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CONFIDENTIAL
Reference..
Heads of Geographical Departments
(18)
M. Daavid
لسوا
Hands King
ilu
FCO COLLABORATION WITH AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
At an office meeting on 25 May, the Secretary of State endorsed the recommendation in Mr Luard's paper on Human Rights and Foreign Policy that the geographical departments concerned should submit to the Secretary of State, through UN Department, on the question of taking action against countries in the bottom band of the FCO Human Rights assessment exercise. Mr Luard minuted inter alia on that submission on its way to the Secretary of State that: "We should organise a meeting with representatives of Amnesty to compare notes with them about the information they have on particular countries and the action they propose taking, giving our own judgment on the situation without, of course, revealing the details of our assessment. A number of the recommendations on individual countries have suggested that we should encourage Amnesty to take an interest (for example those on Burma, Laos, Vietnam and others). Dr Owen has now agreed this.
2. During a call by Mr David Simpson, Director of the British Section of Amnesty International, on Mr Luard in November last year, it was agreed that it should be left to Amnesty and individual desk officers in the FCO to develop contacts. I attach a copy of the record of that meeting. Amnesty never followed up the call so far as UN Department was concerned, but I know that several departments had already established an informal relationship with them or have since done so.
11
3. As a preliminary to action on Mr Luard's minute, I have arranged to discuss with Mr Simpson, informally, and without commitment, the question of contact between the FCO and Amnesty. Before I do so, it would be most helpful to have a very brief note of the extent and type of contact between Amnesty and your department with particular reference to the bottom band countries (the heads of department concerned will recall which these are): could you very kindly let me have this by Monday, 5 September? If I do not hear from you, I shall assume you have no existing contact with Amnesty...
cake of HK.
JHK Drun
26 August 1977
cc Mr Weir
Planning Staff
OID RID
MK O Simpson-Orlebar UN Department
(17293) Dd.897465 400m 1/73 G.W.B.Ltd. Gp.863
CONFIDENTIAL