Human Rights Watch writes to Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Rt Hon David Miliband, on the consequences of the UK and Ethiopian governments signing the Memorandum of Understanding which would do little to curb acts of torture in Ethiopia.

Scotland's release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only person convicted in connection with the Lockerbie bombing of 1988, was supposed to be Gaddafi's ultimate international relations coup in a year when, at times, Libya held the chairmanship of the African Union and the presidency of both the UN Security Council and of the General Assembly. But Megrahi's homecoming did not go as smoothly as planned.

The upcoming inquiry into the Iraq war, announced by Prime Minister Gordon Brown on June 15, provides a crucial forum to investigate the actions of the United Kingdom in Iraq over the last eight years.

The British Government's Inquiry into its Iraq War policies should include human rights abuses as part of its investigation, Human Rights Watch said today.

The UK government should order an independent judicial inquiry into mounting evidence that its security services and law enforcement agencies were complicit in the torture of terrorism suspects in Pakistan.

“Protection of human rights can only be achieved if the victims of human rights violations have access to an effective remedy.” Yet this fundamental human right, enshrined in so many instruments, including the European Convention on Human Rights, is being breached on a continuous basis in many member states. This fact underscores a serious enforcement gap that urgently needs to be addressed.