Human Rights

John Bowis follows human rights issues in his work on the Development Committee. He is also often involved in proposing, drafting and moving resolutions of the European Parliament during Plenary sessions of the Parliament under its "Urgencies" rules.

The European Parliament has the ability to ratify and reject international agreements. Out of its concern to protect human rights, it uses this power to require non-member countries to improve their human rights records and has indeed rejected a whole series of financial protocols with some non-member countries on human rights grounds, forcing those countries to release political prisoners or to accept international commitments to protect human rights.

Please note that resolutions relating to countries of Central Asia are covered under the Central Asia section of this website.

• Caged beds, Central/Eastern Europe.

• Palestinian Legislative Authority.

• Zimbabwe, December 2004.

• Bhopal (India), December 2004.

• Angola, April 2004.

• Aceh (Indonesia), November 2003.

• Egypt, April 2003.

• North Korea, November 2002.

• Nigeria, September 2002.

• Somalia, July 2002.

• World Food Summit May/July 2002.

• Madagascar, May 2002.

• Indonesia, May 2002.

• Zimbabwe, March 2002.

• Eritrea, February 2002.