The Rt Hon David Lammy MP, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, King Charles St, London, SW1A 2AH
20 November 2024
Dear Foreign Secretary,
We welcome the stated commitment of your government to demonstrate global leadership in upholding human rights and the international rule of law, and look forward to working on this with you and your colleagues. We are writing to you to request that the Government conducts a public consultation on reform of the UK’s Overseas Security and Justice Assistance (OSJA) guidance and strengthens protections against UK complicity in or support for human rights abuses.
During a debate in December 2023, Baroness Swinburne, responding on behalf of the then-government, said “that the guidance (on OSJA) will be updated shortly and will reflect the views of a broad range of shareholders.”[i] Since that time, we have received no updates on the course of the review and are concerned that the policy is being assessed in Whitehall without any consultation. As representatives of several civil society groups, we believe that an open and transparent OSJA review is essential. A review that has not sought input from civil society groups working actively on this policy cannot be considered to reflect “a broad range” of expert viewpoints.
The OSJA guidance, first set out in 2011, is designed to prevent UK assistance from contributing to human rights abuses abroad.[ii] In practice, however, the UK’s OSJA policy has fallen short, and sometimes served to lend false legitimacy to abusive institutions. Labour rightly took a strong stance on the policy in opposition and in 2020 called for a review.[iii]
The UK’s OSJA policy does not explicitly prohibit UK involvement in human rights abuses, including the death penalty and torture. When there is a risk of these abuses which cannot be mitigated, current guidance advises officials to consult ministers, who (the policy suggests) may still authorise actions they know or believe will result in torture or other abuses. In this respect the policy falls short of legal prohibitions against UK involvement in torture and the death penalty, as well as undermining the UK’s principled opposition to these abuses.
Another major concern, which was if anything exacerbated by the approach of the previous government, is the lack of transparency and accountability built into the process. OSJA assessments are not subject to any independent scrutiny, and even basic information about their application has been denied to MPs and the public. In 2016, parliament’s Home Affairs Committee condemned the level of secrecy around OSJA’s application as “totally unacceptable” and questioned whether OSJA guidance “is fit for purpose”[iv] following the refusal of the Conservative government to disclose basic information about UK support for law enforcement projects overseas.
Since 2017, the UK’s OSJA policy has repeatedly failed to prevent UK aid from benefitting human rights abusers. Recipients of assistance include Bahrain’s justice and security sector through the Gulf Strategy Fund, even while the Bahraini judiciary continues to admit confessions acquired through torture. Bahrain’s Office of the Ombudsman and Special Investigation Unit, also supported by the FCDO, have failed to conduct adequate investigations into the use of torture by Bahraini law enforcement. Evidence extracted under torture has been used in court to sentence people to death,[v] such as in the cases of peaceful protestors Mohamed Ramadhan and Husain Moosa.[vi] In 2020, Labour foreign affairs spokesperson Stephen Doughty asked the Government to “freeze assistance” to bodies complicit in Mohamed and Husain’s torture, and asked the government to publish its relevant OSJA assessments for public scrutiny.[vii] Then shadow minister for the Middle East Sir Wayne David MP expressed dismay that the government “do not bother to implement their own policy” by consistently carrying out OSJA assessments.[viii]
The previous government spent millions of pounds in taxpayers’ money supporting Pakistan’s anti-terrorism courts since at least 2013, via the Counter-terror Associated Prosecutorial Reforms Initiative (CAPRI).[ix] This court sentenced 359 people to death between 2013 and 2018,[x] and has dispensed disproportionate sentences to others, such as 18 years in prison for a man who threw his shoe at a judge.[xi] The UK continued to fund these courts despite the UN Committee against Torture finding that Pakistan’s counter-terror legislation had ‘eliminated legal safeguards against torture’.[xii]Pakistan’s extraordinarily broad definition of terrorism, criticised by the UN Human Rights Committee in 2017,[xiii] has meant that these courts are a ‘fast track’ to prosecute people for varied offences, including in relation to public protests[xiv] and land and familial disputes.[xv] Despite this, the then-government repeatedly refused to publish any human rights risk assessments on CAPRI.[xvi]
Earlier this year, the previous government concluded an agreement with the Libyan authorities to supply one million pounds for Libyan law enforcement “to stop people from entering Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea”.[xvii] This is despite reports from the UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya in 2023 that Libyan law enforcement, including the Coast Guard and the Directorate for Combating Illegal Migration (DCIM), had committed human rights violations against migrants in detention that could amount to crimes against humanity.[xviii] These findings are consistent with the conclusions of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court since 2022,[xix] and other non-governmental organisations.[xx] The UK has long funded detention centres across Libya,[xxi] where migrants and refugees have been subjected to torture and other forms of ill-treatment, and starvation of children.[xxii] The UK government has previously refused to publish OSJA assessments on the UK’s funding of the Libyan Coast Guard and DCIM, invoking the potential prejudice of the bilateral relationship between the UK and Libya and of the interests of the UK abroad.[xxiii]
Other bodies supported by the UK have included Sri Lankan security services, which received training from Police Scotland for more than a decade. In 2021 Stephen Kinnock, then Shadow Minister for Asia, described this training as “lending a veneer of credibility”[xxiv] to security forces which have been involved in torture and extrajudicial executions.[xxv]
When the OSJA policy was first presented to parliament in 2011, Foreign Secretary William Hague claimed it demonstrated the government’s commitment “to tackling issues related to security and human rights in an open and transparent way.”[xxvi] The Conservative government claimed that it was reviewing OSJA, but we have seen no evidence of effective consultation, and no new guidance has been released. In opposition, the Labour Party was sharply critical of the profound shortcomings of OSJA. This review appears to have been conducted in a hurry with too little consultation and risks rubber stamping the last government’s deeply flawed human rights policy. We urge your government to conduct a proper review which addresses the loopholes in the guidance, as well as its limited application and total lack of transparency. We urge you to begin by inviting a public consultation as part of that process.
This is an opportunity for the UK government to restore Britain’s reputation as a global leader on human rights and international development. We look forward to working with you to resolve the flaws in the current OSJA guidance.
Joint Letter to UK Foreign Secretary
The Rt Hon David Lammy MP,
Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs,
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office,
King Charles St, London, SW1A 2AH
20 November 2024
Dear Foreign Secretary,
We welcome the stated commitment of your government to demonstrate global leadership in upholding human rights and the international rule of law, and look forward to working on this with you and your colleagues. We are writing to you to request that the Government conducts a public consultation on reform of the UK’s Overseas Security and Justice Assistance (OSJA) guidance and strengthens protections against UK complicity in or support for human rights abuses.
During a debate in December 2023, Baroness Swinburne, responding on behalf of the then-government, said “that the guidance (on OSJA) will be updated shortly and will reflect the views of a broad range of shareholders.”[i] Since that time, we have received no updates on the course of the review and are concerned that the policy is being assessed in Whitehall without any consultation. As representatives of several civil society groups, we believe that an open and transparent OSJA review is essential. A review that has not sought input from civil society groups working actively on this policy cannot be considered to reflect “a broad range” of expert viewpoints.
The OSJA guidance, first set out in 2011, is designed to prevent UK assistance from contributing to human rights abuses abroad.[ii] In practice, however, the UK’s OSJA policy has fallen short, and sometimes served to lend false legitimacy to abusive institutions. Labour rightly took a strong stance on the policy in opposition and in 2020 called for a review.[iii]
The UK’s OSJA policy does not explicitly prohibit UK involvement in human rights abuses, including the death penalty and torture. When there is a risk of these abuses which cannot be mitigated, current guidance advises officials to consult ministers, who (the policy suggests) may still authorise actions they know or believe will result in torture or other abuses. In this respect the policy falls short of legal prohibitions against UK involvement in torture and the death penalty, as well as undermining the UK’s principled opposition to these abuses.
Another major concern, which was if anything exacerbated by the approach of the previous government, is the lack of transparency and accountability built into the process. OSJA assessments are not subject to any independent scrutiny, and even basic information about their application has been denied to MPs and the public. In 2016, parliament’s Home Affairs Committee condemned the level of secrecy around OSJA’s application as “totally unacceptable” and questioned whether OSJA guidance “is fit for purpose”[iv] following the refusal of the Conservative government to disclose basic information about UK support for law enforcement projects overseas.
Since 2017, the UK’s OSJA policy has repeatedly failed to prevent UK aid from benefitting human rights abusers. Recipients of assistance include Bahrain’s justice and security sector through the Gulf Strategy Fund, even while the Bahraini judiciary continues to admit confessions acquired through torture. Bahrain’s Office of the Ombudsman and Special Investigation Unit, also supported by the FCDO, have failed to conduct adequate investigations into the use of torture by Bahraini law enforcement. Evidence extracted under torture has been used in court to sentence people to death, [v] such as in the cases of peaceful protestors Mohamed Ramadhan and Husain Moosa.[vi] In 2020, Labour foreign affairs spokesperson Stephen Doughty asked the Government to “freeze assistance” to bodies complicit in Mohamed and Husain’s torture, and asked the government to publish its relevant OSJA assessments for public scrutiny.[vii] Then shadow minister for the Middle East Sir Wayne David MP expressed dismay that the government “do not bother to implement their own policy” by consistently carrying out OSJA assessments.[viii]
The previous government spent millions of pounds in taxpayers’ money supporting Pakistan’s anti-terrorism courts since at least 2013, via the Counter-terror Associated Prosecutorial Reforms Initiative (CAPRI).[ix] This court sentenced 359 people to death between 2013 and 2018,[x] and has dispensed disproportionate sentences to others, such as 18 years in prison for a man who threw his shoe at a judge.[xi] The UK continued to fund these courts despite the UN Committee against Torture finding that Pakistan’s counter-terror legislation had ‘eliminated legal safeguards against torture’.[xii]Pakistan’s extraordinarily broad definition of terrorism, criticised by the UN Human Rights Committee in 2017,[xiii] has meant that these courts are a ‘fast track’ to prosecute people for varied offences, including in relation to public protests[xiv] and land and familial disputes.[xv] Despite this, the then-government repeatedly refused to publish any human rights risk assessments on CAPRI.[xvi]
Earlier this year, the previous government concluded an agreement with the Libyan authorities to supply one million pounds for Libyan law enforcement “to stop people from entering Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea”.[xvii] This is despite reports from the UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya in 2023 that Libyan law enforcement, including the Coast Guard and the Directorate for Combating Illegal Migration (DCIM), had committed human rights violations against migrants in detention that could amount to crimes against humanity.[xviii] These findings are consistent with the conclusions of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court since 2022,[xix] and other non-governmental organisations.[xx] The UK has long funded detention centres across Libya,[xxi] where migrants and refugees have been subjected to torture and other forms of ill-treatment, and starvation of children.[xxii] The UK government has previously refused to publish OSJA assessments on the UK’s funding of the Libyan Coast Guard and DCIM, invoking the potential prejudice of the bilateral relationship between the UK and Libya and of the interests of the UK abroad.[xxiii]
Other bodies supported by the UK have included Sri Lankan security services, which received training from Police Scotland for more than a decade. In 2021 Stephen Kinnock, then Shadow Minister for Asia, described this training as “lending a veneer of credibility”[xxiv] to security forces which have been involved in torture and extrajudicial executions.[xxv]
When the OSJA policy was first presented to parliament in 2011, Foreign Secretary William Hague claimed it demonstrated the government’s commitment “to tackling issues related to security and human rights in an open and transparent way.”[xxvi] The Conservative government claimed that it was reviewing OSJA, but we have seen no evidence of effective consultation, and no new guidance has been released. In opposition, the Labour Party was sharply critical of the profound shortcomings of OSJA. This review appears to have been conducted in a hurry with too little consultation and risks rubber stamping the last government’s deeply flawed human rights policy. We urge your government to conduct a proper review which addresses the loopholes in the guidance, as well as its limited application and total lack of transparency. We urge you to begin by inviting a public consultation as part of that process.
This is an opportunity for the UK government to restore Britain’s reputation as a global leader on human rights and international development. We look forward to working with you to resolve the flaws in the current OSJA guidance.
Yours sincerely,
Reprieve
The Rendition Project
Unredacted
Privacy International
Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice
People for Equality and Relief in Lanka (PEARL)
Freedom From Torture
Rights and Security International (RSI)
Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD)
Amnesty International UK
International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP)
REDRESS
Liberty
Omega Research Foundation
[i]Debate on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the House of Lords, 11 December 2023, available at: https://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2023-12-11a.1782.0&s=review+speaker%3A13107#g1782.2
[ii]OSJA Human Rights Guidance 2017, available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/583304/OSJA_Guidance_2017.pdf
[iii]Debate on Nigeria: Sanctions Regime in the House of Commons, 23 November 2020, available at: https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2020-11-23/debates/0A7DEC6C-F408-46E8-BD71-D87E0C07A30E/NigeriaSanctionsRegime?highlight=osja#contribution-69E38450-CC3A-4646-A20C-D30C8407639E
[iv] House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, ‘College of Policing: Three Years On’, 29 June 2016, available at: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmhaff/23/23.pdf
[v]BBC, ‘Bahrain: British taxpayers backing security services accused of torture ‘, 10 October 2022, available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63175535
[vi]Human Rights Watch, ‘”The Court is Satisfied with the Confession”: Bahrain Death Sentences Follow Torture, Sham Trials’, 10 October 2022, available at: https://www.hrw.org/report/2022/10/10/court-satisfied-confession/bahrain-death-sentences-follow-torture-sham-trials#_ftn197
[vii]Debate on Bahrain: Prisoners Under Sentence of Death, 9 July 2020, available at: https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2020-07-09/debates/D560BD01-121A-46D7-BC92-E619171CEFF2/BahrainPrisonersUnderSentenceOfDeath?highlight=bahrain#contribution-4BF49F55-492B-4D2D-9674-764BCE2BC78B
[viii]Debate on the Integrated Activity Fund in the House of Commons, 22 October 2020, available at: https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2020-10-22/debates/1A17E46F-FA72-4AFD-B682-CE37E56F794B/IntegratedActivityFundTransparency
[ix] The Guardian, ‘Pakistan death-sentence courts ‘are funded by UK’’, 22 December 2018, available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/22/uk-funding-pakistan-death-sentence-courts.
[x] According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s searchable death penalty database: http://hrcpmonitor.org/search/?id=17
[xi] https://www.dawn.com/news/1405815
[xii] UN Committee against Torture, Concluding observations on the initial report of Pakistan (2017) https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CAT/Shared%20Documents/PAK/INT_CAT_COC_PAK_27467_E.
[xiii] Human Rights Committee, Concluding observations on the initial report of Pakistan, 23 August 2017, CCPR/C/PAK/CO/1, available at: https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CCPR/C/PAK/CO/1&Lang=En.
[xiv] Zaidi, Syed Manzar Abbas, ‘Terrorism Prosecution in Pakistan: A Critical Appraisal’, Platform, 2016, p. 28, available at:https://www.academia.edu/24780558/Terrorism_Prosecution_in_Pakistan.
[xv] Zaidi, 2016, p.29.
[xvi] The FCO and DIFD have refused to answer our FOIA requests for such information
[xvii] The Telegraph, ‘Britain to pay Libya to stop migrants crossing the Mediterranean’, 8 March 2024, available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/08/libya-migrants-mediterranean-deal-michael-tomlinson-returns/; and InfoMigrants, ‘UK strikes £1M deal with Libya to combat irregular arrivals into Europe’, 11 March 2023, available at: https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/55736/uk-strikes-%C2%A31m-deal-with-libya-to-combat-irregular-arrivals-into-europe
[xviii] UNHRC Report of the Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya, 3 March 2023, available at: https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ohchr.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fdocuments%2Fhrbodies%2Fhrcouncil%2Fsessions-regular%2Fsession50%2FA_HRC_52_83_AdvanceEditedVersion-EN.docx&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK
[xix] Report of the Prosecutor of the ICC to the UN Security Council on Libya, 21 April 2022, available at: https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/2022-04/2022-04-28-otp-report-unsc-libya-eng.pdf paras 25-32
[xx] Lawyers for Justice in Libya, European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights, International Federation for Human Rights, ‘Article 15 Communication to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court – Re: Situation in Libya – Crimes against Migrants and Refugees in Libya’, 19 November 2021, redacted version available at https://assets-global.website-files.com/5a0d8805f2f99e00014b1414/629e0058f840063a7dbb3919_Redacted_Art_15__Communication_to_the_ICC_on_crimes_against_refugees_and_migrants_in_Libya.pdf
[xxi]The Guardian, ‘Libya: child refugees abused in UK-funded detention centres’, 20 November 2018, available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/20/child-refugees-facing-abuse-in-libyan-detention-centres
And UNHRC Report of the Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya, 3 March 2023, available at: https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ohchr.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fdocuments%2Fhrbodies%2Fhrcouncil%2Fsessions-regular%2Fsession50%2FA_HRC_52_83_AdvanceEditedVersion-EN.docx&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK
[xxii] Lawyers for Justice in Libya, European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights, International Federation for Human Rights, ‘Article 15 Communication to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court – Re: Situation in Libya – Crimes against Migrants and Refugees in Libya’, 19 November 2021, redacted version available at https://assets-global.website-files.com/5a0d8805f2f99e00014b1414/629e0058f840063a7dbb3919_Redacted_Art_15__Communication_to_the_ICC_on_crimes_against_refugees_and_migrants_in_Libya.pdfand UNHRC Report of the Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya, 3 March 2023, available at: https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ohchr.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fdocuments%2Fhrbodies%2Fhrcouncil%2Fsessions-regular%2Fsession50%2FA_HRC_52_83_AdvanceEditedVersion-EN.docx&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK paras 40-53
[xxiii]FOI Release: UK support to Libyan Coastguard and Immigration Detention, 12 October 2017, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/foi-release-uk-support-to-libyan-coastguard-and-immigration-detention
[xxiv] Stephen Kinnock MP, Speech on Sri Lanka in the House of Commons, 18 March 2021, available at: https://www.stephenkinnock.co.uk/sri-lanka/
[xxv]Tamil Guardian, ‘Police Scotland will not renew training contract with Sri Lanka due to human rights concerns’, 24 November 2021, available at: https://www.tamilguardian.com/content/police-scotland-will-not-renew-training-contract-sri-lanka-due-human-rights-concerns
Recent Posts
Exhuming the Truth: Sri Lanka’s Mass Graves and the Search for the Disappeared
August 26, 202643 Years Since Black July: The Accountability Gap Revisited
July 20, 2026From Welikada to Negombo: four decades of impunity in Sri Lanka’s prisons
July 13, 2026Archives
Categories