We meet two days before the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – now known as Human Rights Day.
One of the first times I really thought hard about human rights was as a teenager, in 1985.
I was on the trans-Siberian railway with some East Germans and East Europeans, as the train clattered idly across the Russian steppe, many miles beyond the Iron Curtain.
They talked about the Berlin Wall and how that wall represented not just a physical divide, but a philosophical divide.
Liberty on one side, tyranny on the other.
In recent years, I’ve had the opportunity to meet many other people, and go to many places, that have made an impact on me.
When you listen to a testimony like Tindy’s, when you go to Darfur, when you visit the genocide museum in Rwanda, when you look into the eyes of ex-prisoners from North Korea, and exiles from Burma you can’t help but be profoundly moved.
So whilst human rights abuses are still endemic around the world, and we’re sat in a comfortable building like this in the middle of London, I’m conscious that this anniversary isn’t a reason for mutual self-congratulation.
As Eleanor Roosevelt said after chairing the Drafting Commission for the Declaration – there is an “unfinished task which lies before us”.
What I want to explain briefly today is why Conservatives support the Declaration.
I want to explain our perspective on the principles behind the Declaration and also what our approach would be in advancing those principles, both at home and abroad.
WHY THE UDHR IS IMPORTANT
Back in the days when I was young and first saw the Berlin Wall, there seemed to be certain simplicities.
There were the so-called bad guys and the good guys. The bad guys were the other side of the Berlin Wall. They used methods like torture that were wrong. So they were clearly the bad guys.
We didn’t use those methods, so we were the good guys. Of course it was never as simple as that. Not every regime supported by the Western democracies was really on the right side of the line.
In Latin America and in South Africa, there were regimes tolerated if not positively sponsored by NATO countries which fell very far short of anything that could remotely be described as the path of truth and light.
But we consoled ourselves that we were basically the good guys because we were on the side of liberty, democracy and the rule of law.
Some of the people we had to deal with in order to maintain an alliance against tyranny and torture might not have been very wholesome, but at least we were fundamentally ‘on the right side’.
And of course there were things we just didn’t do.
Today, even the appearance of that simplicity has gone.
It was shocking for those who recently heard a BBC broadcast where three torturers reflected on what they now felt about how they had behaved – that one of them came from the United States of America.
Whilst it was great to see that both Barack Obama and John McCain campaigned against torture in the recent elections we have to ask ourselves: how did it come to this?
I think it is important to understand that it didn’t happen because of malevolent intentions.
It happened because people with good intentions and in a position of unparalleled power persuaded themselves that, for the sake of the greatest happiness of the greatest number, the ends had to be allowed to justify ‘more robust’ means.
It wasn’t evil intentions, but an attempt to protect our way of life, that caused the slide into water-boarding and a justification of Guantanamo Bay.
So we should let this latest reminder of the dangers “the end justifies the means” approach serve as a new wake up call to recognise just how much the UN Declaration on Human Rights really matters.
Because what the Declaration is really about is a statement of some absolute values – a statement about some things that a civilised country just doesn’t do, no matter what.
Conservatives should instinctively understand the moral and philosophical justification for such an approach – the need for basic rules, not trusting in some utopian leader calculating what constitutes the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
The other profound point about the declaration that Conservatives – as practical politicians -should appreciate is its practical worth.
No country voted against it, and so it should serve as permanent lever to try and improve the performance and behaviour of regimes that are responsible for endless and serious abuses of our fellow human beings.
DOMESTIC APPROACH
How do we apply these timeless and universal values today? Both in the world at large – which I shall return to in a moment – but also right here at here at home?
How, in particular, should they translate into domestic UK law?
Part of the answer to this, of course, lies in the European Convention on Human Rights and the jurisprudence that surrounds the Convention.
In effect, the judges in Strasbourg have given meaning to the principles of the UN Declaration and the European Convention through specific judgements about specific cases.
But recent events have brought home very forcibly the deficiencies of the status quo.
Our present Government enacted human rights legislation which incorporated the Convention lock, stock and barrel into UK law.
But, since then, we have seen two equally alarming trends.
On the one hand, things we have long thought were part of the fabric of liberty in this country – such as trial by jury, habeas corpus with strict limits on the time that people can be held without charge, the protection of Parliament against intrusion by the Executive – have been whittled away.
The European Convention, the Human Rights Act, and all the judges have seemed powerless to prevent it happening.
On the other hand, we have seen a lack of proportion and common sense with absurdities such as police officers trying to tackle the most serious crimes being unable to put the faces of the most wanted criminals on to posters and publish them.
For both of these reasons – the need to enshrine civil liberties in a way that is relevant to our British traditions and the need to guide the judiciary and the Executive towards proportionality and common sense – I believe that we now need a home-grown British Bill of Rights.
No doubt it is possible to have a perfectly fair trial in many civil law jurisdictions without a jury convicting only against the presumption of innocence.
But juries and the presumption of innocence are fundamental to the particular system of justice that has protected civil liberties in Britain over the course of a long history.
They therefore represent the natural and proper way for us to translate the universal principle of the right to a fair trial into practice in England here and now.
In much the same way, the specific responsibilities that we want to see included in a Bill of Rights to ensure that the judiciary can operate on principles of proportionality – these are particular to our own situation against the background of our own history.
Take one example.
A country that has, as we do, a long and proud tradition of providing a safe haven for those fleeing persecution has every reason to apply the principles of the ECHR when dealing with asylum seekers and illegal immigrants.
But such a country also has every justification in distinguishing between granting permission for someone wholly innocent to remain on the grounds of having established the right to family life and, on the other hand, granting such permission to someone who has engaged in violent crime.
INTERNATIONAL APPROACH
These same underlying principles – of respect for the particular history of each country, and of proportionality in the light of that country’s current circumstances – need to inform the way in which the international community applies the UN Declaration around the world.
As I have said before, I am a liberal Conservative, not a neo-conservative.
I advocate a liberal Conservative approach to foreign policy.
Liberal - because I support the aim of spreading freedom and democracy, and support humanitarian intervention.
Conservative - because I recognise the complexities of human nature, and am sceptical of grand schemes to remake the world.
Both adjectives – liberal and Conservative – matter.
Naturally I believe that our foreign policy must have at its core the protection and the promotion of the national interests of the United Kingdom.
But I do not believe that this country’s interests are best defended abroad by leaving our values at home.
As William Hague has said, and I repeat here today, a Conservative Government will make respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms at a central part of our foreign policy.
Of course human rights are not the only consideration in determining a nation’s foreign policy.
Other issues should and do inform our thinking: trans-national crime, trade, terrorism, epidemics and other challenges.
But we should aim to conduct our foreign policy in a way that is true to our values, at the core of which is a deeply held belief about the importance of human rights.
As practical people we should be clear that the way we behave as politicians and leaders is as important as the declarations we put our names to.
That means conveying our concerns about human rights as and when they arise with all countries – whether they are our oldest and staunchest allies, authoritarian regimes or emerging democracies.
In the case of China, for example, I want us to have a strong relationship with Beijing as China assumes growing power and prominence on the world stage.
I strongly believe that the greater China’s global reach, the greater China’s stake in global stability.
But a strong relationship with China is not one in which we take a vow of omerta when dealing with Chinese leaders on human rights abuses in China, or on issues like Tibet.
So when I visited China last year, I spoke up – courteously but firmly - about human rights in my meetings with Chinese officials, and in the speech I gave at Chongqing University.
The same must apply in our approach to Russia. In the long run, Britain’s interests are not well served by turning a blind eye to growing oppression in Putin’s Russia or human rights abuses in Chechnya or beyond Russia’s borders.
Perhaps nowhere does the issue of human rights – and how to defend them – come into sharper relief this Monday morning than in Zimbabwe, where we are witnessing a political crisis morphing into an international humanitarian crisis.
As Archbishop Tutu has noted, Mugabe has turned the bread basket of Africa into a basket case.
Now cholera is killing his people, and the main export his country is producing is disease and death.
What is our response to this unfolding tragedy?
Our first duty must be to speak up about it.
Of course there is the argument – and I have made it myself – that while we should always speak clearly and frankly, we must recognise that as the former colonial power our words will be used by Mugabe at home.
Today, a generation after the colonial burden was lifted, Zimbabwe is staring into the abyss.
And it is time to say bluntly that speaking up for our common humanity matters far more than tip toeing nervously around our colonial legacy.
As one African leader said to me recently, it is not speaking out that plays into the tyrant’s hands – it is failing to do so.
That sort of political correctness deprives those who are suffering most of a voice when they need it most.
So let us say bluntly today, echoing the calls from the Prime Minister of Kenya, the Government of Botswana – to whose foreign minister I spoke this morning - and Archbishops Tutu and Sentamu, that Mugabe must go now.
And if he does not go now, he should answer for his crimes at the International Criminal Court.
But above all we must mobilise an immediate and co-ordinated international effort to deliver medical and humanitarian aid to the suffering people of Zimbabwe.
The official figures for cholera deaths are very likely to be a massive underestimate, and the approaching rainy season threatens to make things much worse.
The challenge is clear: act now to prevent a humanitarian disaster that will affect not just Zimbabwe, but Zimbabwe’s neighbours too.
CONCLUSION
So today, as we mark the publication of the Conservative Party’s Human Rights Commission’s latest report, I want to say clearly to all those to whom freedom is denied, and whose basic rights are trampled upon: the Conservative Party stands with you and will speak up for you.
Wherever we live, whatever our background, we share a common humanity.
To people in Burma, in Russia, in Sudan, in North Korea – and indeed in Zimbabwe - whose rights are denied, I say that the Conservative Party will stand up for you in opposition and, if we are elected, in Government.
We will always remember the appeal of Burma’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi:
“Please use your liberty to promote ours”.
That is what we shall try to do, now and in the years ahead.