The British government was criticised strongly at the ICCL conference for its failure to instigate public inquiries into the killing of lawyers Mr Pat Finucane and Ms Rosemary Nelson.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence and Impartiality of Lawyers and Judges, Mr Param Cumaraswamy, said he found it "extremely difficult to understand" the position adopted by the British government on the 1989 killing of Mr Finucane. He said he would continue to press for an inquiry, "not so much to ascertain or bring the person accused of the murder to justice, but more to inquire into whether there was in fact security-force collusion in that murder".
Mr Finucane's son, Michael, and Mr Eunan Magee, the brother of Ms Nelson, also spoke to delegates attending the Irish Council for Civil Liberties conference on Saturday. In February 1989 loyalist gunmen forced their way into the north Belfast home of Mr Finucane and shot him dead in front of his family. Ms Nelson was killed in March 1999, when an under-car device exploded as she drove from her Lurgan home. That assassination was claimed by the dissident loyalist grouping, the Red Hand Defenders. "If the Patrick Finucane murder had been thoroughly investigated, including all aspects of security-force collusion, Rosemary Nelson's life would have been spared," added Mr Cumaraswamy.
He called on campaigning human rights organisations to send timely information to UN representatives. "What we need to see today in the United Nations is to try to go quickly to prevent damage, not to go later to control damage."
Ms Jane Winter, director of the British-Irish Rights Watch group, said Britain did not seem to care about the allegations of collusion linked to both killings.
She repeated her call for a public inquiry into the killing of Ms Nelson and urged Dublin to support the request. The killing is currently being investigated by a team of detectives headed by the Deputy Chief Constable of Norfolk police, Mr Colin Port. A number of arrests have been made, including a former member of the RIR, but no charges have been brought. After 14 months the time had come, she added, for the Government to lend its name to the call for a public inquiry.
Ms Winter said her organisation had sent two recent reports to the British government containing allegations that a Force Research Unit, a secret unit within British army intelligence, had targeted Mr Finucane, and the RUC Special Branch had incited the killing. She said government ministers had "neither denied nor rebutted" the allegations. "Neither have they given us a response." Mr Finucane said the support his family had received from around the world meant the British government would not be able to sweep his father's assassination "under the domestic carpet".
He said the killing began a journey for his family "to the heart of what was and is Northern Ireland itself. Eleven years of asking questions have provided little in the way of answers, much in the way of further, deeper questions.
"But what we now know was described recently by my mother as `terrifying' and, having seen the evidence with my own eyes, I can say this description is an understatement," said Mr Finucane. Mr Magee said his sister was simply "an ordinary girl doing an extraordinary job". He added:
"We believe Rosemary should never have been subjected to death threats or abuse from those who claim to uphold the law."