David Miliband

Moscow Thoughts

I've now finished my Moscow programme. You can see my press conference with FM Lavrov here.  We have reviewed difficult issues in bilateral relations, and discussed the whole range of international challenges on which Britain and Russia have a responsibility to work together as Permanent Members of the UN Security Council. I met NGOs, human rights defenders, businesses, politicians (and ex-politicians - President Gorbachev). And I met my remarkable great-great aunt/second cousin twice removed, Sofia.

I wanted my visit to add drive and depth to British/Russian relations. That does not mean ignoring difficult issues; but it can't mean taking out one's frustration about those issues by neglecting opportunities for joint work.

The best hope for the sort of Russia we want is serious and principled engagement. The statements we signed on Afghanistan, nuclear disarmament and non proliferation, and the Middle East show how much we have in common. We need to work together on Iran.  We have a thriving trade and investment relationship which our two governments have a strong interest in promoting. Peter Mandelson and Deputy PM Kudrin will be co-chairing our bilateral steering committee on trade and investment in London later this week.

It’s best not to have illusions. The Russians don't. Their history warns against it. But we need each other, so we’d better make it work. Today we are a step forward from yesterday.

Posted at 17:04 03 November 2009 by David Miliband  |  Comments[6]

Tian'anmen

4th June will mark the twentieth anniversary of the tragic events that took place in Tiananmen Square and across China in 1989. Many of us will remember clearly the images of that time as we mark the anniversary. And some of those detained then remain in prison now.
 
Promoting respect for human rights is a key part of our foreign policy. China has made big improvements in economic and social rights since 1989. But progress on civil and political rights has been far slower. Respect for human rights helps create stability and growth. And China's stability and growth is in our own interests.

So promoting human rights remains a key part of our policy towards China - this year and every year.

Posted at 12:25 02 June 2009 by David Miliband  |  Comments[6]

Free Society

This article by Conor Gearty in the New Statesman was a breath of fresh air. Professor Gearty is an acknowledged authority on civil rights and individual liberties - but he does not fall for the idea that the UK is falling into the trap of becoming a police state because it uses a DNA database. (There is a brilliant article about the other canard, CCTV cameras, by David Aaronovitch in the Times which exposes the fraud behind the allegation that we are all photographed 300 times a day. It turns out to be drawn from a fictional account). Anyway, our rights are hard won; we should guard them properly; they should be defended by an independent judiciary and proper checks and balances. But as Professor Gearty says, "the idea that the state is an unwarranted assault on individual freedom is not a progressive one". And Professor Gearty should know: as he is open enough to admit, he proclaimed the coming of a police state in 1986, and has now recanted.

Posted at 12:46 01 April 2009 by David Miliband  |  Comments[4]

Human Rights Report

Today we publish the 11th FCO Human Rights report  - a compendious guide to work great and small around the world by the Government to promote, economic, civil, social and political rights. 

In my speech to launch the report I make the distinction between obligations and aspirations - must dos according to national or international law and hope to dos according to our values.  The drive for economic and social rights especially are aspirations. Some debate whether there really are universal rights. I believe there are. And that they are defined in important treaties.

Posted at 17:05 26 March 2009 by David Miliband  |  Comments[7]

Human rights in Russia

A spokesperson for the OSCE has said the failure to try those who murdered Anna Politkovskaya signals "a human rights crisis" in Russia  Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch in Moscow has also written powerfully about this case

In November, when I spoke at the Wilberforce lecture , where Anna Politkovskaya was given a posthumous medal for her contribution to democracy and human rights, I said that journalists like her are footsoldiers in the fight for freedom.  That another Novaya Gazeta journalist, 25 year-old Anastasia Baburova, was murdered only last month, indicates that the risks remain. Women like Politkovskaya and Baburova should never have had to become soldiers in such a literal sense.

At the same time there's been some commentary in the FT  and Huffington Post on the language Medvedev has used since Baburova's death. They suggest we are now seeing a shift of tone from inside the Kremlin. This is welcome.

Posted at 10:58 02 March 2009 by David Miliband  |  Comments[3]

A bad year for human rights in Iran

2008 may have played host to worldwide celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but it was a bad year for human rights in Iran - even by recent standards. Iran executed at least 320 people last year, maintaining its grim record of more executions per capita than any other country. At least seven of those 320 were juvenile offenders, and in December two executions were carried out by stoning - despite explicit statements made by the Iranian judiciary in 2008 banning both barbaric practices.

The forcible closure in December of the Centre for Human Rights Defenders, founded by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi, was a blow to the entire human rights movement in Iran, demonstrating the government's zero tolerance approach to those courageous individuals who fight for the basic human rights so many of us take for granted, and dashing hopes for an early improvement in the situation in 2009.

Posted at 17:00 16 January 2009 by David Miliband  |  Comments[16]

60 years of the UN Declaration on Human Rights

Contrary to John Pilger's variously partial and wrongheaded attack in the Guardian yesterday it is wholly appropriate for the FCO to host a day of debate about the 60th Anniversary of the UN Declaration on Human Rights. That is not just because of history. In our diplomacy around the world, in our aid programme, in our deployment of troops, and in our defence of international law we uphold the values of the UN declaration.

There were three priorities at Monday's conference. First taking justice to the international question to tackle impunity - through the international criminal court. Second the scope of human rights, highlighting the importance of lesbian and gay rights. And third the links between human rights and conflict.

There are people around the world benefitting from UK engagement. We don't need to pretend we are perfect to be proud that we make a difference.

Posted at 12:35 03 December 2008 by David Miliband  |  Comments[10]

New UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

The UK supports the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights in order to help raise respect for human rights around the world.  Navanethem Pillay, formerly defence attorney for anti-apartheid activists in South Africa, President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and a Judge on the International Criminal Court, has taken over leadership at an important time.  I met her yesterday.  She has issued very clear statements on Colombia which we welcome. The High Commissioner and her Office also play an important role in places like Burma and Zimbabwe.   We also discussed the absolute necessity for the Durban Review Conference - the follow up to the 2001 United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance - not to be sidetracked by a damaging dispute over whether anti-semitism is racism.  It clearly is. 

Posted at 16:36 13 November 2008 by David Miliband  |  Comments[5]

ASEM in Beijing: Walking the Silk Road

There is more than a little irony that the 7th Asia Europe meeting (with representatives of half the world's people), focused on the crisis of international finance markets, should be taking place in the Great Hall of the People. The Chinese government have reaffirmed their commitment to stabilise the global market - because China depends on it. China's own economic growth is vital to the rest of us; and our stability and growth is vital to China. But this isn't quite what the Great Hall was originally intended for...

I got my own insight into how China is changing with a pre Conference open session with the Young Communist League. This youth organization boasts 73 million members, and spans culture as well as politics. It's not clear whether the young leaders see economic growth or ideological renewal as the key to the stability of the system and the power of the Communist Party. But the discussion was pretty open.

The recurring theme of western perceptions of China's rise - and media coverage of it - was tempered by willingness to listen and reflect on the virtues of pluralism and the foundations of strong socialism in the protection and promotion of human rights.

The young people drawn from China's universities were a good advertisement for the new China: globally engaged, enquiring, keen to travel, ambitious for themselves, and more than able to hold their own on the economic crisis, climate change, nuclear proliferation and human rights. It's interesting listening to the opening speeches. The focus on the economic crisis could be a spur to franker and more urgent discussion of climate change and human rights, rather than detract from them. The historical record shows that the opposite is possible: countries turning inwards, neglecting common problems. But this is not inevitable.

Posted at 16:20 24 October 2008 by David Miliband  |  Comments[2]

Promoting Democratic Accountability: International Courts and Tribunals

The Council of Europe - 47 countries founded on the back of the 20th century's failure to build a concert of European democracies committed to each other's territorial integrity and human rights - hosts an important conference at the FCO this week on the vital work of international courts and tribunals - from the ICJ to the Tribunals on former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (whose prosecutor made it to London to testify on its power).  After the grandiose but ultimately unsuccessful visions of Woodrow Wilson's internationalism, these piecemeal but powerful attempts at developing international law with teeth, right up to the International Criminal Court, are a vital prop to civilised ways of doing business in the 21st century.

Posted at 11:38 07 October 2008 by David Miliband  |  Comments[8]

Mediation or pressure?

The vote at the UN yesterday on Zimbabwe was not a North/South split - after all Burkino Faso voted for the resolution. But it did reveal, in the use of the veto by Russia and China, two different ways of thinking about the exercise of responsibility in the modern world.

The argument at one level was about whether to give mediation "longer". But how much longer? And how much more suffering in the interim?

But there is a more fundamental point - or two actually. First, since when does pressure on a regime that has been flagrant in its abuse of human rights and democratic standards undermine mediation? Surely it brings home much more clearly that the world is determined to tilt the balance away from a government that has forfeited international respect? But second, the argument of China and Russia was that the Security Council had no business "interfering" in a national issue. But the crisis in Zimbabwe has gone way beyond that - not least through three million plus refugees caught up in the violence fleeing to South Africa (see above "If your neighbour's house is on fire" of 8 July).

The Russian and Chinese vetoes have shielded Robert Mugabe and 13 of his top supporters from international pressure. Their preferred route of mediation will have the chance to prove itself - too late for too many but no one will be happier than I if I wake up one day soon and find that this route has delivered a government that respects the March 29 election result.

Meanwhile the governments of western and other democracies should have no regrets about bringing into the open a vital debate. The alternative is for the threat of veto to mean we all clam up and pretend that there is no disagreement. That is not real diplomacy.

Posted at 18:19 12 July 2008 by David Miliband  |  Comments[8]

Plain speaking on human rights

The publication of the FCO's Annual Human Rights Report make me think about how despite the cynicism that can exist about the language or rights, it has been human rights and their abuse that has propelled foreign policy onto news programmes. The role of the report in highlighting countries of concern, without fear or favour, is important in itself. And it holds the Foreign Office to account.

But how to explain the figures cited in response to my speech that over 50% of British people in a recent poll (I would be interested if anyone can provide details) express reservations about the centrality of human rights to policy making. I explained this by pointing to the unbalanced nature of a discussion of rights without responsibilities; of the legalistic (inevitably) nature of some of the debate; and of confusion about rights from a European angle via the ECHR.

I don't think we can or should be reticent about human rights: they are there to hold us all to account.

Posted at 16:43 02 April 2008 by David Miliband  |  Comments[1]