International Human Rights Day

Today, 10 December is International Human Rights Day.

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to discuss human rights issues last week with a group of students from the British Council School. Here is a summary of my presentation to them.

The UK is extremely active when it comes to promoting human rights.  The Foreign Office works to support respect for human rights around the world.  We have a large department dedicated to this.  Where human rights abuses go unchecked our security and our prosperity suffers as well.

At the heart of everything we do is a sense of our values.  Foreign policy has to be based on values.  Without that it is meaningless.  And respect for human rights is absolutely at the heart of the values the UK stands for.  Foreign policy should be about improving the human condition, not just reacting to events.

So what do we do? What areas do we work in?  We have projects that look at preventing torture, abolishing the death penalty, increasing people’s freedom of expression, giving people freedom of religious belief, achieving gender equality, democracy and the rule of law

Preventing torture

The government is working with other countries and organisations to prevent torture by funding projects to make criminal justice systems fairer.  We also work to develop national organisations that can effectively monitor places of detention.  The UK campaigns for states to sign, ratify and implement the UN Convention against Torture and its Optional Protocol, agreed in 2002 and which we signed and ratified in 2003. We also support action against torture through bilateral lobbying campaigns to develop and strengthen National Preventive Mechanisms (domestic bodies that monitor places of detention) and multilateral engagement in the EU and UN, as well as practical support to criminal justice reform.

Abolishing the death penalty

The government is working with the EU and the UN to persuade other countries to abolish the death penalty.  This includes projects to restrict the use of the death penalty and raising individual cases of British nationals sentenced to death overseas.  We have worked with civil society and international organisations to influence those states that still use the death penalty. The most recent vote at the UN reinforced a global trend towards abolition, with 111 states voting in favour of a worldwide moratorium.

The UK abolished the death penalty for murder in 1965, but did not abolish it completely until 2004.  The last execution took place in 1964.  According to Amnesty International, in 2013 at least 778 people were executed around the world.  This figure does not include China.

Overall 100 countries have abolished the death penalty. 7 retain it for crimes committed in exceptional circumstances (such as in time of war).  48 permit its use for ordinary crimes, but have not used it for at least 10 years and are believed to have a policy or established practice of not carrying out executions, or it is under a moratorium.  40 maintain the death penalty in both law and practice.

Freedom of religion

We have taken action, through project work in several countries, at the multilateral level (UN resolutions, EU advocacy), and by bringing together faith and political leaders to extol the benefits of pluralism.  In 2013 Baroness Warsi led an international summit on freedom of religion to deepen and strengthen the political consensus on Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18.

Supporting people’s freedom of expression

The government supports freedom of expression, including on the Internet, and will continue to press countries that restrict access to online media to uphold their international human rights commitments.

We believe that the right to freedom of expression applies with equal force in cyberspace as elsewhere. We work with other countries to build a wider consensus about freedom of expression on the internet and to guard against the growing trend of political repression.

The UK joined the Freedom Online Coalition, a coalition of like-minded states that shares information on violations of freedom of expression and other human rights online, and cooperates in supporting and protecting human rights online.

Equality and non-discrimination

The UK works to support equality and non-discrimination for all people, including gender equality; upholding the rights of minority groups and lesbian, gay and transgender people; supporting the freedom of religion and belief.

However, we do not carry out this work on our own, and is more effective if carried out in collaboration with other countries or organisations.  So we work with the UN.  The UN Human Rights Council is the UN’s primary body for discussion and action on human rights issues.

We work with the major EU institutions: the European Commission, the Council of the European Union (the Member States), the European Parliament to support equality and combat discrimination. We contribute to the development of common standards and regulations to protect UK interests and support best practices on equality.

And with the Council of Europe, that seeks to develop common and democratic principles based on the European Convention on Human Rights

What are we doing in Spain? 

We have been working with the Spanish government on three priorities this year: Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict, Business and Human Rights and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

Business and Human Rights

The government expects UK businesses to operate at all times in a way that respects human rights. The UK has launched a national action plan on business and human rights becoming the first country to set out guidance to companies on integrating human rights into their operations.  In it we make clear the Government’s duty to protect and promote human rights in the business context, outline our commitments to encourage good business practice by UK companies both domestically and internationally, and provide advice to UK companies to help them understand and manage human rights risk as part of their commercial activities.

We have been working with the Spanish government as they develop their own national action plan to take forward  the UN guiding principles on Business and Human Rights.

Prevention of Sexual Violence in Conflict

This year the UK hosted an international conference, the first of its kind, on the prevention of sexual violence in conflict.  One of the biggest problems of war time sexual violence is that it is difficult to prosecute.

The conference resulted in the approval of a protocol to be used on the ground in areas of conflict to collect evidence and documentation which can be used to prosecute the atrocities.  In Spain we worked with a documentary maker to promote his film on the issue which we then took to London.  We coloured the Cibeles pink to raise awareness.  And we will be promoting the Spanish version of the protocol in the New Year.

International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)

In November we participated in a conference in Madrid, as chair of the IHRA, on the role of neutral countries during the holocaust.  And on the international day of holocaust remembrance, 27 January, we will be taking part in remembrance ceremonies here in Madrid.

My final thought is about delivery:  governments need to be committed to protection and respect of human rights.  But delivering change often requires more than just government action.  In the area of human rights, perhaps more than any other, politicians, officials and diplomats need to work in collaboration with people outside of government – NGOs, trade unions, wider civil society – if they are to deliver lasting change.  Building coalitions of this sort is not easy.  But where we do so successfully we can deliver lasting change that improves the very quality of human existence.