The United Kingdom is obstructing attempts by European Union institutions to accede to the European Convention of Human Rights, British center-left MEP Richard Howitt has said. "The United Kingdom in a working group in the council for the past year has at every stage dragged out and tried to delay recommendations on the accession," Howitt, the assembly's rapporteur on human rights, told EUobserver over the phone on Thursday (19 April). "At first it was France and the United Kingdom; now it's just the United Kingdom. It's shameful," he added. EU institutions obliged themselves to accede to the convention, a 60-year...