Human Rights Watch has prepared this assessment of the Patten Commission report-issued on September 9, 1999-as a means of following up on its participation in the commission's consultation process and as a contribution to the government's three month post-report consultation period. We are committed to monitoring the implementation of the report, and this assessment highlights both positive and problematic elements of the report that we believe may either facilitate or hinder its implementation. We also make several recommendations on key human rights issues that were not addressed or were inadequately addressed by the Patten Commission. Human Rights Watch views the report as a positive contribution to the work of reforming the police force but feels strongly that measures in addition to the report's recommendations must be taken to bring law enforcement in Northern Ireland into conformity with international human rights standards.
Human Rights Watch made three submissions to the commission during the course of its work: a lengthy first submission that focused on a range of human rights issues and policing in Northern Ireland (September 8, 1998); a detailed letter of concern regarding the consultation process (November 2, 1998); and a briefing paper that proposed a vetting process for screening out police officers with abusive records and excluding them from a peacetime policing service (January 16, 1999). In addition, we provided the commission with findings of Human Rights Watch's research on human rights violations by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), Northern Ireland's police force, since 1991. This material included two books published by Human Rights Watch in 1992 and 1997, and several shorter, more focused reports on issues such as abuses against children by both the security forces and paramilitary groups. We also provided the commission with documentation on relevant international human rights standards on policing and the protection of human rights. In January 1999, representatives of Human Rights Watch who met with the commission in New York emphasized the importance of international human rights standards as a baseline for the commission's work and presented our briefing paper on vetting the force. A follow-up meeting on September 23, 1999, allowed both the commission and representatives of Human Rights Watch to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the completed report.
The April 1998 Good Friday Agreement states that future policing structures and arrangements should result in a policing service that "operates within a coherent and cooperative criminal justice system, which conforms with international human rights norms." We hope that this assessment serves as a resource for the government of the United Kingdom in considering whether the report measures up to this imperative. Our goal is to assess whether the recommendations and stated goals specifically dealing with human rights actually conform with the requirements of international standards; how those that do might be implemented; whether those that do not should be reconsidered or not implemented at all; and how the omission of what we believe to be critical human rights provisions potentially will have an impact on the report's acceptance by the public and thus on its implementation.
