Business before human rights
Commercial interests – especially the interests of arms companies – are being increasingly prioritised over human rights in foreign policy.
In 2015, MPs on the Foreign Affairs Committee expressed concern that the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) has downgraded its work on human rights. The FCO permanent secretary, Sir Simon McDonald, confirmed in evidence that Human rights is not one of our top priorities,
adding that the prosperity agenda is further up the list.
In practical terms we have seen the government unwilling to speak out on the death penalty in key arms market Saudi Arabia, and evidence that the UK government helped Saudi Arabia gain a place on UN Human Rights Council, despite it having one of the worst records on human rights in the world.
Bahrain and human rights
The UK has whitewashed Bahrain’s human rights record, in order to protect its commercial and military interests. Since its 2011 crackdown on protests alling for greater democracy, Bahrain’s human rights situation has deteriorated sharply. The FCO has repeatedly refused to include Bahrain on its list of countries of concern
for human rights, despite its appalling human rights record and suppression of democratic protest – rejecting calls from the Foreign Affairs Committee and Committees on Arms Export Controls in the previous parliament and Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Meanwhile the government’s arms export promotion unit designated Bahrain as a priority market
for weapons sales.
The Committees on Arms Export Controls in the last Parliament were deeply critical of the UK government’s arms sales to Bahrain, and told the government that there was an inherent conflict between strongly promoting arms exports to authoritarian regimes whilst strongly criticising their lack of human rights at the same time.
In the case of Bahrain, we can see that advocacy on human rights has clearly been subordinated to arms promotion.
Bahrain’s allies have opted for a disastrous policy of appeasement and acquiescence, and they have remained largely silent in the face of human rights violations that they would loudly denounce were they taking place in a less strategically important country.
– Nicholas McGeehan, Human Rights Watch, September 2014
The UK Government’s focus on arms sales both now and in recent years to the MENA region is completely at odds with its stated aim of upholding human rights. All too often, perceived commercial, economic, political or strategic importance of such sales appears to have unduly influenced export licensing decisions at the expense of adequate consideration of the human rights and other humanitarian impacts of such sales.
Amnesty International, Submission to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, British Foreign Policy and the Arab Spring, September 2011.
