Examination of Witnesses (Questions 54-59)
RT HON
IAN MCCARTNEY
MP, SUSAN HYLAND
AND STUART
ADAM
7 FEBRUARY 2007
Q54 Chairman: As you know, Minister,
the Chairman of our Committee, Mike Gapes, is abroad today on
parliamentary business. We extend a warm welcome to you and to
your colleagues Susan Hyland and Stuart Adam for our important
annual session on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's human
rights report.
Perhaps I could start with a wide question on
the priority that is given in the FCO to human rights. I recall
that when the present Government came into office and the late
Robin Cook was Foreign Secretary, he immediately gave human rights
a high profile and took the very welcome decision, in my view,
that the Foreign Office would for the first time produce an annual
human rights report. There are grounds for wondering whether human
rights have the same priority today. When examining the Department's
strategic priorities set out in the "Active Diplomacy"
White Paper—there were initially nine and then the present
Foreign Secretary added climate change, making 10—it is
somewhat surprising that no priority is given singly to human
rights. They get a passing mention in priority 7, on "promoting
sustainable development and poverty reduction underpinned by human
rights, democracy, good governance and the protection of the environment".
Are human rights now featuring less prominently in the Foreign
Office's priorities?
Ian McCartney: Thank you, Sir
John. I also thank the Committee's Chairman, who advised me in
advance that he was unable to be here. This is the first time
I have been in front of the Committee and I want to work with
you very closely. This was an area of work that, prior to being
a Minister in the Foreign Office, I spent time on over the years
as a parliamentarian. With me today are Susan Hyland, who is the
head of our Human Rights, Democracy and Governance Group, and
Stuart Adam, who is the new editor of our annual human rights
report and will work with the team.
Human rights are a fundamental, essential core
priority for the Department, not only because of the issues that
you have raised but in all the work of the Foreign Office both
on its own and jointly across Whitehall. Human rights are a thread
through all of it. I am the Minister designated for human rights,
but the truth is that every Minister in the Government has responsibility
in their role to pursue, advocate and be an ambassador for our
human rights agenda. In our Foreign Office network that agenda
is a priority for all staff in post, and in addition it has always
been a priority for ourselves. We work in partnership to promote
human rights in every aspect of our service.
In addition to what I have said in general,
since I came to post I have taken specific action to ensure that
non-governmental organisations, parliamentarians, faith groups,
trade unions and all those who have an interest in promoting and
protecting human rights around the world are tied into our work
and activity. For example, before I make any out-of-country visits,
I sit down with the NGOs and we discuss the priorities for each
of the countries in the region that I am visiting. I agree what
those priorities are. Following the visit, I come back and report
progress to them. Then we put a work programme together with the
country or countries concerned, following initial discussion.
We have also brought NGOs in more closely on
the Human Rights Council, and trade unions as well, and we are
working with human rights defenders and activists in a more proactive
way. Our United Nations representation has been brought in too,
not only working in Geneva but actually coming to London on a
regular basis to work with NGOs and ourselves. Indeed, we have
got an event on 21 February, which is jointly sponsored by ourselves
and the NGOs, to which every member of the Committee has been
invited. It is part of our activity of asking you to participate
in how we draw up an agenda for each of the Human Rights Council
meetings.
Human rights are fundamental to the work we
are doing. We cannot get stability, sustainable development and
good governance if human rights are not part and parcel of that
agenda. Some countries do not want to discuss human rights, but
I can sometimes be persuasive.
Q55 Chairman: I certainly know from
your career here of your personal commitment to human rights,
but could you just answer my specific question? Given what you
said, which is very welcome, why do human rights not warrant a
single listing in the 10 strategic priorities of the Department?
Ian McCartney: Well, they are
woven throughout. We produce an annual report so that we can be
accountable, not just to Parliament but to the wider world, on
our human rights activities. We are making an open and transparent
programme. We are, in fact, ensuring human rights are part of
our core activities. There is no doubt about that, Sir John.
Chairman: Thank you very much. We are
going to turn to some of the international forums for human rights.
Sandra Osborne is going to start off on the Human Rights Council.
Q56 Sandra Osborne: The Human Rights
Council was keenly anticipated, because it was going to be stronger
than the Commission on Human Rights and would therefore be more
effective. However, the United States voted against it and did
not stand for election. Some countries that have a poor record
on human rights, not to put too fine a point on it, have been
elected. Also, Human Rights Watch has criticised the council for
failing to take action on various human rights abuses or to comment
on them, such as in Darfur and Burma. The Foreign and Commonwealth
Office report itself expresses disappointment at some of the resolutions
passed by the Human Rights Council in the face of British opposition,
such as the "unhelpfully unbalanced" resolutions put
forward by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. Do the
Government need to adopt a new strategy in relation to this to
ensure that future resolutions more closely match the UK's views?
Ian McCartney: You have to see
how far we have come in a very short time. We started off with
the previous organisation, which was debilitated and totally split
on political and geographical grounds. It had little or no capacity
to influence, in a real sense, outcomes in terms of long-term
humanitarian human rights work on specific country issues or crises
that arose. So it was important that the Human Rights Council
was established to try and make a difference.
We will be going to the fourth session in mid-March.
The first year has been about trying to shape the institution.
You are absolutely right; there are people on the Human Rights
Council who take a different view from us of human rights. The
difference is that this new Human Rights Council for the first
time has two things: special procedure mandates, and universal
periodic review. That means that every single person or country
that has been elected to the Human Rights Council has to put itself
up for peer review about their own conduct and policies on human
rights. As a country, we have put ourselves up for the first review.
We are in negotiations to try and get concluded soon the new rules
to introduce these universal periodic reviews.
You are absolutely right about, so far, the
council's actions being patchy and having disproportionate discussion
on political grounds on the middle east. However, having said
that, we did get a special session on Darfur on 12 and 13 December.
Out of that came an agreement to send a high-level assessment
mission to the region later that month. Since then, I have met
the new President of the Council, President De Alba from Mexico,
and we have put together a high-level assessment team, which will
work with him. We have also done work on Afghanistan and Nepal,
so there has been progress, and the situation is more positive
than it was in years gone by.
The body will have difficulties—a lot
of negotiation will have to take place on whether we have the
mechanism for periodic reviews as we want it—and we want
to ensure that special mandates are carried on in particular countries
such as Burma and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. We
had a slow start, but I can assure the Committee that what we
have now is better than what we had.
Q57 Sandra Osborne: If these countries
are up for review, what sanctions can be applied to them if they
fail to improve their human rights records?
Ian McCartney: Some of the countries
have already had sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security
Council. We did attempt recently, with colleagues, to impose fresh
sanctions on Burma, but we were blocked by a small number of countries.[2]
1 Despite that, there was a further ratcheting-up of the international
condemnation of Burma. In the past few days, I met a further delegation
of activists on women's rights and civil society in Burma to talk
through with them what more we can do to assist them in the process
of trying to get engagement, particularly with the Association
of South East Asian Nations countries. China and India hold the
key; we can do a lot, but we have to get Burma, India and the
ASEAN countries surrounding Burma to do much more. Along with
the European Union, we have imposed as much as we can, and we
are at the forefront of campaigning on Burma.
Chairman: We will be coming to some of
those countries later. We turn now to the proposed arms trade
treaty.
Q58 Mr. Moss: Establishing the arms
trade treaty was a global priority for the UK Government. Indeed,
in its last report, this Committee commended the Government for
backing the ATT. As you are aware, the United States was the only
country in the General Assembly to vote against starting work
on the ATT. Can you tell the Committee how damaging you think
this US opposition is to the main aim of securing a strong treaty?
Ian McCartney: The facts are surprising,
some people think. In December, a strong majority across a wide
range of countries was for the work. Since then, the United Nations
Secretary-General has called on the US to submit its views on
the scope, feasibility and draft parameters of a treaty by 30
April. Together with our international partners and the NGOs,
we are currently working on our own paper for the Secretary-General.
This year, we are hoping to encourage countries to feed their
views in to the process.
Having moved on since December, we want to
see a real difference, in terms of irresponsible arms sales, so
we want an agreement to come out of the 30 April deadline. There
will still be countries—the United States and others—that
oppose that. However, we have a clear intellectual, political,
moral argument to put—after all, we eventually won the argument
on land mines. These issues are not easy to resolve; it will take
some time. However, the fact that we have given leadership on
the issue and are prepared to stick at it is a sign that I will
come back to the Committee after 30 April. If, in the meantime,
the Committee wishes to engage with us on what our submission
should be, I shall be more than happy for that to happen.
Chairman: Thank you, Minister. May I
express to you the appreciation of the Quadripartite Committee,
whose members were able to meet this morning to see the draft
British Government submission? We very much welcome the fact that
your Department took the initiative in involving MPs on the four
Select Committees, and gave us the opportunity to make an input
before the final British submission goes in.
We now turn to the important issue of the use
of and possible legislation in relation to cluster munitions.
Q59 Mr. Keetch: Minister, you mentioned
land mines and said that we eventually won through. Cluster munitions
were originally designed as a battlefield and airfield denial
weapon. They were specifically designed to crater areas and to
leave a proportion of bomblets—40% normally—unexploded,
but they are now almost exclusively used against civilian targets.
We saw that tragically in Lebanon recently when they were used
by the Israeli air force. Because of the nature of this weapon,
which can often be left in rubble and hidden by other battlefield
or civilian debris, and given that the Financial Times
reported that 98% of the victims are civilians, is it not time
that we classified these weapons effectively as land mines?
Ian McCartney: Can I have a couple
of minutes to set out what we have been doing and why? I am also
happy to answer the point if no one else has a question about
Israel and the Lebanon. Our diplomatic activity led to us last
November being able to get an agreement about looking at the humanitarian
impact of these weapons and for the matter to be addressed within
the framework of the UN convention on certain conventional weapons.
We also called for an immediate negotiating mandate for a legally
binding protocol to restrict their use.
We were blocked by a number of other states.
However, the former UN Secretary-General called for this to be
addressed within the existing international framework. Agreement
within that framework is significant because it includes all major
users and producers and therefore offers the greatest potential
for humanitarian benefit in moving forward in a very difficult
area where there is no common agreement about the banning of these
weapons.
The agreed discussion mandate is an essential
preliminary step towards any negotiations for a binding protocol
and it should ensure that all key users and producers participate.
The UK is committed to phasing out its dumb cluster munitions.
Cluster munitions are lawful weapons in accordance with international
humanitarian law. I am not an expert on defence matters and I
do not use that as an excuse. The difference between dumb cluster
munitions and those that are not so dumb is something that is
lost on their victims. That is not my mandate to say that, but
it is true. That is why it is important that we try to press forward
with this initiative that we took last November.
As to the issue of Israel and the Lebanon, in
previous sessions on the Floor of the House, the Foreign Secretary
made it clear what we said to Israel on this. Her comments are
in the public domain. Israel is carrying out an inquiry and the
results will be made public. We will pursue Israel to make sure
that that happens.
2 1 The UK imposes targeted sanctions on Burma through
the EU Common Position. We have not tried to impose fresh sanctions
on Burma as there is no consensus within the EU to do so. The
US and UK sponsored a Security Council Resolution on Burma, but
this was vetoed by China and Russia on 12 January. The non-punitive
Resolution did not seek to impose sanctions on Burma. Back
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