Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-04-24-Speech-3-072"
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"en.20020424.4.3-072"2
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"Mr President, the main themes of the 2001 human rights report are, in fact, mainstreaming and the EU’s human rights policy.
Prominent politicians, including Lord Russell Johnson, have warned against repeating the mistakes of the Cold War when dictatorships in developing countries were supported in the name of the fight against Communism. It is important, as part of the fight against international terrorism, to remove the underlying causes which feed extremist feelings or which are used by terrorists to recruit followers.
Above all, the attacks of 11 September and the fight against terrorism have painfully exposed the shortcomings of international law. The Geneva conventions are still based on the assumption that wars between states form the biggest threat to peace, while most current conflicts are civil wars or terrorist action. The Geneva Convention on prisoners of war is based on the protection of soldiers of regulated armies, while the majority of the fighters today are guerrilla and militia fighters and the majority of victims are civilians.
The report therefore calls for new rules, new conventions and new instruments which accommodate these new types of conflict. The Union will need to fulfil a pioneering role in the review of international law and will need to ensure that the International Criminal Court becomes operational at the earliest opportunity.
We as the European Parliament, with a worldwide reputation in the field of human rights, must ensure at all costs that a number of universal and fundamental human rights are observed at all times. I would therefore like to thank those of my fellow MEPs who, with their contributions, have helped create a well-balanced report which already met with a broad consensus in the Committee on Foreign Affairs. I hope that Parliament will be able to give its unanimous backing to this human rights report tomorrow.
This means in the first place that we should put an end to the harmful tradition whereby the European Union and the Member States set great store by the concept of human rights in their resolutions and reports, but whereby in practice, and in day-to-day foreign policy, they often allow other interests to take precedence.
I have just returned from Geneva where, along with the Parliament delegation, I attended the 58th meeting of the UN Human Rights Committee. During a talk with the 15 EU ambassadors, it transpired that the world’s most important human rights forum is not only struggling with a huge problem of credibility, but that the Union also fails to succeed in pursuing a consistent and coherent human rights policy and in speaking with one voice.
During a motion on humanitarian situations in the Middle East last week, the European representatives in the UN committee were divided in their vote. This, of course, affects our moral authority. Moreover, the impression is created that the European Union sponsors without any hesitation resolutions on human rights violations in countries such as Congo, Sudan and Colombia, while its attitude is far more restrained when it comes to strategically or economically important partners, including China.
The new EU guidelines on human rights dialogues will undoubtedly strengthen the coherence and consistency of the EU’s human rights policy, provided they are applied. In fact, these guidelines also form the basis for a programme document in which priority is given to the European initiative for democracy and human rights.
Commissioner Patten has played a pioneering role in this respect. However, we are anxious about the implementation of the document. Despite the high priority which Parliament accords this budget chapter, the appropriations were already reduced in 2002.
In my report, I confined myself to two topical themes: the modern forms of slavery and the delicate balance between the war on terrorism and respect for human rights.
Although slavery was officially abolished fifty years ago, it continues to exist in all kinds of forms: people are trafficked and sold like commodities, are employed in forced labour, receive very little pay and are restrained in their freedom of movement. The little statistical data that is available is alarming. Especially in the current European climate, where the extreme right is in the ascendant, the European Union has every reason for tackling this growing problem. This report calls for national and international changes in the law in order to prosecute human traffickers, protect victims and prevent people from ending up in modern forms of slavery.
The second theme concerns the complex relationship between terrorism and human rights after the attacks of 11 September. It is patently obvious that terrorist attacks are serious crimes that should be treated accordingly. However, human rights violations can also be a breeding ground for terrorism and, at the same time, the fight against terrorism can lead to new human rights violations, can serve as justification for human rights violations or can make countries turn a blind eye to violations committed by allied forces in the fight against terrorism."@en1
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