Human Rights and British Foreign Policy, c. 1977-1997: An Intellectual Biography of David Owen

Grealy, David (2020) Human Rights and British Foreign Policy, c. 1977-1997: An Intellectual Biography of David Owen. PhD thesis, University of Liverpool.

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Abstract

In the rapidly expanding historiography on human rights and their growing presence within international relations during the second half of the twentieth century, British foreign policy perspectives remain largely underappreciated. Focussing on David Owen’s sustained engagement with the related concepts of human rights and humanitarianism from his tenure as UK Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary to his influential role in lobbying the New Labour Government of Tony Blair as a member of the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, this thesis addresses this striking omission by exploring the relationship between international human rights promotion and British foreign policy between c. 1977-97. Consequently, this thesis contributes to ongoing historiographical debates surrounding the elevation of human rights considerations within foreign policy decision making, examining how Owen’s advocacy reflected broader trends concerning the contested ‘breakthrough’ of human rights during the 1970s and their influence in international relations thereafter. The thesis finds that while there is much to support the notion, well-established within the existing literature, that the 1970s constituted a pivotal moment in the history of human rights, a preoccupation with the identification of such epochal ruptures risks overlooking the ways in which human rights ideas had been shaped by earlier developments and continued to evolve subsequently. Furthermore, in the process of highlighting the fragmented and highly contingent nature of human rights history, this thesis underscores the need to be attentive to the creation of distinctive human rights “vernaculars” that reflected the ideas that historical actors brought to them, and the political purposes they intended to serve by articulating their claims in the language of human rights. By bringing these issues and debates into focus through the lens of Owen’s long-standing commitment to human rights, this thesis also offers a fresh perspective on one of the most recognisable, albeit enigmatic, parliamentarians in recent British history. Both within the confines of Whitehall and without, Owen’s advocacy served to alter the course of British foreign policy at key junctures during the late Cold War and early post-Cold War periods, and provides a unique prism through which to interrogate the intersections between Britain’s enduring search for a distinctive ‘role’ in the world and the development of the international human rights regime during the period in question.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Divisions:	Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Histories, Languages and Cultures
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	03 Sep 2021 10:29
Last Modified:	18 Jan 2023 23:03
DOI:	10.17638/03113422
Supervisors:	Donert, Celia Hopkins, Michael ORCID: 0000-0002-0802-8302 Bocking-Welch, Anna
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3113422