My Lords, in opening this short debate I must declare that I am a patron of the Coalition for Genocide Response, and thank its founders, Luke de Pulford and Dr Ewelina Ochab, for their briefing note. I also thank the Library for its briefing note, and all participants, who will bring great expertise and knowledge to our proceedings. I also serve as a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Groups on Burma, Uyghurs, Rohingya, and Hong Kong, and as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Eritrea.
Dag Hammarskjöld, a truly inspirational Sectary-General of the United Nations, once said that the United Nations
“was not created to take mankind to heaven, but to save humanity from hell.”
But as we will hear this evening, from Xinjiang to Burma, from Tigray to Nigeria, from Iraq to Sudan, and in many other parts of the world, the international community has fallen a long way short in saving millions of people from the hell of genocide and from atrocity crimes. While the victims suffer appalling violations, the perpetrators strut the world stage, confident of their impunity and the triumph of mercantile and other interests over our convention duties to prevent, to protect and to prosecute those responsible for these heinous crimes.
In the post-war years, men such as Raphael Lemkin, and women such as Eleanor Roosevelt, bequeathed the institutions that emerged from the ashes of Auschwitz—notably the International Court of Justice and, later, the International Criminal Court. It is to those bodies that the United Kingdom Government defer, stating as recently as this week, in reply to a Parliamentary Question, that
“The UK is fully committed to honouring its legal obligations under the Genocide Convention. The Government’s longstanding policy is that any judgment on whether genocide has occurred is a matter for competent courts. These include international courts, such as the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, and national criminal courts that meet international standards of due process.”
My Lords, I pay tribute to the work of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and as a trustee of Burma Campaign UK, I will focus on Burma.
For decades the Tatmadaw has been committing human rights violations that break international law. The impunity it has enjoyed only encouraged further crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing. The genocidal campaign against the Rohingya in 2016 and 2017 caused thousands of deaths, and over 800,000 fled to Bangladesh.
Last year more than 100 parliamentarians of all parties and none, including many in this House, wrote to the Foreign Secretary urging him to formally support the Gambia’s case against Myanmar at the ICJ to protect the Rohingya. Regrettably, the British Government have not fully implemented the recommendations of the UN fact-finding mission on Myanmar, set up in response to the Rohingya genocide as well as the unlawful violations against other ethnic groups in Kachin and Shan states. The letter warned that it was essential to uphold the genocide convention to deter further crimes by the Tatmadaw. Sadly, since then the military has removed the democratically elected NLD Government from office, has imposed military control and is indiscriminately killing Burmese of all ethnicities.
The Minister may reply that the UK has welcomed the Gambia’s case at the ICJ, but he needs to explain why a formal UK intervention may not add value. Furthermore, as a member of the UN Security Council the UK should use its diplomatic standing—especially with our history in Burma, as well as our expertise with the PSVI initiative—to join this action with Canada and the Netherlands. Failure by the UK to show leadership and uphold human rights by formally joining the ICJ case sends a dangerous message that ethnic cleansing and genocide are acceptable tools for repressive Governments around the world. The UK has an historic opportunity to make this a watershed moment in international law, and I hope we take it.
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for all the work he does in this area and for the passionate way in which he introduced this debate.
I will start with a quote:
“The United States will provide no support or recognition to the International Criminal Court. As far as America is concerned the ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority.”
Not surprisingly, those are the words of Donald Trump, addressing the United Nations General Assembly in September 2018. In 2020 President Trump issued a sweeping executive order authorising asset freezing and family bans against Fatou Bensouda, the ICC chief prosecutor, and took away her visa. Trump said that anybody who assists ICC investigations risks the same sanctions. Of course, this has had a broad, chilling effect on co-operation with the ICC.
Trump indicated that his policy of sanctions might extend to allies—specifically Israel—and demanded that the ICC change its course. The ICC prosecutor concluded in December 2019, after examination, that all the statutory criteria to proceed with a formal investigation in Palestine had been met, but the court is currently seeking a ruling on jurisdiction.
Not surprisingly, neither China nor Myanmar submits to the jurisdiction of the ICC, although 123 countries have ratified the Rome statute. The threat of investigation by the ICC prosecutor resulted in a significant change of government policy under the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill, which was recently before us, when genocide, torture and war crimes were at the last gasp omitted from the presumption against prosecution. That they had ever found their way into that Bill is a disgrace.
The most effective thing that can be done just at the moment to tackle genocide is for this country actively to persuade the Biden Administration to take up the responsibility and to ratify the Rome treaty. Is this happening?
My Lords, I have joined this debate to show my support for the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, who attack the problem of genocide with fantastic energy, and also to urge the Minister to take more notice of what is being said. I urge him to look at the report of yesterday morning’s sitting of the International Relations and Defence Committee, when the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, gave evidence in respect of China.
I find it embarrassing that, as a Government, we say that we want to be global leaders, but we leave it to Lithuania, Canada, the United States and Holland to call out the genocide that is occurring in China. I say to my noble friend that I have a suspicion that the Government would be prepared to do a bilateral trade deal with China even if it were guilty of genocide—so perhaps he will make it absolutely clear that we will never do a bilateral trade deal with any country accused of genocide.
During the passage of the Trade Bill the Government gave a commitment to set up a committee of both Houses. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, referred to that. Why has it not happened, and when will it happen? Last week we were able to put in place 33 committees on the nod—so why have we not been able to set up either a committee of this House or the joint committee proposed by the Government?
I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and I agree with every word he said. I hope that the Minister will not come back in this debate and repeat the same arguments about genocide being a matter for the courts, when he knows perfectly well that the perpetrators and those who support them will prevent that being achieved internationally.
My Lords, I strongly support the argument made by my noble friend Lord Alton: the failure to hold perpetrators of genocide to account gives them a green light to continue. The failure of the international community to respond to the Armenian genocide emboldened Hitler to embark on the Holocaust, with his infamous remark,
“Who … speaks today about the annihilation of the Armenians?”
Yet Her Majesty’s Government still refuse to recognise the Armenian genocide and have done nothing to end the impunity with which Turkey and Azerbaijan commit genocide against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, as argued by Genocide Watch. We hope there will be a much more appropriate response to Azerbaijan’s recent incursion into the sovereign state of Amenia, with the killing and capture of Armenian soldiers.
In Myanmar the military regime continues its aggression. Since February, more than 785 civilians have been murdered, including at least 52 children, 5,000 are detained and tens of thousands displaced, in addition to the mass exodus of Rohingya refugees. Time only allows one example of military aggression. In the town of Mindat, in Chin State, as reported by Dr Sasa, speaking on behalf of the National Unity Government, homes were destroyed by tanks and helicopters, anyone trying to help the wounded was arrested, screams of pain were heard as captured civilians were tortured, and many were used as human shields. Dr Sasa pleaded:
“When will the world stop the military generals before they commit another genocide?”
A similar question applies to Nigeria’s Middle Belt, with escalating attacks by Islamist groups, thousands of Christians killed, and hundreds of thousands displaced. Many Muslims who refuse to adopt an Islamist ideology have also been killed. Will Her Majesty’s Government therefore fulfil their obligations under the genocide convention to prevent, protect and punish? The longer we tolerate these massacres and atrocities, the more we embolden the perpetrators, giving them a green light to continue their genocidal policies with impunity.
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The Lord Bishop of Blackburn
My Lords, I want to say something about timing, referred to in the moving introductory speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for which we are very grateful.
We face two problems in bringing perpetrators of genocide to justice. One is the length of time it takes for such atrocities to cease, as it is extremely difficult to stop acts while they are happening; it is only after the genocide has ended that moves to accountability seem to kick in, and then it takes years to gather evidence while the perpetrators run free. What is needed is a far more effective early warning system that triggers action much sooner to stop the genocide in its tracks before it does more damage. With modern communication, surely it is not hard to learn of and know of these atrocities; the problem comes in preventing them continuing when access is likely to be denied, lies are told to cover the evil and attempts at intervention are resisted by claims about the sovereignty of the nation state.
I learned recently of an attempt in World War II to intervene in a totally unconventional way. Some may know the extraordinary story in a book entitled The Volunteer by Jack Fairweather. It tells of a Polish man, Witold Pilecki, a farmer, husband and father of two who allowed himself to be arrested in order to be sent to Auschwitz. Despite much personal suffering, he tried to persuade the outside world of the atrocities he was witnessing through sending a series of smuggled messages, but the horror was so great that many people did not believe what he was saying—even here in the UK. So nothing was done to begin with, and the genocide continued.
A similar story surrounds Emily Hobhouse, who came from the UK. She visited South Africa but, when she returned here, she was not believed when she reported on the concentration camps and tactics employed by the British Empire against the Boers. She found herself ostracised here and returned to South Africa, where she is feted and memorialised.
An atrocity can sound so extreme or even unlikely when it is reported that it is not believed and is allowed to run on for too long while nothing is done about it; or, having learned of an evil, it seems that there is nothing anyone can do but pray and wait. While we ask the Minister to speed up the route to justice for perpetrators of genocide, may I seek an assurance that effort will also be given to finding ways to intervene and stop genocide while it is actually taking place, and so save and protect precious lives?
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on securing this important debate and thank him for all that he does.
I commend the Government on its proactive work on UN Resolution 2379, establishing an investigative body on Daesh’s atrocities in Iraq, and for the good work that has been done collecting and preserving evidence for future prosecutions. However, similar steps need to be taken in the case of the atrocities in Xinjiang; I urge Her Majesty’s Government to create a mechanism that will collect and preserve the evidence of the atrocities against the Uighurs for future prosecutions. I acknowledge that while China has the P5 veto, the Security Council may not be the right vehicle for such a mechanism, but I urge my noble friend the Minister to examine the proposals put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Alton.
If we want to ensure that justice is done in future, we must ensure that evidence is not destroyed and witnesses are not pressurised into silence. However, we must be consistent. After the atrocities of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994, the perpetrators, including high-level government officials and other key figures, fled to Europe and North America. Some returned home to Rwanda to be tried. Others were extradited back to Rwanda or prosecuted in domestic courts of the country of their residence under the principle of universal jurisdiction—but, sadly and embarrassingly, not here in the UK.
Since 2006, efforts to extradite the five known Rwandan suspects alleged to have been involved in the genocide against the Tutsi have failed, as have efforts to try them here in the UK. The newly constituted All-Party Parliamentary Group on War Crimes is campaigning hard to urge Her Majesty’s Government to do the right thing. Five suspects accused of heinous crimes against humanity are living peacefully on our shores. I ask my noble friend the Minister: what is the point of campaigning for justice abroad if we fail to deliver justice at home?
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for securing this debate and for his tireless work on genocide and other egregious human rights violations. We are legally bound by the 1948 convention to take all reasonable steps to punish and to prevent genocide. How many times have we said “never again”, despite inadequate action to break the cycle of it? Nothing will change unless we find a route to legal accountability and justice.
Regrettably, the Government’s actions fall short of their own rhetoric; they are slow to bring forward Magnitsky sanctions and are avoiding reform of supply chain legislation. They are in defiance of the House of Commons recognition of genocides and your Lordships’ overwhelming support for a judicial route to determination. They have prioritised their ability to enter trade negotiations with China over a process to assess the Uighur case. The Government hold an untenable position on the determination of genocide. You cannot say “genocide determination is for a court” when, with Chinese and Russian vetoes, no court will ever hear the case. Their policy is inoperable and now they must come forward with credible alternatives. They must continue to explore all legal routes to justice.
There are options. My honourable friend Stephen Kinnock urged the Foreign Secretary to introduce a UNGA resolution requesting an advisory opinion from the ICJ on the question of Uighur genocide and to explore legal avenues through other treaties and conventions, like the Convention against Torture, to which China is a signatory. If there was sufficient evidence against individuals, and they were to travel internationally, countries could assume jurisdiction to try those responsible for Uighur policies. France created a genocide unit to investigate and prosecute such offences and in May 2020 arrested a suspect in connection with the genocide in Rwanda.
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But as became clear during our proceedings on the genocide amendment to the Trade Bill, this is simply a convenient sleight of hand, disguising the shameful inability—or perhaps unwillingness—to bring perpetrators of genocide to justice. The Government cannot plausibly offer that response, simultaneously telling us that Russia and China will invariably use their Security Council veto to close routes to the international courts, while the Government themselves close routes to domestic courts.
The all-party genocide amendment to the Trade Bill offered a way out of the cul-de-sac and a route to our national courts, and it was given three-figure majorities in the House but opposed by the Government. My noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead, a former Supreme Court judge, and others, told the House that the current arrangements simply do not work and that our High Court was perfectly capable of adjudicating on whether a genocide is under way. When the proposal came within a whisker of defeat in the Commons, the Government offered the compromise of a committee to examine allegations of genocide. I have given the Minister notice that I would like to know when such a committee will be established to examine whether the Uighurs, for instance, are subject to a genocide. Can he also confirm that, even if a parliamentary committee determines that a genocide is under way, the Government will still not accept such a determination and intend to continue to say that it is just a matter that the courts can determine?
The Committee should note that a legal opinion from Alison Macdonald QC and Essex Court Chambers concluded that there is credible evidence of genocide in Xinjiang. We should also note that, on 22 April, the House of Commons voted to declare the crimes against the Uighurs in Xinjiang to be a genocide. The United States, Canada and European countries such as the Netherlands and Lithuania have all done the same, but not the United Kingdom Government.
On 27 April, the Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, appeared before the House of Lords Select Committee on International Relations and Defence. I asked him whether it was his intention to accept the Commons declaration. In reply, he said that
“Parliament should hold the executive to account on all these matters. That has been our position all along. Our long-standing position is that a court should make judgments on genocide. Fundamentally, genocide creates obligation at the state level”.
Yes, he is right—we have treaty obligations at the state level—but we and others repeatedly fail to meet them, and refuse to reform our domestic and international mechanisms to address this lamentable failure.
When Mr Raab told the committee that he is an “ardent … reformer”, I asked him what we are doing to increase the efficacy of international institutions, to gather support for the proposed code of conduct regarding Security Council action against genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and in combatting genocide. On the code of conduct he said:
“We are a signatory to the accountability, coherence and transparency code of conduct … That allows all members of the Security Council, permanent and non-permanent, to make public commitments not to vote against credible resolutions intended to prevent mass human rights abuses.”
Perhaps the Minister can tell us this evening what progress this proposal is making and whether, realistically, in the absence of support by China or Russia, he honestly believes it will save a single life.
Mr Raab rightly warned the committee about the potential misuse of the word genocide. It is precisely because the definition is exacting that I agree with the Government that a court should evaluate the evidence and make the determination. But there is no point identifying the problem without willing the solution. This has become a circular argument, and it was to break this vicious circle that noble Lords tabled the genocide amendment—and why we are here again today. Voluntary codes of conduct are all very well, but at the United Nations Human Rights Council, Dominic Raab rightly said that what is happening in Xinjiang is “on an industrial scale”. That needs much more than a voluntary code of conduct. The Foreign Secretary told us legislative attempts in both Houses had “shifted the dial.” Perhaps, with the Biden Administration, we can push the dial further.
We have already worked together on Magnitsky sanctions, announced on 6 July 2020, and for which the Foreign Secretary, and indeed the noble Lord the Minister, deserve credit, but those sanctions are not a response to genocide. I have sent the Minister a recent Financial Times review of Geoffrey Robertson QC’s new book, Bad People. In summary, he argues that the sanctions regime is too opaque and liable to be used against soft targets rather than the worst villains. It does seem passing strange that a functionary such as Chen Quanguo, the CCP party secretary in Tibet and then Xinjiang, remains unsanctioned, as does Carrie Lam, in Hong Kong. Oversight of the Magnitsky sanctions by a Select Committee of your Lordships’ House is urgently needed.
I note, incidentally, as someone who has himself been sanctioned by the CCP for drawing attention to genocide against the Uighurs, that the European Parliament has frozen the EU-China infrastructure deal until sanctions against their parliamentarians are lifted. By contrast, in the UK, our Trade Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, tells us it his ambition to deepen trading links with a state credibly accused of genocide. Let me ask the Minister quite directly: does he think that it is ever licit to seek to deepen trade with a country credibly accused of genocide, or, for that matter, one which uses slave labour?
Will the Minister also provide a response to the recommendations in the Coalition for Genocide Response briefing? I would especially like a response on what it says about universal jurisdiction; prosecution in UK courts of Daesh fighters for their involvement in the genocide against Yazidis, Christians, gay people and others; and the importance of establishing a mechanism for evidence collection and preservation, about which I have written to the Minister, and which is urgently needed in Tigray, where there are reports of mass graves, rape as a weapon of war, summary executions and the targeting of religious figures—these are all detailed in the briefing provided by CSW to noble Lords.
It tells us all we need to know that China and Russia blocked attempts to discuss the allegations about what is under way in Tigray at the United Nations Security Council, while the 2016 recommendations of the UN commission of inquiry on Eritrea, which is now embroiled in Tigray, have never been implemented.
Can the Minister also say what we are doing to bring Burma’s illegal junta to justice and, in the light of the atrocities against Rohingya and Kachin, what we are going to do to take forward the Gambia’s admirable decision to pursue the Burmese military at the ICJ?
The dial may be shifting, but it is not fast enough for beleaguered and suffering people in Burma, Tigray, northern Nigeria, Xinjiang and elsewhere. Dag Hammarskjöld’s ambition to create effective mechanisms
“to save humanity from hell”
remains unfulfilled, but we must not throw in the towel. We have clear duties to hold to account those responsible for atrocity crimes and genocide, and in meeting those obligations we must redouble our efforts. Once again, I thank all noble Lords who have entered the list to speak tonight.
Another option is bringing cases against Chinese officials at the ICC. China does not accept that jurisdiction, but, as a basis for jurisdiction, lawyers for exiled Uighurs claim some victims were kidnapped from Cambodia and Tajikistan, which do recognise the court. If not these, what credible alternatives do the Government have?