FCDO Human Rights
Human rights work at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
17th May 2011
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Today is International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. Why is it necessary to have such a day? Well, because same-sex relations remain criminalised in more than 70 countries. Discrimination against LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity continues to occur even in countries where laws exist to […]
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5th April 2011
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
As we note on our website, “Human Rights and Democracy: The 2010 FCO Report” was publicly launched by the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, in London on 31 March, alongside guest speakers Dr Agnes Callamard from the freedom of expression NGO Article 19, and the Iranian Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari. The report is available online at www.fco.gov.uk/hrdreport. For […]
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28th March 2011
Bucharest, Romania
Today I had the opportunity, together with other colleagues in the Embassy, to attend a lunchtime presentation on peace-building and conflict prevention held by PATRIR’s Kai F. Brand-Jacobsen. Kai has been working on conflict prevention since he was a teenager and now, after many years and many projects across the globe, has developed a very coherent […]
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22nd March 2011
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
As I write, British military forces are engaged – with partners from many other countries – in enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1973 over Libya. No country takes military action lightly. It is always a last resort. But as I wrote in La Razon on 22 March, the United Kingdom believes that the action to […]
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21st March 2011
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
59 years in jail, reduced to 35 years, for satire? It sounds like a bad joke. But this is the sentence handed down by the regime in Burma in 2008 to popular comedian Maung Thura, better known as Zarganar. And his case is a good example of why the international community continues to call on […]
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8th March 2011
Geneva, Switzerland
Guest blog by Jacqui Hunt, Equality Now This session of the Human Rights Council sees the appointment of a new mechanism to promote women’s rights – a working group to focus on discrimination against women in law and practice. A significant milestone in respect of women’s rights of which the Human Rights Council should be […]
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1st March 2011
Geneva, Switzerland
These are heady days at the Human Rights Council. On the back of Friday’s firm action on Libya, senior figures from around the world descended on Geneva today for the start of the Council’s March session. It’s the first time so many leading politicians have come to the Council and with them came the world’s […]
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23rd February 2011
Geneva, Switzerland
I’m not sure how it started, but there’s a growing trend in UN human rights meetings these days to convey displeasure through culinary metaphor. The German Ambassador did this to great effect when he revealed his reaction to the latest set of proposals on the Human Rights Council Review, which is finally approaching a close […]
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24th January 2011
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Which is the country which is most free in the CIS? Can we say confidently that it is Ukraine? Or how about a new pretender to that crown – Moldova? There are many ways to measure freedom, some more objective than others. As I noted in a recent blog on human rights, one can often […]
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21st January 2011
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
In a recent blog on human rights in Ukraine I noted that the British embassy in Kyiv had supported projects to help a number of different constituent elements of the Ukrainian legal system including the Constitutional Court. So I was delighted to have a chance recently to visit the Constitutional Court, and to meet the […]
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