The Liberal Democrat MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber, Edward McMillan-Scott, has won a Medal of Honour from the Venice-based European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation, Professor Horst Fischer, “in recognition of his lasting efforts in the promotion and protection of human rights.”

Previous winners are Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Manfred Nowak, human rights lawyer and  former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture.

Speaking after the awards ceremony at the opening of the academic year at the Scuola Grande, Venice on 22 September, McMillan-Scott said:

This is a great honour, not only for me but for the European Parliament. I have always admired the Institute and its work, because human rights and democracy are an essential part of EU foreign policy.

Here he is earlier this year taking a pretty strong line on human rights abuses in Russia

And from an earlier post written for the Independent with Jeremy Browne:

Human rights, poverty reduction and the upholding of international law are essential to – and indivisible from – both EU and UK foreign policy objectives. We cannot achieve long term security and prosperity unless we uphold our values, and recognise that unchecked human rights abuses represent a threat to our own national security.

Although we must promote our values with conviction and determination, it must be in ways that are suited to the grain of the other societies we are dealing with, particularly in fragile or post-conflict states. Democracy and respect for human rights rest on foundations that have to be built over time: strong institutions, responsible and accountable government, a free press, the rule of law, equal rights for men and women, and other less tangible habits of mind and of participation are all necessary elements for democracy to prevail.

And to end our trio of McMillan-Scott goodies, here’s Caron Lindsay’s interview with him from last Spring.

Where, I asked, had his interest in human rights come from. He replied that he’d always been interested in human rights for its own sake. In 1971, he was working as a tour guide, taking Americans round Europe. He found himself with a free afternoon in what was then Leningrad. He used it to visit disused synagogues and churches and ended up at the Museum of Atheism. He was then arrested and spent 7 hours being interrogated. Although his fears of being used as revenge for the arrest of a Russian sailor in Glasgow a couple of weeks before proved unfounded, those hours at the mercy of an authoritarian regime left their mark.

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