HL Deb 10 April 1973 vol 341 cc522-3

2.45 p.m.

LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the voting in the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on the draft convention making apartheid a crime against international law; and which nations voted in favour and which against.

BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE

My Lords, The Human Rights Commission has submitted incomplete proposals for a draft Convention. The voting was 21 in favour, 2 against and 5 abstentions. The proposals are not soundly conceived and the U.S.A. and the United Kingdom voted against. All other West Europeans taking part, except Turkey, abstained.

LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that Answer. Could she state why the British Government voted against this proposal for a draft Convention against apartheid?

BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE

Because, my Lords, although we deplore apartheid, as is well known, we do not think that it will be eliminated by a Convention, particularly when it contains no effective machinery for enforcement.

LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords, would it not have been possible for the representatives of the United Kingdom Government to have abstained, as the representatives of many other Governments did, with a view to the draft coming before the General Assembly, when proposals could have been made regarding the machinery, to become appropriate to our own Race Relations Act and similar legislation in other countries?

BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE

My Lords, we felt that apartheid is already covered by existing measures, such as the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination. And even if this draft Convention were approved and came before the General Assembly, it would have no binding effect on any State which was not a party to the proposed Convention.

LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords, is it not the case that this draft Convention went beyond the Race Relations Act in this country, and similar legislation, in the imposing on a racial group of living conditions calculated to cause their physical destruction, and would this not have applied to the British companies which have been subjecting Africans in South Africa to starvation conditions?

BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE

My Lords, I think the question of British firms operating in South Africa is rather wide of the Question which is about a Convention. But it is a fact that so far as the proposals for a Convention are concerned the term used, "a crime against humanity" has a special technical and legal meaning.