agree with what you said. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case. Given their response to the potentially lethal pressures on the Court, one can only say that they are no longer the strongest supporters.

  Q31 Ms Stuart: Can I turn to the relationship with the EU and Turkey? We highlighted the importance of continued monitoring of the observance of human rights. Particularly given last week's position by the European Union Council, what is your assessment of the progress in terms of human rights, not just the changes made to the legislature of Turkey, but how it has been implemented on the ground?

  Ms Allen: We have been very encouraged by the way in which Turkey is responding to the Copenhagen criteria. There is a great opportunity here for the Turkish government to improve human rights within its country quite massively. We very much welcomed the abolition of the death penalty within Turkey. As you say, there have been introductions of many reforms within Turkish law over the last year and others are yet to come. Our concern would be that those reforms have not yet turned into practice. From our reports of the situation in Turkey, we are still concerned about the issue of torture within that country. We are still concerned that some of the policing methods particularly at demonstrations have been unnecessarily violent. Disproportionate force has been used. We remain very concerned about women's rights within the country, the level of violence against women and the failure of the state to respond to that. Also, minorities and the use of minority languages. There is that range of concerns. We are in one of those situations where the reforms that the Turkish government is putting in place need to be turned into practice. Some of the culture of human rights within the country needs to change. That is something that will take some time and will need real leadership from the Turkish government at all levels and support from the European Union. We are at one of those times where Turkey could be about to move quite massively in terms of its practice, but we are still waiting to see that after the legislative reforms have been put in place.

  Q32 Ms Stuart: Is there anything very specific you would be looking for to see real progress? It is only about 20 years since we passed the Police and Criminal Evidence Act in this country and made massive changes to the way in which evidence was gathered and people were charged. Are there markers you would be looking for which you would want to see in Turkey over the next couple of years, say, to see that they go further on the ground?

  Ms Allen: If you took the issue of torture, for example, what we have been concerned about is that since the changes in legislation, at the moment what is happening is that there is a change in the nature of the way in which torture takes place, leaving fewer marks, frankly. If we could start to see a real abhorrence of torture and a real move within the police and other forces to put the use of torture to one side, to make sure that it was not used within the country, you would turn one of those particular corners. The other ones are in relation to violence against women and the ability of minorities to use their language and have their languages used so that minorities feel that they can be part of civil society.

  Mr Hancock: Something specific is creating in Turkey something of an equivalent independent police complaints commission or a human rights ombudsman that is genuinely independent and genuinely able to investigate things properly. If we get that kind of independent oversight within Turkey, that will be a very important signal. Similarly, when we are looking at violence against women, we would very much like to see the Turkish government providing a lot more support services for victims so that people have somewhere to turn when things go bad.

  Mr Crawshaw: I echo what we have just heard. In a way, it is one of the remarkable success stories and 10 years ago it would have been difficult to imagine the extent of progress. We had hundreds dying in custody. There were more than 40 people in 1994 alone who died of torture. Now we still have all those problems. We need those mechanisms for punishing what is happening at police stations. There are still widespread abuses on a quite different scale. One can take the glass as half empty or half full. In many respects, it is half full but accession to the EU should not be an end point. In your question you used the word "monitoring". That needs to be pushed because we have not reached the great place yet. Another issue is that hundreds of thousands of Kurds were driven out of their homes in the 1990s. That is now being reversed but there are enormous problems with that and there needs to be an accountability for the violence which is still going on in the security forces and others. One of the key things so often is the mechanisms for these things to be addressed and different forms of complaints commissions where things could be properly investigated.

  Mr Hancock: When trials take place of people accused of torture, sometimes they proceed very slowly. The offence reaches its statute of limitations. Another specific thing that Turkey could do is strike statutory limitations away from torture offences so that the trials can proceed, no matter how slowly.

  Q33 Ms Stuart: I was just thinking, Chairman, given the negotiations about the accession which will start during the UK Presidency, after this if there are any other specific things which the UK Government may put on its accession shopping list, please do so in writing.

  Mr Crawshaw: I hope that, going back to our list, despite what we see as the weakening of the British position on torture, nonetheless it will be pressing hard.

  Q34 Chairman: Clearly the European Union will have an enhanced role in foreign affairs. I would like to ask whether you are satisfied that Mr Solana with his two hats is sufficiently well equipped in personnel and organisational terms in your judgment to deal with human rights and does the European Union consult organisations like your own in the way that the British Government does?

  Mr Hancock: On the consultation, yes. We have got an office in Brussels which does consult quite heavily. The thing is that there is a mixture of institutions where you have got the Council and you have got Solana there. No, there are not enough mechanisms behind Javier Solana, or at least there is not enough political will. We have got these human rights clauses and all the agreements and the EU strikes, and one of the things that has concerned us for a long time is that human rights may be mentioned in the odd meeting here or there but you do not really feel that it is at the centre of the EU policy towards these countries. One of the weaknesses is that there is an inadequate degree of monitoring of country situations and of recommendations that are reached by UN committees or the Commission on Human Rights or follow-through of them by the European Union. The EU has agreed a number of guidelines which are human rights related. The death penalty guidelines appear to us to be working not badly. A lot of the other guidelines are not really being very effective. There is a real problem there with implementation and I do not think there is sufficient capacity within the European Union to follow through on that.

  Q35 Chairman: So it is lack of capacity?

  Mr Hancock: I think there is both. There is a lack of capacity and there is also a lack of will in some cases.

  Mr Crawshaw: I would broadly echo that. Certainly there is sometimes a mismatch between the self-perception of being very strong on human rights and, exactly as was mentioned there, discussions are held where, to be honest, human rights issues simply get put to one side quite often.

  Q36 Chairman: I am aware that Mr Solana was unable to answer properly when I asked how many specialists in human rights he had in his immediate entourage, and I think there is a gap there.

  Mr Crawshaw: Yes.

  Q37 Sir John Stanley: If we could turn to Africa where, sadly, reprehensibly, the international track record again and again has been too little, too late, I would like to start with Uganda. There it is fair to say that it has been virtually nil too late and we have seen in Uganda child kidnapping taking place on a monumental scale. We have seen, as has been well documented by some professionally really excellent media reporting and, going back to victims, girls being made to beat other girls to death on pain of being beaten to death themselves if they do not take part. We have had boys turned into ruthless child killers. We have had rape used as a standard device against women and children of every age. The international community has to all intents and purposes been uninvolved. The question I would like to ask you is why is it in the view of both your organisations, after all the harrowing experiences we have had in other countries, that the international community has remained absolutely detached from these appalling atrocities that have been going on in northern Uganda for years by the Lord's Resistance Army so-called?

  Ms Allen: We need to get back to you in some detail on that. The temptation from the international community has been to see the successes in Uganda in the sense of some of the responses to issues like HIV and AIDS and some of the economic successes within that country and not to pay sufficient regard to the human rights issues. As you say, the war in the north is now in its 17th or 18th year. The abuses there are quite shocking. We have documented and had reports about the use of child soldiers. We have also been concerned about Uganda's role in relation to DRC. On specifics we would probably need to get back to the Committee with a more considered view on that country.

  Mr Crawshaw: Echoing what Kate Allen has just said and exactly what was behind your question, I think there has been sometimes a startling reluctance to confront the extent of the problems there. On the one hand you have the truly horrific events in northern Uganda with the Lord's Resistance Army and everything that it has done which, as you all know, has now been the subject of the first referrals to the International Criminal Court.

  Q38 Sir John Stanley: At long last.

  Mr Crawshaw: Absolutely so, and indeed, going back to the Commission on Human Rights, in Human Rights Watch we were pressing for the appointment of a UN Rapporteur on this, which may not sound very much but actually would have sent strong signals, it seemed to us. It did not happen but that is beginning to come high on the agenda. There was a danger with the ICC reform which was done, if you like, together with the government, that the idea must be that they must be confronted with all abuses, and there have been very serious abuses by the army as well which do need to be seen as crimes. If this becomes merely part of the government's action against the Lord's Resistance Army that, we would argue, is not a helpful way forward. Again, Kate Allen briefly referred to the Congo. It does seem to us remarkable that, given that Uganda has played a remarkably destabilising role through its support of rebel groups in Congo, from the British Government we have had very little pressure. The British Government is a major donor to Uganda and the issue of Ugandan support for rebel groups in Congo, and of course the war has yet again flared up in recent days and weeks, has been very regrettable.

  Q39 Sir John Stanley: When you say you will be coming back to the Committee with a more considered view, my question is not asking you for more information. My question is very narrowly pointed, which is that I would be very interested in the views of both your organisations as to why the international community has allowed this appalling abuse to go on for so long and has pretty well washed its hands of it. Is it that we do not have the powers or is it that we do not care or is it that we are not prepared to make the effort to deploy forces into these areas? Is it because we are giving too great a regard for the independent rights of independent states? Those important but human rights are universal and ultimately they have to be safeguarded. That is really what I am asking you to put in front of the Committee.

  Ms Allen: We will get back to you.[9]




7   Democratic Republic of Congo Back

8   International Criminal Court Back

9   Ev 49 Back


 
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