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Human Rights

That is true; there is a public interest in that. There is also a Government commitment, through the Green Paper from 2002. Nearly seven years on, where is the legislation? We need to move on that. There are some wider issues that I shall not go into in detail. We have just launched an inquiry on global security proliferation, and we are examining weapons issues. In the most recent report, we mention the arms trade treaty, arguing that conventional arms should be included and that the scope of the treaty should be as wide as possible. We were told that the Government would press for that, but that they would not necessarily deal with all the issues to do with conventional arms. I would be grateful for clarification of where the Government see the arms trade treaty as being at the moment, and we will return to the matter in the coming months when we produce our report on proliferation. We will visit Geneva and Vienna in January to consider those issues among others. Another global matter that I wish to touch on briefly is the International Criminal Court, which is now functioning well. We have seen the arrest of Radovan Karadzic, from the Bosnian conflict, which was an important signal. However, there are still outstanding issues, such as the role of Mr. Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda. There are also the complications with regard to President Bashir of Sudan and other people who might be referred to the ICC. One of the big problems is that although the US and the Security Council did not block the reference of Sudan to the ICC, the US and other countries are yet to accede to the Rome statute. There is a clear need for us to press that issue. Hopefully President-elect Obama, given his legal background and his knowledge of international law and international relations, will change the American approach on such things. I would be interested to know what our Government are doing to press those points. I wish briefly to mention a number of individual countries referred to in the report, although not all of them, as the agenda is inevitably selective. In a report that we published earlier this year, we examined in depth the human rights and political situation in Iran. That is also mentioned in our human rights report. From recent discussions that I have had with representatives of the Baha'i community, I understand that human rights issues are getting worse for them, with more persecution and more arrests. Iran has the most executions in the world except for China, and I believe the highest of all per capita. There is also hanging by strangulation, public stoning, flogging and amputation, which are not just part of the criminal code but were justified to us when we met Mr. Larijani, the head of the Iranian Government's human rights commission. Since 2006, there have been a number of high-profile cases, including the punishment of same-sex relationships by death and discrimination and violence against women. Human rights in Iran should not be treated as a secondary issue. Although it is important to emphasise the continuing breach of the non-proliferation treaty through the Iranians' enrichment programme and other nuclear-related matters, it is important that we recognise that the human rights situation is very poor for many millions of Iranians. We touched also on the human rights situation in Burma. When we produced our report, there had recently been the devastation of Cyclone Nargis and the inadequate initial response by the Burmese Government authorities. We know that the British Government have tried hard to get the issue on the UN Security Council agenda and found it difficult because of the attitudes of some other countries. I would be grateful for an update on what action might be taken under the broad agenda of our responsibility to protect and the appalling human rights situation in Burma. On China, our report was published just before the Beijing Olympics and there was inevitably a focus on that. We had an evidence session with the Dalai Lama, which was very well received by British people but did not go down so well with the Chinese Government. I would be grateful for an update on the Government's position on what is happening in Tibet and the fact that the talks, which were renewed around the time of the Olympics, seemed to hit a brick wall in September. The Dalai Lama's call not for independence but for a third way of genuine autonomy has been blocked and rejected by the Chinese authorities. I know that the Minister expects me to ask about the Government's recent change of position in respect of Tibet and their statement that we would no longer use the word ““suzerainty””. That has caused concern among some lobby groups and non-governmental organisations, who interpret it as a change of approach to Tibet. I would be grateful for a clarification of what it means in practice in respect of human rights concerns and our support for autonomy within Tibet.