Green Party of England and Wales
response to Amnesty International's manifesto for European Elections
2004
Danny Bates, on behalf of the Green Party of England and Wales,
European election campaign, 2004.
The Green Party's Euro
Election candidates endorse Amnesty International's manifesto.
Human Rights is one of the 10 section of the Green Party's Euro Election manifesto (p26-29). That section begins "The Green Party believes that the European Union should be putting human rights at the heart of all policy making." We refer to Amnesty International on p29. (See
http://www.greenparty.org.uk/index.php?nav=elections&n=24)
Amnesty's Statute states that "1. AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL's vision is
of a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights
standards."
"In pursuit of this vision, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL's mission is
to undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses
of the rights to physical and mental integrity, freedom of conscience and
expression, and freedom from discrimination, within the context of its work to
promote all human rights."
"2. AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL forms a global community of human
rights defenders with the principles of international solidarity, effective
action for the individual victim, global coverage, the universality and
indivisibility of human rights, impartiality and independence, and democracy
and mutual respect."
The Green Party can wholly
endorse this approach, and Green candidates will aim to offer by far the
highest level of endorsement of Amnesty's manifesto of all the political
parties.
We share Amnesty's sense of
urgency and priority rightly accorded to these concerns. To that end, we pledge to work within
existing and likely EU structures to strengthen human rights protection, and in
accordance with Amnesty's priority concerns, regardless of whether we would
want those structures to be otherwise.
Our EU700 policy states:
"Basic human rights should be assured to all regardless of origin. There
should be a global commitment to the principle, and a duty to ensure implementation
at all levels having the power and responsibility to do so."
Specifics
1.1 General
We endorse these proposals,
but with the exception of the European Arrest Warrant. The Green Party remains concerned about the accountability
of Europol operatives with particular regard to the laws of member states. We are also concerned about how the European
Arrest Warrant will impact on human rights and civil liberties. At the same time it would be interested to
receive more detail on Amnesty's perspective on this issue.
[Note the following policies:
EU761 The Green Party believes
that Europol is too distant and too secretive to be accountable to citizens of
member countries. If it is not abolished, we believe that its powers must be
substantially reduced, and its operation and operatives subject to the national
laws of member countries affected by their activities."
EU768 The Green Party is not
opposed to proper and accountable international co-operation by national police
forces against such cross border organised crime. But we do not believe the
Europol Convention offers any of the safeguards needed to protect individuals.
Given that, we are opposed to any operational role for Europol.]
1.2 Asylum
The Green Party is critical of
proposed common asylum policies which are restrictive or detrimental to asylum
seekers and the protection of their rights.
We will support mechanisms which can be shown to improve asylum
protection rather than undermine it, and which strengthen commitment to the
Geneva Convention as a minimum. We
affirm the UK and well as the EU's responsibility to provide support to asylum
seekers, and the relative wealth of both to commit resources to ensure this
happens.
The Green Euro Manifesto has a
section on asylum on p28-29. See manifesto link, above.
[Policy RA404 The Green Party
opposes any common asylum policy for the European Community which results in
more restrictions on asylum seeking or in reduced rights for refugees. We
support common asylum policies that result in better treatment of asylum
seekers across the European Community. Any common asylum policies for EC member
states should be formulated under the scrutiny of democratically accountable
bodies.]
1.3 Violence against women
We share Amnesty's particular
concern about trafficking. Our Green
MEPs and Jenny Jones at the London Assembly have taken action on this
issue. See http://www.greenparty.org.uk/index.php?nav=news&n=60&b=16 and
policy on trafficking (MR 450-454, http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/mfss/migrat.html).
Human rights in the world
2.1 General
The Green Party of England and
Wales opposes the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) arrangements as
defined by the Maastricht and Amsterdam treaties. However, Greens in the European Parliament will continue to work
within the given structures for the furtherance of key Green objectives -
including human rights. To that end, we
wholly agree with Amnesty's manifesto that "Human rights should be at the
core of all external policies." - including policies formed through the
CFSP.
With that caveat, we are
supportive of Amnesty's proposals here.
Our Euro Manifesto states that
the EU should use its position to strengthen the UN Commission on Human Rights,
and should do more at the agency's Geneva session to ensure that the UN acts on
the concerns of human rights organisations (ibid, p26.)
The Green Party is the only
party to oppose the death penalty and pledge to work for its global
abolition. We will work for the
furtherance of this objective at the EU level.
2.2 Arms control, including torture equipment
The Green Party is opposed to
the arms trade. To that end, we will
work to end public subsidy and increase regulation of the trade. We wholly agree with Amnesty's manifesto
objective "to stop EU arms exports to countries that are suffering
internal instability or are situated in regions of tension, or where the
equipment will be used to violate human rights". We therefore support and endorse Amnesty's proposals in the area
of arms control, including those relating to torture equipment.
We are, to our knowledge, the
only party to fully endorse the campaign for an international Arms Trade Treaty
as proposed by Oxfam, Amnesty, and others.
We will work for this objective at the EU level.
The social, economic and
environmental impact of corporations, both locally and globally, is a priority
area of concern for the Green Party. We
are particularly concerned about the impact of large global corporations in
these spheres, and realise that urgent action is required to address the
negative effects of increasing economic globalisation. We also propose alternatives to economic
globalisation, but that is beyond Amnesty's area of work.
We wholly share Amnesty's concern that there needs to be a move away from voluntary codes of conduct to a proper framework to regulate the activities of corporations. We also agree that international financial agencies, like the World Bank and IMF, must ensure their activities, and the consequences of their activities, fully respect international human rights law.
We also agree that transactions
between governments and corporations should be transparent, that citizens
should be allowed effective remedies, and that governments should be allowed to
intervene to protect these standards as well as human rights.
We therefore support Amnesty's
proposals and will work at EU level in support of them.
Subject to the qualifications
above, the Green Party and its candidates in the European Election fully
endorse and pledge support to Amnesty's manifesto.
ENDS