Committees on Arms ExportsSupplementary evidence from the UK Working Group on Arms (UKWG)
OVERSEAS SECURITY AND JUSTICE ASSISTANCE: AN ASSESSMENT OF HUMAN RIGHTS GUIDANCE
1. Announcing the results of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) internal review of UK arms export control policy in October 2011, the Foreign Secretary committed to publishing guidance for all UK Government officials on ensuring the UK’s overseas security and justice assistance meets its human rights obligations and values. This guidance, the Overseas Security and Justice Assistance (OSJA): Human Rights Guidance was published in December 2011. In an oral evidence session on 23 January 2012, the Committees on Arms Export Controls (CAEC) requested that witnesses from the UK Working Group on Arms, of which Saferworld is a member, submit supplementary written evidence responding to this guidance.
Overview
2. Saferworld works in 18 countries across the Horn of Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East to improve national and local security and justice systems. We believe security and justice should be seen as basic services, and that they should be provided in an effective, fair and accessible manner. The primary objective of security and justice services should be to deliver long-term, sustainable peace and security for communities.
3. In 2011, the Arab Spring drew attention to the security and justice assistance which the UK and other states have provided to authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and North Africa. This had included not only the transfer of security and defence equipment, but also training and technical assistance. For example:
It has been reported that documents uncovered in Tripoli apparently indicate that British Special Forces provided training to Libya’s Khamis Brigade under Colonel Qadhaffi’s rule, while MI6 provided intelligence to Libya which led to the arrest and torture of political dissidents.
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has delivered training to the Yemeni Central Security Force Public Order Battalion and the Yemeni Counter Terrorism Unit.
the UK has trained Bahraini security forces in crowd control techniques, among other skills, at the Defence Academy, Shrivenham, and Sandhurst College, Camberley.
4. It is not clear in all of these and other cases whether units or officers trained by the UK Government have been responsible for human rights abuses. In Yemen, for example, while the Government has indicated that it has seen no evidence that the Yemeni security forces in receipt of training by the UK have been involved in human rights violations against peaceful protesters, it is not clear what efforts have been made to seek out such evidence.
5. The Government is right to recognise that there can be serious risks associated with providing security and justice assistance overseas, including very real risks to human rights and peace and stability, as well as the possibility of creating the damaging perception that the UK is reinforcing regimes which are illegitimate, unaccountable and fail to respect the rights of their citizens. It is therefore to be welcomed that the Government has published guidance on how it intends to mitigate these risks.
6. However, there is much more to implementing effective security and justice programming overseas than simply mitigating possible risks to human rights. As the Government recognises in its Building Stability Overseas Strategy (BSOS), security and justice assistance has the potential to make an important contribution to promoting peace and stability overseas. The human rights guidance should therefore be incorporated into a practical set of operational guidelines for ensuring that not only does such assistance do no harm, but it helps to build sustainable peace and security.
7. It is also notable that the guidance does not set out what is meant by “overseas security and justice assistance”, and it appears to refer to narrowly conceived “train and equip”-type interventions. This submission sets out a broader definition, which Saferworld hopes will be considered as the guidance is reviewed in April 2012.
8. Furthermore, it is concerning that this guidance was not made public until now, and that it is not clear for how long this guidance has been in operation. It is also of concern that it appears only to have been developed and applied by the FCO, and not by the Department for International Development (DFID), MOD and the Stabilisation Unit, who deliver the majority of UK overseas security and justice assistance.
Recommendations
9. The following is a summary of Saferworld’s recommendations, which are further elaborated in the rest of this submission.
Potential risks to human rights should be treated as one of many important considerations when planning and designing security and justice interventions overseas. HMG has made a number of policy commitments in relation to security and justice assistance across different strategies and policy documents. The human rights guidance should be incorporated into a single operational toolkit which addresses the practical challenges of putting these many commitments into practice.
The review of the OSJA guidance scheduled for April 2012 should make explicit what is meant by “overseas security and justice” in this context, setting out the full range of interventions to which the guidance applies. Saferworld recommends that security and justice assistance should be conceived more broadly than just “train and equip” programmes, including both demand- and supply-side assistance and encompassing formal and informal security and justice systems.
The UK Consolidated Criteria should remain the sole basis on which decisions about arms transfer licensing are made, regardless of whether other types of security and justice assistance are delivered alongside them.
All decisions to provide overseas security and justice assistance should be based on a thorough analysis of the country context which goes beyond human rights concerns; the new cross-departmental strategic conflict analysis tool provides a means of doing this.
In identifying potential risks to human rights, a broad range of actors in the country in question should be consulted, including local civil society.
HMG should conduct thorough, transparent investigations into cases where UK security and justice assistance may have facilitated human rights abuses, to better understand where weaknesses in the risk assessment/mitigation process may lie.
More detailed guidance is needed to give practical recommendations on overcoming challenges to implementation.
The review of the OSJA should be conducted in consultation with stakeholders both inside and outside HMG, including in DFID and MOD as well as FCO.
Security and Justice Assistance and Arms Transfers
10. The UK already has criteria for making decisions on licensing the transfer of security and defence equipment, in the form of the UK Consolidated Criteria. This should remain the sole basis on which decisions are made regarding arms transfers. In some cases security and defence equipment is sold or gifted as part of a package including other types of assistance—for example, provision of training in crowd control methods has been referenced as justification for the export of armoured vehicles to Libya. However, it is important to be realistic about the extent to which such training will reduce the risk of misuse. Such training should in no way be seen as overriding the need to robustly implement the Consolidated Criteria. Saferworld’s views on possible changes to the Criteria and how the existing Criteria can be better applied are summarised in the written evidence submitted by the UK Working Group on Arms to the current CAEC inquiry.
11. The rest of this submission focuses on other types of security and justice assistance apart from the transfer of equipment. The recommendations are intended to apply to all overseas security and justice assistance regardless of whether the transfer of equipment takes place alongside this assistance.
Departmental Responsibility
12. While the Foreign Secretary’s statement of 13 October 2011 indicated that the Government would publish guidance in late 2011 “for all HMG officials on assessing the human rights implications of our overseas security and justice assistance”, the guidance document published on 15 December makes clear that it is currently applied only by the FCO, but that it will be reviewed in April 2012, after which time it will be applied to all government departments.
13. Currently, the majority of UK overseas security and justice assistance is provided by DFID, MOD and the Stabilisation Unit, with only a minority of support provided by FCO. It is therefore concerning that there does not appear to have been cross-departmental guidance on the delivery of security and justice assistance until now.
14. Saferworld looks forward to the production of cross-departmental guidance, and hopes that the review scheduled for April 2012 will be conducted in consultation with external actors—something which was noticeably missing from the 2011 FCO review of arms export control policy. In this regard, Saferworld welcomes the announcement that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will hold a review of its arms export control processes, on which it will “seek the views of interested parties, including the representatives of exporters and non-governmental organisations.”
What is Security and Justice Assistance?
15. The guidance states that it should be applied to “both case specific assistance and broader, often longer term capacity building assistance”, but nowhere does it specify what types of assistance fall within this category. The term “security and justice assistance” is often used to refer to programmes that train and equip military, police and counter-terrorist units, but security and justice assistance can and should be much broader than that.
16. For example, security and justice assistance should focus not just on the “supply side”—the providers of security and justice services—but also on the “demand side”. Empowering civil society groups and communities to become involved in the oversight and decision-making of how their security and justice services are delivered can be a crucial means of ensuring that security and justice providers respect human rights and contribute to peace and stability. Such measures should be seen not just as a means of mitigating risks associated with UK-provided “train and equip” programmes, but as useful intervention in their own right for building stability overseas.
17. In addition, security and justice systems include much more than just the armed forces and police—they also justice institutions such as courts and prison systems, oversight bodies such as parliamentary committees and independent complaints commissions, and in many contexts there are also “non-statutory” security forces such as militias, private security companies and informal justice mechanisms such as paralegal committees and “traditional” mechanisms such as Afghan shuras.
18. As the guidance is reviewed, Saferworld recommends that it should set out what is meant by security and justice assistance in this context. This should be a broad definition encompassing supply- and demand-side assistance, and looking at the whole of security and justice systems.
Assessment of the OSJA Guidance
19. The following sections assess the set out in the guidance for assessing the situation, identifying and mitigating risks.
Assessing the Situation in-country
20. The OSJA rightly recommends that any decision to deliver security and justice assistance must be based on an assessment of the country context. The set of questions given in this section aim to identify whether, if the UK was to deliver security and justice assistance in a particular country, this would pose a risk to human rights.
21. Security and justice assistance is one of many tools which the UK has at its disposal to meet its objectives overseas, whether those relate to poverty reduction, human rights, conflict prevention or UK national security concerns. Therefore, before asking whether security and justice assistance in a given context would pose a risk to human rights, it is necessary to first ask the broader question of whether, in the country context, security and justice assistance is the most appropriate intervention the UK could make to achieve its objectives. The possible risk to human rights should be one of several important sub-questions to this central question which—depending on the UK Government’s objectives in the given context—might also include:
What are the root causes of conflict and instability in the country?
What are the causes of radicalisation and/or terrorism in the country?
How do communities perceive the formal and informal security and justice services they currently receive—if any?
What kinds of support are being provided by other donors, and how would UK support complement it?
How would security and justice assistance fit into the UK’s broader theory of change for the country?
22. The Government’s new cross-departmental conflict analysis would be the obvious place for this type of analysis to be undertaken, and should form the basis for all decisions on providing overseas security and justice assistance.
Identifying Risk
23. This section of the guidance provides a useful list of risks to which security and justice assistance may contribute. However, more detail on the nature of those risks and how the Government believes this assistance could either increase or reduce them would help to make this a more useful operational document. For example, highlighting the risk that it could “undermine the principles of conflict prevention as defined in HMG’s [BSOS]” would benefit from an explanation of how the many principles laid out in the BSOS—a 40 page document—could be undermined by security and justice assistance.
24. In identifying these risks, understanding the relationship between security and justice systems and the communities they serve is vitally important. Local non-state actors, including local civil society organisations and community members themselves, can provide vital information in this regard. A diverse range of non-state actors from all sections of society should be routinely consulted when such assessments are made. HMG need not gather of this information itself—other donors, local and international civil society organisations can also gather such information.
Mitigating Risk
25. The third checklist in the guidance, which sets out steps which could be taken to mitigate any risks identified, requires considerable elaboration as to how these steps should be carried out in order to be made effective.
26. For example, one suggestion is that “assurances have been or will be obtained from the host Government and/or recipient institution/unit before the start of the project or programme on compliance with the relevant international human rights and/or IHL standards.” However no guidance is given on how the credibility of such assurance should be assessed, or how states which breach such agreements should be held accountable.
27. In the case of Yemen, FCO Minister Jeremy Browne has stated that, “before providing any military support or training to Yemeni forces, the UK Government seeks assurances that these forces will not be deployed on operations outside of their mandate or in breach of human rights.” However, given the poor human rights record of the Yemeni regime, it is difficult to see how such assurances could be deemed credible. As the UK Government acknowledges , Yemeni security forces have used indiscriminate violence against peaceful protesters since the beginning of the present uprising in February 2011, and while the UK Government has seen no evidence that UK-trained units or officers have been involved in the crackdown, the overall pattern of behaviour by the Yemeni regime gives little reason to believe that, when considering whether and how to deploy security forces, it would be constrained by assurances it has given to other states.
28. Situating decisions on whether to deliver security and justice assistance within process that includes thorough analysis of conflict dynamics, state-society relations and the nature of the regime would provide a solid base of evidence on which to assess the credibility of such assurances. HMG should also bear in mind that training individual units will only have a limited impact, particularly in contexts where the broader regime is unaccountable and lacks respect for human rights.
29. In cases such as this where questions have been raised about whether states in receipt of UK security and justice assistance may have used it to violate human rights, Saferworld urges the Government to thoroughly investigate whether this was the case, and to publish its findings. Gaining an understanding of how steps to mitigate risk have succeeded or failed in the past would be invaluable in assessing the mitigation measures set out in the guidance.
A Holistic Approach to Security and Justice Assistance
30. As mentioned above, risks to human rights are one of many important considerations when designing overseas security and justice interventions.
31. The BSOS acknowledges that “security forces may be seen as sources of insecurity or oppression”—as is recognised in the OSJA guidance—but also that “effective and accountable security and better access to justice that is seen to be effective make people feel safe in their daily lives. They give an entrepreneur the confidence to invest, and provide people with the means to resolve conflicts before they escalate.”
32. While it is important that the human rights risks associated with overseas security and justice assistance should be mitigated, Saferworld recommends that this guidance be incorporated into a toolkit which also sets out in practical terms how overseas security and justice assistance can be made to effectively contribute to conflict prevention and development, as well as human rights. This would help to facilitate a whole of government approach in which FCO, DFID, MOD and the Stabilisation Unit work from the same guidance.
33. HMG has a range of other policy frameworks and strategies which either directly reference or have clear implications for overseas security and justice assistance, including the BSOS, DFID’s Building Peaceful States and Societies: A DFID Practice Paper, HMG’s National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security and DFID’s Strategic Vision for Women and Girls, to name a few. These national strategies and plans also sit alongside international policy documents and commitments such as the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States and the World Development Report 2011: Conflict, Security and Development. A single practical toolkit addressing the challenges of delivering overseas security and justice assistance, based on evidence of best practice from HMG’s programming experience, would provide a useful means of synthesising and operationalising HMG’s commitments and objectives under these different policy frameworks in order to facilitate coherent and consistent implementation across departments.
About Saferworld
34. Saferworld is an independent international NGO that works to prevent violent conflict and promote co-operative approaches to security. We believe everyone should be able to lead peaceful, fulfilling lives free from insecurity and armed violence.
35. We always seek to work constructively with others and do not usually engage in public campaigning. While we are not a traditional development agency, we seek to understand and influence the relationship between conflict, security and international development.
36. Saferworld has 85 full- and part-time staff and advisers working on our geographic programmes and in our policy and advocacy programme, funding and communications, and operations departments. Saferworld’s main office is in London and we have regional offices in Africa, Asia and Europe. Our funding for 2010–11 was around £6.8 million—mainly in the form of government grants from Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.
10 February 2012