Genocide Determination Bill [HL]

Lord Taylor of Goss Moor Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 28th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, at the outset, I express my thanks to all those Members of your Lordships’ House who are participating today and my appreciation for their greatly valued support for this crucial legislation.

In their unavoidable absence, I have been asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, KC, and my noble friends Lord Carlile of Berriew, KC and Lady D’Souza to put their support for the Bill on the record. I refer to my interests in the register and thank the Coalition for Genocide Response, of which I am a patron, Dr Ewelina Ochab and the House of Lords Library for their help in preparing for today’s debate.

Let me frame the debate with a remark made by Boris Johnson when he was Foreign Secretary as the House of Commons voted to recognise the atrocities in northern Iraq as a genocide against the Yazidis, which the Foreign and Commonwealth Office refused to do. On 28 March 2016, writing in the Daily Telegraph, he said:

“Isis are engaged in what can only be called genocide of the poor Yazidis, though for some baffling reason the Foreign Office still hesitates to use the term genocide.”


This Bill, with all-party support, seeks to remedy his bafflement.

This House and another place are well aware of the causes of that bafflement because there is no adequate mechanism for making a determination of genocide. Following debates on the Trade Bill and amendments passed here with three-figure majorities, the Government recognised the problem and offered a solution in Section 3 of the Trade Act 2021. However, as many noble Lords predicted at the time, it is so narrow in scope that it ultimately cannot provide an effective mechanism for genocide determination or, indeed, the determination of the serious risk of genocide. That is what this Bill seeks to address.

During those powerful debates last year—many of the noble Lords present in the House today participated in them—we heard in speech after speech examples of the consequences of failing to recognise genocide and the risk of genocide for what it is, as well as of our failure to honour the obligations laid on us to predict, prevent, protect and prosecute. Next year will mark the 75th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, but we are nowhere near having clear mechanisms to help us deliver on the duty contained therein to prevent the very core of the convention—“never again”—happening all over again.

These are not theoretical debates. As we will hear from Members of your Lordships’ House—the noble Lord, Lord Collins, indicated in an earlier debate that places such as Tigray will no doubt be referred to during our proceedings here—these challenges are current and contemporary. When we do not face the same existential realities, the pain, suffering and human consequences may sometimes seem too abstract or remote. However, when we attached this nation’s signature to the genocide convention, we accepted a solemn and binding duty to use our voice and place among the nations to prevent constant recurrence of this crime above all other crimes.

On Monday in your Lordships’ House, I was able to give the Minister a meticulously documented account of some of the earliest examples of this heinous crime, including against the Herero and Nama, the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust. It traces the origin of the genocide convention and the obligations, to which I referred to, that we entered into. It also addresses what my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead has said is our “dismal failure” to make the convention fit for purpose in our time, and specifically to create a legal mechanism to assess evidence and make determinations, which is what the Bill seeks to do. The account that I gave the Minister, authored by myself and Dr Ochab, also examines what our failures to make determinations of genocide have meant for the Uighurs in China, the Yazidis in Iraq, the Rohingya in Myanmar, the Tigrayans in Ethiopia, Christians in Nigeria and North Korea, the Hazara in Afghanistan and the suffering people of Ukraine.

On Tuesday, during a drop-in session organised by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Yazidis, I personally experienced the “Nobody’s Listening” VR on the Yazidi genocide. This amazing technology brought back vivid and harrowing memories of my visit to Sinjar—of meeting Yazidi and Assyrian survivors of the barbaric atrocities of ISIS, named as a genocide by the House of Commons but never accepted, as I pointed out at the outset of my remarks, by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as such.

Last week, I chaired a session on PSVI in North Korea during an international conference on North Korea, partly hosted by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea—which I founded and am co-chair of—held here in Parliament. Eight years after Justice Kirby and the UN commission of inquiry on North Korea said that crimes against humanity it found in North Korea should be referred to the International Criminal Court, it never has been. Why? Because China would doubtless veto it in the Security Council. Justice Kirby, incidentally, has also said that the targeting of religious minorities such as shamans and Christians might constitute genocide. This is a question never considered by a competent court and, as things stand, most likely never will be.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD)]

I support the noble Lord very strongly. He mentioned Ukraine, so does he agree that, given the language used, the actions of Putin and those around him are clearly a genocide?

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. He will be glad to know that I will come to Ukraine as one of the two examples I want to give your Lordships’ House as I proceed with my remarks.

The meticulous analysis that I referred to and shared with the Minister was written before the shocking discovery of mass graves in Bucha and the hunting down of the Hazara in Afghanistan. How will that be assessed? How will those responsible, like those in North Korea, be held to account? In preceding debates, I have provided details of some of the genocides I have mentioned. Today, I shall refer to and focus on the two cases I have already mentioned.

In the second half of 2021, as the Taliban reimposed its rule on Afghanistan, the Hazara once again became a reviled target. Over the months that have followed, we have witnessed specific attacks on Hazara mosques and the bombing of schools and other community places in the predominantly Hazara regions. These targeted attacks increased in April and May and have led to hundreds of people being killed. On 3 September, the Hazara inquiry, a joint effort of cross-party parliamentarians from both Houses and experts working together revealed atrocities and called for the promotion of justice for the Hazara in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in a report which we published.

As a member of the inquiry team, I chaired some of the hearings and met with several members of the Hazara community. I sent that report to the Minister. It focuses on the situation in Afghanistan since 2021. It found that Hazara in Afghanistan, as a religious and ethnic minority, are at serious risk of genocide at the hands of Islamic State Khorasan Province—IS-K—and the Taliban. Our findings reiterate the responsibility of all states to protect the Hazara and prevent a possible genocide, as we are required to do under the genocide convention and customary international law.

The Taliban have reversed the 20-year progress made in addressing the marginalisation and discrimination experienced by the Hazara minority—gains that were referred to in the report on Afghanistan by your Lordships’ International Relations and Defence Committee, on which I serve. The return to power of the Taliban has included brutal acts of violence against the Hazara throughout Afghanistan and a return to terror. In August 2022 alone, IS-K claimed responsibility for several attacks that resulted in over 120 fatalities in a matter of days. Witnesses told me that they anticipate further attacks because of inaction and impunity in response to the targeting of the Hazara—a trend that is likely to continue.

This underlines the pressing need, in line with our international obligations, at least to examine the evidence, make a determination, and protect the Hazara with at least the knowledge that those responsible for these crimes might one day face justice. Many of us have met Afghans, including some of those women judges who fled to the safety of this country. Their passion for the rule of law is one we must share, and we must not allow “baffling reasons” to prevent us doing so.

Even closer to home, 2022 has shown us that atrocity crimes, and possibly even genocide, may well be happening on European soil in Ukraine. In questions, speeches and letters to Ministers, and during a debate I initiated on 21 July on “Food Insecurity in Developing Countries due to the Blockade of Ukrainian Ports”, in which the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and others in your Lordships’ House participated, I have repeatedly asked for greater clarity on the determination we are attaching to Putin’s atrocities, and encouraged the Minister to invite the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Karim Khan KC, to visit your Lordships’ House to brief us on the ICC’s actions and intentions. I encourage the Minister to facilitate that.

Since Putin’s illegal war on Ukraine began on 24 February, evidence of atrocity crimes, be it war crimes, crimes against humanity and even possible genocide, has accumulated. In May 2022, the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy published a legal analysis of the serious risk of genocide in Ukraine and Russia’s incitement to commit genocide. The report makes two important findings: first, of the existence of a serious risk of genocide; and, secondly, of the direct and public incitement to commit genocide. Among other findings, the report cites a litany of open-source data in relation to both findings, including evidence of mass killings, torture, the use of rape and sexual violence, and deportations of children to Russia, about which I have corresponded with the Minister.

On the serious risk of genocide, the report analyses the risk factors specific to genocide, as per the UN’s Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes, focusing on evidence of Russia’s denial of the very existence of Ukrainians as a people; the history of atrocities committed with impunity; past conflicts over resources or political participation; and signs of genocidal intent, including

“documentation of incitement, targeted physical destruction, widespread or systematic violence, measures that seriously affect reproductive rights or contemplate forcible transfer of children, dehumanizing violence, use of prohibited weapons, strong expressions of approval at control over the protected group, and attacks against homes, farms, and cultural or religious symbols and property.”

No one can deny that these risk factors have been there for a long time, inexorably culminating in Putin’s unleashing of horrific atrocities.

If this has not concentrated our minds on the urgency of a new approach to genocide in this country, most likely nothing ever will. Instead of offering the same old platitudes, it is time to open our eyes to the evidence that is before us, recognise it for what it is, and act upon it.

This Bill would introduce two important mechanisms: one that would empower victims of genocidal atrocities to have the genocide determined by a competent court; and one that would ensure checks and balances, transparency and oversight over the Government’s response to genocide globally.

Let me spell it out. First, in Clause 1, the Bill empowers victims by way of equipping a person or group belonging to a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, or an organisation representing such a person or group, with the power to apply to a court for a preliminary determination that there is a serious risk of genocide or that genocide is being or has been committed. Indeed, we know that, in order to implement the duty to prevent genocide, as explained by the International Court of Justice in its 2007 judgment, a state is required to act upon the serious risk of genocide rather than wait until genocide is being perpetrated.

The preliminary determination is not the end goal in itself. No: it is a crucial determination to trigger responses. Indeed, Clause 3 states that, once the court has made a preliminary determination, the Secretary of State must refer the determination as a finding of a United Kingdom judicial body to the country standing accused of the crime, to other countries that are parties to the genocide convention, and to other bodies, including the International Court of Justice and the United Nations Security Council.

Secondly, in Clause 2 the Bill ensures checks and balances, transparency and oversight over our government responses to genocide globally by way of expanding the already existing mechanism for genocide responses in Section 3 of the Trade Act 2021.

To conclude, the Bill enjoys all-party support. It provides for the same mechanism as the so-called “genocide amendment” that was carried by a majority of 153 and 171 in this House.

Earlier this year, on the anniversary of being sanctioned by the Chinese Communist Party for my actions in relation to the Uighurs and Hong Kong, I was invited, with the other six sanctioned parliamentarians, to a meeting at 10 Downing Street. The then Prime Minister and the then Foreign Secretary told us that they would support the reform of how we deal with genocide. Here is an opportunity for the Government to honour that promise. I beg to move.

Arctic: Security and Co-operation

Lord Taylor of Goss Moor Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con) [V]]

The noble Lord is quite right to point towards the 2018 Arctic policy framework. We remain very committed to its core principles of respect, co-operation and leadership. Equally, however, as I have already alluded to, with temperatures rising three times as fast in the Arctic, we also believe that it is important that we focus on the Arctic, as we will at COP 26, to ensure not only that the Arctic remains a peaceful, stable and well-governed part of the world but that we also seek to tackle the important issues of climate and shared biodiversity. The current statistics are quite concerning, with sea level temperatures in the Arctic rising three times as fast as those in the rest of the world. As a near neighbour, we need to be interested and engaged.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome what the Minister just said about climate. The NATO Secretary-General identified climate change as a crisis multiplier, referring not least to the Russian attempt to define the northern sea route as an historically shaped national transportation corridor. There is a clear intention not just to take control of the route but of course to exploit the Arctic, with plans for huge oil extraction, which will only add to the problems of climate change. Can the Minister reinforce the pressure on all states with an interest in the Arctic not to worsen the climate crisis that we are facing by exploiting oil reserves that previously have been unexploitable?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I agree with the points made by the noble Lord, and we will be working with key partners to ensure that the very areas that he just highlighted remain a key part of our focus in the build-up and planning for COP 26 when we discuss issues in and around the Arctic region.

Environment Bill: Royal Assent

Lord Taylor of Goss Moor Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, it is absolutely our intention that the Bill be passed before COP 26. I note the comments of the noble Lord. Huge progress has been made since the UK assumed the role of president-designate. We have seen huge success at the G7 with all members committed to net zero and steep emissions reductions in the first part of that target—over the next nine years. We have had commitments on nature in the G7 the likes of which we have never seen before. Of course, we now have to turn those words into action.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome the Government’s commitment to a species abundance target. I regard this as even more important than tackling climate change, since the loss of species is irreversible. Will the Government commit to publishing clear tracking data on the reduction in species abundance and on individual species, and to do that in series going backwards as well as forwards, so we can see exactly what is happening and all the public can be properly aware of the significant declines in species in the UK?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord says, we have seen significant declines in biodiversity in recent decades. For a target to be successful, there needs to be a strong element of bench- marking, and that will be a feature of the measures we bring in.

Nagorno-Karabakh: Genocide Emergency Alert

Lord Taylor of Goss Moor Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that we have a responsibility to promote and facilitate peace. That is what we are trying to do in this conflict. I also agree that the US is playing an important role. I mentioned the talks that are happening in Washington and the strong statements from the both the heads of state and the co-chairs of the Minsk Group.

NATO does not have a direct role in the conflict, but the Secretary-General has expressed concern over the escalation of hostilities. NATO is calling for all sides to cease fighting immediately and to find a way towards a peaceful resolution. We strongly support that stance.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD) [V]]

The Minister has just said that NATO does not have a role in the conflict. That is certainly true, as things stand, but clearly the position in the Caucasus could easily escalate, particularly given Turkey’s involvement. Can the Minister be a little more forthcoming about the activity that the Government are undertaking, in particular working to try to change Turkey’s position and to get it involved in seeking peace?

[Baroness Sugg (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I mentioned that we are having regular conversations with Turkey at all levels to assist it in playing a constructive role in bringing about an end to this conflict. Of course, we are aware of its strong partnerships and military relations in the region but it is important that it plays a role in bringing both sides to the table and encouraging negotiation.

Belarus: Presidential Elections

Lord Taylor of Goss Moor Excerpts

Friday 25th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness rightly highlights many of the reasons why the people of Belarus continue to protest for a better future. She mentioned the European Convention on Human Rights; we are committed to that and to protecting and championing human rights at home and abroad. I hope the noble Baroness is reassured that we are pursuing sanctions, and we will continue to demonstrate solidarity with the brave protesters. I spoke to our ambassador this morning, who talked me through all the different ways she is supporting the protesters: both laying wreaths and hosting some of the protesters at the embassy to give them a safe space to talk. Also, UK diplomats have attended the trials of political opponents and independent journalists to show solidarity. I agree with the noble Baroness that human rights are at the heart of this matter.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD) [V]]

I welcome the Minister’s support for the critical investment in the BBC World Service. That was good to hear. Will the Minister also comment on the intervention of President Putin in the affairs of Belarus—with the threat to introduce what are effectively forces into the equation, if requested—and make it clear that the UK would not leave such an intervention without response?

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, we are clear that foreign intervention here would be unacceptable. The international community must come together and help support a dialogue between the authorities in Belarus and its people. Russia has a role in supporting that, and we urge Russia to engage constructively.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Taylor of Goss Moor Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord raises an important point. I assure him that I am certainly engaging directly with high commissioners from across south Asia, particularly those with large diaspora communities. We are mindful of ensuring that they are cognisant of the announcements the Government are making and that, if there is a need for that to be understood more effectively because of a lack of language skills or understanding, that is taken up.

I have been really heartened by the response we have seen from not just responsible citizens but organisations from different communities. As I was coming into your Lordships’ House, I noticed that the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury has just put out a statement about congregational prayers. Equally, we have seen a very responsible attitude by other faith leaders, including in the Muslim community. As noble Lords will know, Friday constitutes an important day of gathering for the Friday prayer. I think of the actions we have seen in other parts of the world. I noticed that the Kuwaitis were encouraging people to remain at home through the call to prayer. These are the nuanced approaches that we should take on board for all communities in the United Kingdom. We should also ensure that we can share positive experiences we have here in the UK internationally.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD)]

My Lords, there have been reports in the last few days that, given the shortages of key medical supplies, the European Union might restrict exports outside the EU of certain supplies and equipment in short supply. Do the Government know if that is happening? If so, would the UK be treated as within the European Union area? In this country, we produce only a small number of ventilators, for example.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, on the specific issue of ventilators, I am sure the noble Lord followed the announcement. We have had a very positive response from various manufacturers in the UK on the issue of addressing any shortfall of ventilators that may occur. He raises an important point on the new restrictions imposed by the European Union. The Commission President has clearly indicated, for example, that medical staff should be able to travel freely into the UK, as are transporters of goods. She has also made clear that UK travellers will not be affected by the measures imposed. We certainly believe that supplies will continue without hindrance. However, there are challenges domestically for each country in the European Union, as we have found here in the UK, and there will undoubtedly be challenges that are taken together on issues of supplies reaching people as efficiently as they are.

I draw an analogy with the challenge we have had in certain supermarkets up and down the country, which has actually been caused not by a certain shortage of food but by people’s practices. Supply chains are set up to cater for a delivery of a certain quantity to a certain place. If a person is going in and buying 10 things instead of one, that has an implication in the supply chain. That is why the Government have implored everyone not to be panicked by this, to be responsible and to look out for each other. Ultimately, if I have one piece of advice to share from the Dispatch Box, it is exactly that: we need to ensure that we look in front of us, behind us and to our left and right to ensure that we are equally looking after those around us, as well as ourselves.