Vos lays into US human rights approach

Bar chairman Geoffrey Vos QC took a swipe at US hypocrisy while staunchly defending the need for the UK to remain a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights (the Convention) in his address to the Bar conference last Saturday.

In his speech, Human Rights—Taking Liberties, Vos warned that Western governments need to get their own houses in order on basic freedoms, before they can start to lecture those in the developing world. “Muslim countries are not impressed with being told that they should adhere to the democratic principles of human rights and the rule of law by a nation that interns people without trial in Guantanamo Bay,” he said.

Although he said the US has a right to balance the need to protect its citizens, against the strictest adherence to the rule of law, it can not claim that it is universally thought that it has got the balance right.
“We need to avoid being guilty of what has been called `rule of law imperialism’, which can do more harm than good,” he added.

Domestically, he welcomed proposals for a new Bill of Rights and Responsibilities to sit alongside the Human Rights Act 1998. He warned, however, that it would be “an act of calamitous folly for us as a nation to withdraw from the Convention, which I believe underpins our authority in contributing to the world rule of law movement”.