§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Heppell. ]
2.30 pm§ Mr. Graham Allen (Nottingham, North) (Lab)One year ago, I helped to organise the largest revolt within a governing party in modern parliamentary history: 140 Labour Members of Parliament. We sought to dissuade the Prime Minister from joining President Bush's premature, counter-productive and premeditated war on Iraq. We failed, but those who won the vote also failed. Lessons must now be learned by all of us. Humility is not a quality for which politicians are renowned, but perhaps all of us ought to take a step back to see how we can learn the lessons, how we can move on from where we are now and, above all, how we can unite on how we can better meet the challenge of tyranny next time around.
I totally endorse the Prime Minister's call to reform international law and on the United Nations to find a better way to deal with the next Iraq. Sadly, that was not attempted in the six years before the conflict. In his Sedgefield speech a couple of weeks ago, the Prime Minister certainly talked the talk, but if it is to be more than the rhetoric of triangulation, it must be the prelude to decisive, vigorous executive action, led by the Prime Minister, of the sort that he demonstrated so ably in the prelude to the Afghanistan conflict.
The Prime Minister is right to state that the old doctrines of state sovereignty and territorial immunity are inadequate to tackle tyrannies. Those doctrines should be replaced by international standards, defined and enforced by the United Nations, not by the Bush doctrine—a blanket authority for any strong country to shoot its way into any weak one and depose its Government at a time of its choosing. That way lies international anarchy and the law of the jungle in which terrorism breeds so virulently.
My first question to the Minister runs through my contribution: what action have the Law Officers and the Foreign Secretary and his team taken in this field over the past year? Despite the time that Her Majesty's Government have had to devote to much of the media trivia on Iraq over the past year, can he demonstrate that we have moved on, that we are already acting on the big picture and that we are not just waiting until the Secretary-General's high-level panel reports some time next year?
The Prime Minister's call could not be more timely, for while the Bush doctrine is dead, it needs someone of international stature and a friend of America to give it the last rites and move on to something more sustainable. The Democratic challenger in the American presidential race, John Kerry, has already made it clear that he favours international, rather than unilateral, action to deal with the threats of terrorism and weapons proliferation that confront the United States and the world. That is a key battleground for the American election, and all the American people are looking for a more effective way to protect their security over the next four troubled years. The Prime Minister, therefore, has 1231 a time-limited opportunity to rally American and world opinion behind the logical and compelling proposal to reform international law and to confront the weakness of the United Nations.
A robust legal and institutional basis is needed to allow the international community to act quickly and decisively—not qualities that were evident over the past 18 months. However, at the same time, it should not allow individual states to take the law into their own hands. In the terms of the old-fashioned western, nations should act together as a posse not as a lynch mob.
One of the tragedies of the US neo-conservatives' learning-on-the-job philosophy was that the decision to go to war was settled long before the public justification had been devised. From axis of evil to regime change to humanitarian intervention to weapons of mass destruction, the public reasoning and the supporting evidence that was required changed constantly—sometimes from day to day—often contradicting itself, and that inspired the mistrust that divided our Parliament and, indeed, the world.
Where do we go from here? It might be helpful to start from first principles. When might it be right for one state to use force against another? International law already recognises the right of a state to defend itself against actual or imminent attack and the right and duty of a state to defend another from attack. After 9/11, the Security Council acknowledged a new principle. A state attacked by terrorists may take action against any state that harbours them even if that state did not play any direct part in the terrorist attack.
Another situation is when a state commits abominable crimes as an act of policy against people within its own territory. If those people have no hope of relief from those crimes in their own country, they must look outside for protection. States have regularly intervened to protect their own citizens from the crimes of another state, but increasingly they have shown themselves willing to protect other people to whom they have no direct obligation. That has happened in many places, often belatedly: East Timor, Kosovo, and Iraq in relation to the Kurds. There is an underdeveloped but none the less evolving law of humanitarian intervention. It provided the best reason for a timely invasion of Iraq rather than a premature one, although, sadly, that was not the pathway chosen by the allies last year.
The right or duty of humanitarian intervention has also been applied to states living under anarchy rather than tyranny—"failed states" whose Governments lack the strength or will to protect their citizens from civil war, lawlessness, disease or famine. In all those cases, there was a developing international consensus before Iraq that national sovereignty has limits and is subject to conditions.
Indeed, the Prime Minister, by his gruelling efforts on behalf of us all on Afghanistan, had done more than anyone to help the world to build a global coalition against the threat of terrorism. Building that global coalition against terrorism was tragically interrupted and discredited by the misjudgment over Iraq. That coalition must be rebuilt. Our Law Officers and Foreign Office Ministers must now enter a permanent session 1232 with their international colleagues to reform international law and provide a ratchet of graduated practical action through the United Nations.
Some of what I propose already exists, but what we need most at the table is the political will to make it work—determined yet painstaking. That is the Foreign Office's, the Prime Minister's and Britain's greatest challenge but potentially their greatest contribution to the new global order. This is not some starry-eyed utopianism that goes back to the League of Nations in the 1930s, but a tough, practical necessity as we count down to the next crisis—and we do not know where that may come from.
A right of intervention, especially armed intervention, must be codified in a reform of the United Nations charter. One possibility is that the UN could declare a state of emergency, but I think that the words have a legal connotation and may not be appropriate. I am sure that the Foreign Office can come up with a better formulation, but that will do me for now. A state of emergency could require the restriction or even suspension of the sovereignty of a member state. It would cover the use of that member state's resources by terrorists, gross human rights abuses by its Government, or an actual or incipient humanitarian catastrophe. Such a declaration might be sought by any member state, including the proposed subject, so that countries in the grip of famine, plague or civil war could ask the United Nations to take control of all or part of their territory.
It should also be possible for the United Nations to hear appeals for such a declaration from oppressed peoples—whether from exile groups or human rights organisations—and to satisfy itself that such appeals are authentic and representative. If we can build a United Nations capable of making such a declaration, it could authorise or enjoin member states to take action to remedy the conditions that had led to it. That might include armed intervention, but the UN would decide what action to take, not individual member states.
The UN might decide not to declare an immediate state of emergency, but to establish instead a clear set of escalating conditions that would lead it ultimately to make such a declaration. The escalator must be made unequivocal. It must be clear to all those, wherever they are on the globe, who tune in to see the debates and hear the decisions that the UN makes on behalf of us all. As far as possible, it must be made invulnerable to the lawyer's wriggles and political spin that so discredited UN resolution 1441, which was twisted into an excuse for war despite earlier categorical assurances that
it was not the trigger for war".In future, the UN should set out its decisions in clear language, understandable to anyone in the world, and try, as far as is humanly possible, not to use diplomatic double-talk such as "serious consequences" or "all necessary means", which involve so much interpretation and misinterpretation that they engender mistrust and discredit the process that we must rebuild for all our futures.
The proposal does, of course, raise difficult questions, and it will not be easy. None the less, the concept of a UN state of emergency offers some hope and a way of tackling 21st-century problems by consensus. Its very existence could induce Governments to behave better, 1233 whether towards their own subjects or the outside world. That influence would be reinforced if all member states, including President Kerry's America, accepted the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and stripped members of vicious Governments of any immunity from prosecution.
Much more could be said on the matter, but I shall be brief. There is certainly a case for random UN inspections on the use and control of traded weapons of any kind. However, weapons of mass destruction entail a threat of immediate devastation to civilian life on an altogether new and frightening scale. The risk of them falling into the hands of a vicious Government—still more into the hands of terrorists—requires new forms of action by the international community.
Every state in the world should subject itself to a compulsory random and intrusive UN inspection of the kind that we all demanded of Saddam Hussein. The inspectors should verify not only whether a state possesses or produces weapons of mass destruction, but also its systems for controlling them and its doctrines for their use. Biological weapons must also be properly included in such an inspection regime. The UN produced a model of how to do that when the inspectors returned to Iraq and imposed increasingly demanding conditions on Saddam Hussein. Indeed, it is ironic that almost everything that was done in Iraq was a triumph of principle and of lawful and effective action until the premature invasion.
All those ideas are embryonic, but they are not novel. They represent a continuation of valuable developments, from which the Iraq war was an irrelevant aberration, that could quickly be revived and taken forward. They could reunite us behind the lessons learned from error and division.
The task is daunting and epic. It needs prime ministerial focus and energy. The Bush doctrine is dead, and I hope that the proposals that I have set out may form the basis not of the Bush doctrine but perhaps of a Blair doctrine—a return to a strong, independent British foreign policy, making a telling contribution in an ever more interdependent world.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Bill Rammell)I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising what is an exceedingly important subject. Never has the debate about the circumstances in which it is right and appropriate to intervene in tyrannical regimes been more important. I have some sympathy with the view that my hon. Friend has expressed?that the international community should act earlier and more firmly to assist those who are subject to oppressive regimes. I think genuinely that the terms of the global debate are changing.
The Government want to be at the forefront of that debate. As the Prime Minister made clear in his speech in Sedgefield on 5 March, Britain's role should be
to construct a consensus behind a broad agenda of justice and security and the means of enforcing it.1234 Before I discuss that agenda further, I feel that I must respond to some of my hon. Friend's criticisms about the decision to go to war with Iraq.I respect my hon. Friend's integrity, and have always made clear my view that we were right to go to war, although I fully respect the right and belief of others who reached a different decision. I would not accept his arguments that the actions that we took were counterproductive or that we failed. If he does not believe me or the Government when we say that life is better for the people of Iraq today than it was under Saddam, I urge him to listen to ordinary people in Iraq, where a majority say that life is better than a year ago under Saddam, and more than 70 per cent. say that they think that it will continue to get better. That is the polling evidence, and what Government colleagues who visit Iraq find, and it is backed up by what ordinary people are saying on the ground.
My hon. Friend has also made the case that the international community's response to oppressive regimes has not evolved sufficiently. While I accept that it needs to evolve further, over the years, there has been evidence of significant change. First, political pressure has always been a powerful tool in facing up to tyranny, and it has become more so. Anyone who doubts that ought simply to witness the huge, extraordinary lobbying effort at Geneva at the moment by those nations that fear that they risk being criticised for their human rights records. When I delivered our contribution to the debate in Geneva last week, I saw that at first hand.
Within the European Union, we now build dialogue on human rights into our relations with third countries, and bring the economic and political weight of the EU to bear by linking those dialogues to wider relationships of trade and other assistance. That is absolutely right. Through NEPAD—New Partnership for Africa's Development—African countries have established a peer review mechanism to pressure each other, rightly, into better governance. The African Union is playing an increasingly confident role in enabling dialogue to resolve disputes peacefully. Such collective political action can and does shame Governments into better behaviour, opening the doors to external monitoring, and can be used by reformists and civil society within a country. International institutions such as the UN play a key role in this: setting the standards of acceptable behaviour; providing independent monitoring mechanisms as well as assistance; and finally, providing external legitimacy to successful political reforms.
Sanctions also have a role to play, which we see with regard to the situation in Burma and Zimbabwe. Increasingly, sanctions regimes are better targeted to ensure that their effects are concentrated on the leaders and regimes responsible for repression, and their sources of wealth and influence, rather than on the people suffering under such regimes.
Other forms of direct action have grown in volume and effectiveness, including governance support and reform programmes, economic adjustment, security sector reform, police training and peace support operations. The establishment, now supported by more than 60 countries, of the proliferation security initiative will help further to prevent trafficking of weapons of 1235 mass destruction and related materials through enhanced interdiction efforts, which can help us to face up to tyranny.
Let me turn to the issue of reforming the international system. We have achieved a great deal through our efforts to strengthen the international systems and structures that are needed to deliver results. I agree with the thrust of my hon. Friend's comments about the establishment of the International Criminal Court, which marks a new step in the long battle against impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious international crimes. I want to take this opportunity to make it very clear that we urge all states to sign up to the ICC, which we believe can be a key tool in the fight against tyranny.
In the final analysis, when we are facing up to tyranny, military action can be used, in accordance with international law, against those tyrannical regimes. For us, military action has been, and will always remain, a last resort. Over recent years, the UN has been developing its thinking, based on individual cases, on where military intervention is justified for humanitarian purposes. The Security Council can authorise the use of force in response to threats to international peace and security, breaches of the peace or acts of aggression. It has explicitly determined that widespread violations of human rights and international humanitarian law have contributed to situations threatening the peace, and mandated enforcement action in former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and East Timor. I think that most people regard that as essentially just and correct. The Security Council also supported enforcement action to return to power an elected Government that had been overthrown, such as in Sierra Leone and in Haiti. Again, I think that most people would accept those actions and propositions.
On occasions—thankfully rare—the Security Council does not authorise actions that we consider necessary. In a sense, that is the nub of some of the issues that my hon. Friend highlighted. There are no easy solutions in those circumstances. For instance, in the case of Kosovo, we had to ask ourselves how to respond when a Security Council decision could not be reached in the face of an imminent humanitarian crisis in the form of appalling ethnic cleansing the like of which we had not seen on our continent since the second world war. At that time, we made clear our view that states do have a right, in exceptional circumstances, to take military action when it is the only way to avert an overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe, and that that is the case even in the absence of explicit authorisation from the Security Council. My hon. Friend is nodding; I know that he supported that action at the time.
Since 1999, our view has been increasingly supported, although it is not universally accepted. We continue to work to build up a consensus on the circumstances in which a right to intervene applies. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made that very clear in a speech that he made in Chicago in April 1999, in which he rightly suggested the five broad guiding principles that should, in an international context, be the framework within which decisions on whether to intervene for humanitarian purposes are taken.
It is worth repeating those principles. First, we must decide whether we are sure of the case and sure that armed force is the only means of dealing with the 1236 problem. Secondly, we must assess whether we have exhausted all diplomatic options. Thirdly, on the basis of a practical assessment of the situation, we must judge whether there are military operations that we can sensibly and prudently undertake. My hon. Friend suggested that intervention should be applied universally and impartially to all states. The logic of such an argument is strong, but the benefits of intervening have to be weighed against the risk of creating a threat to peace and security. As I said, other options, such as political pressure and sanctions regimes, are available when intervention would be unwise. Fourthly, we must decide whether we are prepared for a long-term commitment once the military action is over: that is critical. Finally, we must assess whether we have national interests involved.
That speech was a major contribution to the evolution of international thinking since the end of the cold war. In 1999, we put forward similar suggested criteria to the Security Council, although they did not prosper in discussion at the time. Nevertheless, we are still advancing the case and will continue to do so. At the same time, important work is going on to ensure better action against the threat or use of genocide, most notably to create a focal point for genocide prevention within the United Nations framework.
§ Mr. AllenI thank my hon. Friend for a thought-provoking speech so far. May I bring to his attention again the question of trust? The British Government, in particular, are seeking concrete and practical steps to realise some of the things that he is talking about. He alluded to the Prime Minister's Chicago speech. Not a great deal may be seen to have been achieved by the British public and the global public from that speech, good as it was. Is my hon. Friend aware that some of us want to take matters further and ensure that the Sedgefield speech is looked back on as one of the landmarks that moved our country forward in real, practical steps, so that we do not refer to it as a good speech but as something that started a lot of practical action?
§ Mr. RammellI understand my hon. Friend's point. We cannot just make speeches; we must follow things through. We are attempting to do that, but we cannot do it on our own. We must seek international consensus and support. We are taking this debate and the need for change internationally extremely seriously. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is rightly taking a lead in setting out the framework of our thinking and the challenges that the UN need to face. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is taking that agenda extremely seriously. We are continually discussing these issues and this agenda with our partners.
I have visited the UN on a number of occasions in recent months. I recently met leading members of the Secretary-General's high level panel, all with a view to pushing forward this debate and trying to engage others to support us. We have also published a Command Paper on our relations with the UN, and we shall shortly be submitting formally our views to the Secretary-General's high level panel.
The nub of the debate, given what my hon. Friend has said, is his wish to create an international framework in which unilateralism, by whatever state, does not take 1237 place. He wants to see agreed collective international action under the auspices of the UN. Ideally, those are the circumstances in which I would always want us to operate. It is not as easy as just wishing that to happen. I think that the Secretary-General got it absolutely right when he spoke to the General Assembly in September 2003:
it is not enough to denounce unilateralism unless we also face up squarely to the concerns that make some States feel uniquely vulnerable.It is not just a simple equation between unilateralism and internationalism. If we want the UN to be the key agency that affects and governs the decisions, it has to demonstrate that it has the collective will and political capacity to face the key challenges that are to be found in the modern world, principally international terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In making that case we must convince those countries that are sceptical about it, at the same time, that we are prepared to take their concerns seriously—global poverty, inequality and injustice—and follow through significantly on achieving the millennium development goals. That is the other side of the bargain in taking these issues and this debate forward.In that context, and in facing those challenges, I believe that the decision of the Secretary-General to appoint a high level panel to look at how the UN can improve its response to the broad range of threats to international peace and security has been a positive development. The panel is likely to take a broad view of the current threat to peace and security. That is surely correct. Terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, threats to the environment, AIDS, poverty 1238 and disease were not considered part of the security agenda when the charter was drafted, but they manifestly are part of the agenda and the challenge that we are now facing.
§ Mr. AllenI am sorry to spring this one on my hon. Friend. I hope he will take the matter away and consider it rather than giving an answer from the Dispatch Box. Will my hon. Friend consider how we might involve Parliament in feeding ideas into the high level panel as it goes about its work? I do not know how that might best be done. It might be by way of pre-legislative scrutiny, meetings or whatever. However, it is important that all parties in the House have the opportunity to make a contribution.
§ Mr. RammellI agree with my hon. Friend. We have already been doing that in Westminster Hall and in Government time on the Floor of the House. We have initiated a debate on UN reform and enabled Members to come forward with their views. That is the right way forward. I have met the all-party group in the context of the UN and will seek to do that further.
We are facing critical challenges. The world we live in today is enormously more dangerous than it was even in the most recent past. It is critical that we face these questions, and we need all parliamentarians, the whole of civil society and the whole of the international community if we are to respond to them. In a small way, debates such as this one give us—
The motion having been made at Half-past Two o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
§ Adjourned at Three o'clock.