UK Foreign Policy and Human Rights

William Hague’s assertion that human rights should constitute the “irreducible core” of foreign policy under the new UK coalition government may seem a radical departure for the new Foreign Secretary. Hague is, after all, a leading figure in the British Conservative Party, which in its recent election manifesto called for the repeal of the UK’s Human Rights Act that incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law. Given this profound ambivalence over the substantive value of human rights at home, the new UK government is not likely to adopt more assertive human rights policies abroad. Human rights advocates may lament Hague’s lack of policy details with regards to human rights, but the UK government is likely to continue to pledge allegiance to the lofty ideals of human rights, while resisting providing specific policy details on what role human rights will and should play in the government’s foreign policy. Clearly, it is the role of organizations such as Human Rights Watch to push governments to convert rhetoric into practice. While this endeavour is never uncomplicated, human rights organizations lobbying the UK government are currently facing an increasingly steep uphill struggle

Imagery in the UK: Britain's troubled imagery intelligence architecture

Copyright © British International Studies Association 2009.This article examines the status, role and development of imagery intelligence in the UK government. It is argued that imagery intelligence occupies a subordinate and marginalised position compared to other forms of intelligence, chiefly from human sources and the interception of communications. The origins of that position are recounted, and the problems arising from internal struggles over control of imagery examined. It is concluded that the existing approach to imagery represents a serious problem and that a substantial restructuring and upgrading of imagery intelligence is essential if UK foreign policy decision-making is to be properly informed in the 21st Century.The Leverhulme Trus

The 2019 UK General Election: Towards a Brexit Catharsis? Egmont European Policy Brief No. 58 December 2019

On 12 December 2019, UK voters confront another choice whether to advance Brexit or not. More than three years after the referendum, all issues have been scrutinized and the collective effort that Brexit requires has become clear. Apart from involving the public in the most momentous choice in the orientation of UK foreign policy in decades, the general election provides a useful opportunity for the UK and the EU to take stock of the shortfalls of their negotiating strategies and to contemplate future scenarios. The UK and the EU have a common interest in maintaining a cooperative relationship whilst they search for ways to address the democratic demands they both face

Insulating Universal Human Rights from the ‘Ethical Foreign Policy’ Threat

At the heart of the notion of an ethical foreign policy is the assumption that foreign policy can help deliver liberty and security around the globe. Yet, as Conor Gearty has argued, in our contemporary ‘neo-democratic’ world, liberty and security are not the universal goods they are often considered to be. Rather they are selectively granted, and curtailed for those considered a threat to the status quo. Where liberty and security are curtailed, this is often in the name of the universal freedoms that neo-democracies claim to uphold. When the Blair government was elected in 1997, Foreign Secretary Robin Cook announced that British foreign policy must have an ethical dimension. There has been much debate on whether UK foreign policy under the Blair government can be argued to have been ‘ethical’. The focus of debate has tended to be the UK’s military interventions. Far less attention has been paid to the direct role played by UK authorities, through its intelligence services, in human rights violations under the New Labour and subsequent Coalition governments. This paper seeks to further the debate on the ethics of UK foreign policy since 1997. It does so by offering a detailed account of the UK’s involvement in the CIA’s rendition programme, and shows that the UK was far more involved in rendition and secret detention between 2001 and 2010 than was previously assumed. Threaded through the analysis is an account of the various measures taken by the New Labour subsequent Coalition governments to suppress the evidence of UK involvement. We conclude by offering some reflections on the role human rights organisations, litigators, and investigative journalists are increasingly playing in defending the universalism of rights, for publics that rarely appreciate what is really at stake

Preparing British foreign policy for the post-Brexit era: why swift and sudden institutional change is not the answer

A policy vision backed up by energetic leadership and greater investment will do more to strengthen the institutions of UK foreign policy than hastily introduced institutional changes, explains Nicholas Wright

The challenges of extending climate risk insurance to fisheries

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Nature Research via the DOI in this recordNatural Environment Research Council (NERC)Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas)Willis Research NetworkCommonwealth Marine Economies Programme, UK Foreign and Commonwealth Offic

Globalization, Natural Resources and Foreign Investment: A View from the Resource-Rich Tropics

This article uses data drawn from Southeast Asia and West Africa to help explain the geographical distribution of foreign investment. Why during late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century globalization did the attributes of abundant natural resources, mass migration and export expansion that attracted large foreign investment to the New World not similarly draw capital to the tropics? I argue that in a number of tropical countries, rich natural resources and cheap labour available through mass migration effectively substituted for foreign borrowing. At the same time, the dominant institution of colonialism throughout Southeast Asia and West Africa limited borrowing from abroad and helped to ensure that even for these resource-rich countries capital flows remained slight.19th century UK foreign investment; tropical growth; globalization; vent-for-surplus; natural resources; institutions; colonialism

Why Boris Johnson must support continued criminal investigations into the use of chemical weapons in Syria

The recent video showing a young Syrian boy rescued from rubble after airstrikes in Aleppo has again highlighted the scale of violence in the Syrian civil war. Here, Brett Edwards and Mattia Cacciatori outline the current state of affairs regarding chemical weapons attacks in the country, and the best way that UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson can support the legal and criminal investigations into these attacks

Five minutes with George Galloway: “The West is guilty of deep, laughable hypocrisy over Crimea”

George Galloway is a long-time anti-war campaigner and Member of the UK Parliament for Bradford West, having won a 2012 by-election as a member of the Respect Party. In an interview with Stuart Brown and Joel Suss, editors of EUROPP and the British Politics and Policy at LSE blog, he discusses events in Ukraine, the future of UK foreign policy, the Snowden revelations, and Scottish independence

The legality of the citizenship deprivation of UK foreign terrorist fighters.

Citizenship deprivation of foreign terrorist fighters by the United Kingdom is increasing. This is of debatable legality under international law on five separate grounds. First, the UK is arguably wrong in claiming that an extraterritorial deprivation is outside the jurisdiction of the ECHR. Second, UK law may be unlawfully arbitrary and discriminatory. Third, UK law arguably contravenes the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness 1961. Fourth, the UK may be violating its customary international legal obligation to readmit nationals. Fifth, UK practice may breach its conventional extradite or prosecute obligations. Overall, there are arguments of considerable strength that can be made in opposition to UK law and practice in the area