1. The Foreign Affairs Committee in previous Parliaments
conducted an inquiry into human rights each year from 1998 to
2009, on the basis of the annual human rights report which the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) began publishing in the
first of those years. Shortly after we were elected at the start
of the present Parliament, in July 2010, we decided to continue
our predecessors' practice. Our decision reflected the importance
we attached both to the FCO's—by now well-established—report,
and to human rights work within the wider work of the department.
The FCO published its 2010 human rights report on 31 March 2011
(hereafter referred to as the FCO Report).[1]
We launched our 2011 inquiry on the same day.[2]
2. We invited written evidence assessing the FCO's
human rights work in 2010-11. We said that we would particularly
welcome submissions which addressed:
the relationship between the FCO's human rights
work and the emphasis which the Government [was] placing on the
promotion of UK economic and commercial interests in UK foreign
policy.[3]
3. Our inquiry focussed not only on the FCO Report
but also on some broad issues arising from the change of Government.
The initiation of an annual FCO human rights report in 1998 was
one of the most distinctive initiatives taken by the previous
Government in the field of foreign affairs, serving to highlight
the prominence of overseas human rights promotion as an element
in UK foreign policy. After 12 years of human rights reporting,
by the FCO and by our predecessors, we were interested in the
way in which the incoming Government dealt with this part of its
predecessors' legacy. We were interested in particular in any
potential tension between overseas human rights promotion and
the sharper focus on promoting UK commercial interests which the
present Government was giving to UK foreign policy.
4. We make no attempt in this Report to comment on
all the many issues dealt with in the FCO Report. We have
been selective in focussing on matters that were raised with us
in evidence, or which on other grounds were of particular concern
to us. In one respect our practice differs from that of our predecessor
Committee. In this Report we have largely addressed issues about
particular countries in the course of our discussion of more general
themes in the FCO's human rights work, rather than by seeking
to duplicate the extensive country-by-country reporting contained
in the FCO Report (as well as in a number of other regular
official and NGO publications). It should be emphasised that any
lack of specific reference to individual countries, or particular
cases of alleged abuses, in our Report should not be taken to
indicate any lack of interest or support on our part for the FCO's
work in promoting human rights in those countries or in campaigning
against those abuses.
5. We took oral evidence from Kate Allen, Director
of Amnesty International UK (hereafter referred to as Amnesty),
David Mepham, UK Director of Human Rights Watch, and Jeremy Browne
MP, the FCO Minister responsible for human rights. We received
written submissions from Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and 15 other
organisations, campaign groups and individuals. The FCO also responded
to requests from us for further written information on a number
of points.[4] We would
like to thank all those who contributed to our inquiry.
6. Our Report has three substantive chapters. In
Chapter 2, we review the FCO's approach to human rights work under
the current Government, including the FCO Report. We devote
Chapter 3 to human rights-related issues arising from the Government's
focus on the promotion of UK commercial interests in its foreign
policy. In Chapter 4, we comment on a number of current issues
for FCO human rights policy.
1 FCO, Human Rights and Democracy: The 2010 Foreign
& Commonwealth Office Report, Cm 8017, March 2011 (hereafter
FCO Report) Back
2
Foreign Affairs Committee, "Announcement of new inquiry:
The FCO's human rights work 2010-11", press notice,
31 March 2011 Back
3
Ibid. Back
4
Written evidence from the FCO, Amnesty and Human Rights Watch
is printed in this volume of our Report. Written evidence from
witnesses who did not also give oral evidence is published in
a 'virtual' second volume, available on the Committee's website
at www.parliament.uk/facom. In references, evidence published
in the 'virtual' web-only volume is indicated by a 'w'. Back
