Roger Smith keeps tabs on the government’s equivocal approach to human rights
The government’s somewhat schizophrenic attitude to human rights continued this month.
The Foreign Office continues to support a charter of rights to bind the Commonwealth—a recommendation of the report of an “eminent persons group” in 2009. Originally, the package included a Commonwealth Commissioner for Human Rights along the lines of the Council of Europe and the United Nations. Although supported by the UK, this was voted down last autumn.
David Cameron, whose support of human rights back home is more equivocal, has been fulsome in his praise of the Commonwealth’s initiative: “The Commonwealth is a great organisation, a third of the world’s population, 54 countries across six continents, a really great network, but it is a network that must have strong values. The eminent persons group report will strengthen those values particularly by having a charter setting out the rights, the freedoms, the democracy that we all believe in.”
The charter, however, ducks a number of difficult issues. It is strong on gender equality but silent on sexual orientation, unsurprisingly given the approach
