Good Morning. Lords, Ladies and
Gentlemen, I am delighted to welcome you today to the Foreign Office for the
launch of our annual report on human rights and democracy.
This report is the result of
twelve months of tireless efforts by our staff and our Ministers to promote and
protect human rights across the world. It may look long and substantial but it
is a distilled account of the vast amount of work that we have
undertaken.
For a year, as usual, our
diplomats have travelled to prisons, observed court cases, visited refugee
camps, supported civil society and lobbied on issues from the abolition of the
death penalty to women’s rights to freedom of religion and belief. I am
grateful for the passion and commitment that the men and women of the Foreign
Office bring to this work.
As Ministers we have raised
human rights in virtually all of our hundreds of bilateral meetings, in every
international body and in our conversations with young people and civil society
all over the world.
As an organisation, our
diplomatic network spanning 154 countries and 12 territories gives us an almost
unique ability to observe and to help improve the situation of human rights
worldwide, and this work inspires and motivates our staff wherever they
serve.
And I pay tribute in particular
to those staff working on the ground in fragile environments like in Yemen and
Somalia, in repressive states including North Korea who are able to observe
events few others can, to present arguments and concerns that might otherwise
not be heard, and to forge relationships that allow us to change attitudes and
encourage progress even where it seems most difficult.
Human rights are part of the
lifeblood of the Foreign Office because they are part of our national DNA in
the United Kingdom – our character as a people – and because they
are vital to our national interest.
I have just returned this week
from Rwanda where the genocide twenty years ago demonstrated the devastating
consequences of human rights abuses and why preventing atrocities and the
violation of human rights is among our fundamental
responsibilities.
Not only do we have a moral
obligation to prevent grave human rights abuses wherever they occur; they
threaten international peace and security by undermining stability, often
triggering huge movements of people, and fuelling division and violence that
can quickly affect other societies thousands of miles away.
And that is why the United
Kingdom has played a crucial role in developing a strong system of
international law and institutions to protect political and economic freedoms,
and it is why in the year 2013 we were once again in the vanguard of the
struggle for human rights worldwide, in some cases helping to transform the
international approach to issues that were previously ignored or
avoided.
One of these is warzone sexual
violence, a horrendous abuse of human rights that has for too long been treated
as an inevitable consequence of conflict. In fact it is a deliberate tactic,
used in wars on every continent to terrorise, intimidate and torture civilian
populations and encouraged by a global culture of impunity.
It is within our power to stop
this dreadful abuse but it requires a sea change in global attitudes and
determined action by governments and civil society.
And that is what our Preventing
Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative aims to bring about and in 2013 we made
significant advances.
We brought this issue to the
pinnacle of international diplomacy at the G8 and the UN Security Council, we
deployed our team of experts to collect evidence of crimes in Syria, train
judges in Bosnia and teach soldiers in Mali, and we launched a historic
Declaration of Commitment to End Sexual Violence in Conflict that has now been
signed as of yesterday by 144 countries.
I firmly believe that our
leadership can help to turn the tide against this appalling crime, and I look
forward to hearing Erin Gallagher’s expert view on the scale of the
problem and the challenges that we must overcome.
The United Kingdom has also
blazed the trail internationally in showing how government and businesses can
work together to promote human rights for all of our benefit. The National
Action Plan we launched in September was the first of its kind anywhere in the
world. It will help British companies – who are already pioneering in so
many ways – to lead the way in respect for human rights wherever they
operate, anticipating risks and improving business environments for the long
term.
And I am delighted that Mo
Ibrahim can be here today as someone who has immense business experience and
whose foundation is doing such valuable work on good governance and tackling
corruption in Africa, and I look forward to hearing his thoughts on how success
for British business and respect for human rights can go hand in
hand.
But the Foreign Office is not
only championing new issues, we have maintained our work on the full spectrum
of human rights concerns.
Our re-election to the Human
Rights Council last year gives us the platform we need to promote respect for
all human rights around the world. We will use it to the full, including to
advance the social, political and economic rights of all women everywhere, and
their involvement in peace processes: two goals close to my
heart.
We have already used our seat to
campaign powerfully for a resolution on Sri Lanka that will establish an
international investigation into alleged human rights abuses committed by both
sides in that country’s long conflict.
The passing of that resolution
just two weeks ago is a major step forward, which should help to establish the
truth for all Sri Lankans, and to lay the groundwork for lasting peace, unity
and reconciliation.
So there have been proud moments
for the United Kingdom in the last year. But as the many distinguished
activists in the audience here this morning know, the struggle to secure
universal respect for human rights cannot be won overnight or in any one
year.
2013 was a tumultuous year that
saw setbacks as well as successes.
In some countries a desire for
power at any cost fuelled terrible human rights abuses, while a lack of
political will at the national and international level meant that not enough
was done to prevent them.
The consequences were most
catastrophic in Syria. The Assad regime bears the primary responsibility for
protecting its own population. But it continued last year to kill civilians
mercilessly and indiscriminately with chemical weapons, barrel bombs, and
artillery fire.
Regime forces have used
starvation as a weapon of war and detained civilians in appalling conditions in
prisons where torture, sexual violence and extra-judicial killing are rife. In
his desperate attempt to cling on to power, Assad has fuelled sectarian
tensions and cooperated with terrorist groups so extreme and frenzied that even
Al-Qaeda has disowned them.
The United Kingdom has supported
projects to document these appalling violations. We have helped the moderate
opposition build the protections for human rights that they aspire to. We have
played a crucial role in the effort to find a political settlement that would
halt the suffering, and we have provided £600 million for humanitarian
relief, making us the second largest donor country in the
world.
Now all states must urge Assad
to implement UN Security Council resolution 2139 and grant humanitarian access
inside Syria, so that the Syrian people can at last see some chink of light on
the horizon.
But Syria is not the only crisis
we face. Last year civilians were also the targets of brutal violence in
Central African Republic and in South Sudan. Thousands of people have been
killed and hundreds of thousands forced to flee their homes. These grave abuses
cannot be ignored and Central African Republic has been added to our list of
countries of concern, on which South Sudan already features.
Elsewhere we have seen welcome
progress marred by continuing human rights abuses.
In Burma, the government,
military and ethnic armed groups are in talks to agree a historic nationwide
ceasefire. But the plight of Burma’s Rohingya Muslims, which is now
particularly acute, threatens to eclipse the many positive
changes.
In Egypt a draft new
constitution in December offered greater protection for women’s rights
and minorities.
But in the last year we have
also seen the use of excessive force against protestors, hundreds of death
sentences handed down after inadequate trials and worrying restrictions on
political participation. We are also deeply concerned by the harassment and
detention of journalists, including the 20 Al-Jazeera staff whose trial resumes
today. Freedom of expression is a priority for the UK and it should be the
bedrock of a strong democracy.
In some parts of the world we
have also seen tightening restrictions on the rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual
and Transgender people and increasing persecution. In many cases this came as
part of a wider crack-down on civil society.
The United Kingdom will work
assiduously to do all we can to arrest and begin to reverse this trend. We will
speak up in public, and in private, against discrimination and help build more
tolerant societies through our diplomacy and through the work of the Department
for International Development.
I have recently written to the
Commonwealth Secretary General to ask to work with him on a major drive to
improve respect for LGBT rights across the Commonwealth.
So human rights will remain at
the heart of our work for the year ahead.
In just two months time we will
host the largest Summit ever held on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict,
which we want to raise global awareness to a new level and to unleash a wave of
practical actions to eradicate warzone rape in the future.
We will use our seat on the
Human Rights Council to promote human dignity for all, to help countries
improve respect for human rights and to hold other governments to the same high
standards to which we must hold ourselves.
We will continue to support
civil society the world over, including through our Arab Partnership Fund, and
we will work closely with the human rights defenders who take such personal
risks to campaign for basic freedoms for all. This report contains many
accounts of the unjust punishments they face for this essential work, from
China to Iran to Belarus. We will continue to do our utmost to protect and
support them.
I look forward to working
closely with my Advisory Group over the year ahead and I thank them for their
invaluable expertise and their frank advice.
I also thank my Ministerial team
and Baroness Warsi in particular, as the Minister responsible for human rights,
and for her tenacious and assiduous work on these issues.
It is now three and a half years
since I first set out my vision for the central role of human rights in the
UK’s foreign policy. In that time, world events from the Arab Spring to
the protests in Kyiv have continually brought home in new and surprising ways
just how important human rights are. Human rights remain a universal aspiration
and by defending individual freedoms we strengthen our own and the
world’s security and prosperity, and, as we face new challenges and
multiple crises, this thought should inspire and sustain us
all.