30 July 2009

Americas Directorate

WH2.324

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

King Charles Street

London SW1A 2AH

Tel: 020 7 008 2606

Fax: 020 7 008 2476

E-mail: [email address]

Mr Liam Craig-Best

[FOI #14910 email]

Dear Mr Craig-Best,

Your Freedom of Information Request 0583-09

Thank you for your email of 19 July, in which you requested:

“details of which of the recommendations made by the UNHCHR in their 2006 annual report on Colombia to the Government of Colombia the Foreign and Commonwealth Office considers to have been i) fully implemented, ii) partially implemented, and iii) not implemented.”

The Freedom of Information Act gives any person the right to request access to official information held by public authorities. Recorded information of any age, format and from any source can be requested. Your request seeks the opinion of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, rather than particular records or information that we might hold. We therefore do not intend to treat your request as an application under the Freedom of Information Act.

You may be interested to note that we support and endorse the various assessments of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the human rights situation in Colombia. I have added a link below for you to access their reports:

http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,UNHRC,,COL,4562d94e2,,0.html

We also agree and align ourselves with the comments of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who visited Colombia last year. Below is a link to a UN report of her visit:

http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/6B2BAB0CC43C54C3C12574F60035CC9B?opendocument

I attach copies of the UK's questions and statements to Colombia at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, which gives further details of the UK's assessment of human rights in Colombia. You will note that the UK has urged the Colombian Government to provide regular public assessments and updates for the implementation of recommendations made by successive UN Human Rights reports.

I hope that the information I have supplied is helpful.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free to use it for your own purposes, including any non-commercial research you are doing and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder. Most documents supplied by the FCO will have been produced by government officials and will be protected by Crown Copyright. You can find details on the arrangements for re-using Crown Copyright on the Office of Public Sector Information website.  

Information you receive which is not subject to Crown Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. You must ensure that you gain their permission before reproducing any third party (non-Crown Copyright) information.

If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your request and wish to make a complaint, or request a review of our decision you should write to me at the above address. You have 40 working days to do so from the date of our response.

If you are not content with the outcome of that internal review, you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner's Office for a decision. Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaint procedure provided by the FCO. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

The Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF.

Yours sincerely,

Catherine Shaw

Assistant Desk Officer for Andean Section

South America Team

2

Foreign &

Commonwealth

Office