Today, Rights & Security International submitted evidence to the UK's Universal Periodic Review.
In this evidence, RSI explains that:
- The UK government is seeking to introduce an amnesty for all ‘conflict-related’ crimes allegedly committed during the Northern Ireland conflict prior to the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. This blanket amnesty would violate the UK’s human rights treaty obligations and reflects a broader, ongoing pattern of inadequate criminal and civil investigations of conflict-related killings, torture and other alleged abuses in Northern Ireland. These systemic breaches of human rights have left survivors and victims’ families waiting for truth and justice, often for decades.
- We recommend that the UK be urged to comply with its treaty obligation to ensure that all victims of human rights violations committed in its jurisdiction receive an effective remedy, as well as its treaty obligations to investigate and, where appropriate, prosecute violations of the right to life; the right to freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; and the ban on enforced disappearances.
- The UK government is seeking to lessen degree of human rights protection throughout the country by altering the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA), and this step would have profound implications for human rights as well as respect for international treaty law in Northern Ireland. By undermining the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, which requires incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into Northern Ireland law – including with access to the courts and remedies for alleged violations of the Convention – the government’s long-standing plans to weaken the HRA’s protections could also jeopardise peace in the region, worsening existing threats to human rights.
- We recommend that the UK be reminded that its commitment to respecting its human rights treaty obligations is central to the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, and therefore to the prevention of deadly violence and other potential harms in the region.
For further information, see the full submission below.
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