Last month, the independent Uyghur Tribunal found that the Chinese government’s “deliberate, systematic and concerted policy” of population reduction – through forcible sterilisation and forced abortions – amounted to a genocide against the Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim groups in China.
I was there, in Westminster’s Church Hall, as Geoffrey Nice read out the tribunal’s judgement.
I remember thinking to myself, ‘what if…?’ What if a similar tribunal had taken place 80 years ago, in 1941, as millions of Jews were rounded-up and marched to their death as part of the Nazi regime’s ‘final solution’ to eradicate Europe’s Jewish population. What if a ruling was passed then, pressuring governments to – in the words of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention – “use all means reasonably available to ensure the cessation of ongoing genocide, including conducting due diligence to ensure it is not assisting, aiding, abetting or otherwise allowing the continuation of genocide”.
