Sam Burke: "A Human Rights Minister"

Sam is a Parliamentary Research Assistant and is reading Law at the LSE. He is a member of the Conservative Human Rights Commission, Chairman of his constituency Conservative Future and currently serves in the Royal Naval Reserve.

> Policy summary

A Human Rights Minister to champion natural liberties abroad and further advance our Party’s commitment to the dignity of man.

> Policy explanation

As things currently stand, the member of the Government responsible for Human Rights is the Minister for Trade, Ian McCartney.  He is also responsible for: Trade and Trade Policy, Trade and Investment (UKTI), Economic Policy including Science and Technology, Global Issues (including sustainable development, energy, climate change), North America, South East Asia, East Asia and Oceania.  This begs the question: how can a person with so many responsibilities adequately defend human rights in a pro-active manner?

As the Official Opposition, our party’s situation is even more obscure.  Despite being in the privileged position of having Members on both the Frontbench and Backbenches with a deep rooted and long-standing commitment to Human Rights, there is no single point of reference on Human Rights on the Frontbench despite the significance of liberty, democracy, human dignity and the rule of law.

The solution, it seems to me, is to create a Ministry within the FCO specifically tailored to Human Rights.  Whilst in Opposition, we could make this a firm manifesto commitment and create a Spokesman on Human Rights to raise matters in House of Commons, with a colleague to raise similar concerns in the Lords.

In addition to Parliamentary duties, the Spokesman could produce an annual report akin to the America's Annual Report on Religious Liberty.  This could be co-authored with the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, which might also inform other areas of the Spokesman’s agenda.

In America the creation of an Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom has been widely hailed as a great success.  There is similar scope to develop our organisational structure to reflect our concern for Human Rights.

We have seen how DFID has ascended into one of the most prominent Government Departments and the public consciousness of International Development has reached an all-time high.  However, it is also time to recognise that economic development means nothing to ordinary people, if they are not afforded freedom from oppression, torture, extra-judicial action, slavery, equality before the law.  Furthermore, freedom of thought and expression, freedom of religious conviction and worship, freedom of association, protection of property and most importantly, an adequate standard of living and bodily integrity, are fundamental expectations we must promote amongst all nations.

> Political risks and opportunities

This policy would allow the party to further take the lead on this most vital of causes.  The Conservative party of Wilberforce has a distinguished record in this area.  As we approach the bi-centenary of the abolition of slavery, we need to ask ourselves how we might best address the injustices of our fellow man.

Perhaps this policy would antagonise some members of the party who see Human Rights (along with Social Justice and the environment) as a “Lefty issue”.  However, such obstacles have not stopped progress thus far and must not offset momentum on this issue.

> Questions for ConservativeHome readers

• Have you ever been alerted about Human Rights concerns of the Government?
• Have you been informed of any party action from the Conservative Party on Human Rights?
• Should the Spokesman be a Peer or MP?
• Who would make the best Conservative Human Rights Spokesman?

> Costs

A lot of the costs are already met under the auspices of responsibilities of the Trade Minister though making Human Rights a stand-alone Ministry would mean a need to provide additional resources.  An approximate estimate of such costs might be £500,000: a Ministerial Salary, staff, cost of publication of annual report, travel and other administrative costs.

Comments

[Denis Cooper]

It goes back much further than that, back to H G Wells and the Fabians and further back from there ... it's a pity that many people have swallowed the bait and implicitly accepted an ideology which was designed to destroy everything that they think they believe in ... I don't know whether this article is entirely right, but it gives a flavour and should inspire a degree of caution:

"Deconstructing the "Human Rights" Ideology"

http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/rights.html

"The architect of the "Human Rights" ideology is Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "father" of the French Revolution and patron of the "new" methods of education, or rather de-education, in our schools in recent years. It is his ideas that Article 1 of the UN's Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man is based on ... Karl Marx is well known for the saying, "Workers of the World Unite. You Have Nothing To Lose But your Chains." Less well known is that Marx's word chains refers to a key sentence at the start of The Social Contract: "Main Is Born Free, But Is Everywhere In Chains". Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man, made by the United Nations in December 1948, comes straight from Rousseau: it begins, "All human beings are born free". Yet in his Confessions, Rousseau admits that he placed all five of his children ... into an orphanage, one by one at birth, without even giving them a name, and never saw any of them again ... Rousseau justifies his action as follows: "in handing my children over for the State to educate ... I thought I was acting as a citizen and a father, and looked upon myself as a member of Plato's Republic." " Etc etc.

[esbonio]

We need fewer ministers, not more, in the same way we need less legislation. And incorporation of the HRA into domestic legisalation has had a pernicious effect (just as it seemed it would do when I studied constitutional law) although you want get those who championed it (the usual suspects) to admit it.

[Henry]

Aristeides seems to be under the delusion that the Conservative Party has a glorious history in foreign poicy. Has he not heard of Neville Chmberlain & appeasement? Or Suez, Bosnia & Rwanda? Or doing dubious deals with Saddam Hussein & Slobodan Milosevic? I could go on...

Maybe a commitment to human rights would help to improve this record.

[Andrew Kennedy]

More Government. More spending. More emotional clap-trap.

A Minister for Human rights will do as much for liberty as the Minister for Trade did for enterprise.

I vote NO !

[aristeides]

aristeides has heard of Neville Chamberlain and appeasement. He has heard of Winston Churchill and defeating Hitler too. He has heard of Suez, Bosnia and Rwanda. He has heard of Korea, the cold war, the Falklands and Kuwait. He does not have illusions let alone delusions about glory but is satisfied that - as he repeats - the Conservative Party's very long record on confronting slavery, fascism, Nazism and Communism speaks for itself.

Commitment to the rights and freedom of man is not junk words about condemning this or censoring that. They are platitudes that I worry Henry's tone implies should be a new party policy.

[Martin Smith]

Niall Gooch at 0210 PM made the most salient point. The Human Rights we are talking about here are not necessarily what's in our own Human Rights Act. We are talking freedom of speech, ability to choose one's government, freedom to assemble, associate and make one's point, to think however one chooses without fear of persecution.

If you don't like the term Human Rights you can call them basic freedoms if you want. A pernickety question of semantics will make no difference to the young Belarusians imprisoned in Lukashenko's 21st-century gulags for peacefully expressing their opinion of their president, in a place 3 hours flying time from the UK.

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