Genocide Determination Bill [HL]

Lord Garnier Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 17th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, as a general rule, I support most of the ideas the noble Lord, Lord Alton, brings to your Lordships’ House, as he is motivated by a genuine desire to improve the state of the world and those who live in it. I join the noble Lord, Lord Wills, in the tributes he paid to the noble Lord, not least because I share with the noble Lord, Lord Alton, a desire to see China—a country which can claim a long and civilised history, and which has brought great intellectual, artistic, scientific and many other benefits to us all—behave in the 21st century in a way that matches the best traditions of that great nation. However, there are far too many contemporary examples of Chinese government conduct towards their own citizens that rightly attract international criticism and condemnation—for example, what they are doing to the Uyghur people, Christians, free thinkers and supporters of freedom of assembly and expression, and to the man whose name should never be forgotten in this Parliament or any other democratic assembly: Jimmy Lai.

However, I query what practical effect this Bill would have on, say, China. My hunch—and it is only a hunch—is that the court would be reluctant to engage in an essentially political question, or at least, one with huge non-legal implications over which it has no control. Unlike Members of Parliament, judges do not table Early Day Motions. They do not initiate 10-minute rule Bills or Adjournment debates in the other place or in Westminster Hall. Although courts sometimes make findings of fact in the absence of contested evidence, I wonder how a court would look at evidence of, say, the alleged killing or mass incarceration of members of an ethnic group by the Chinese Government when we know that China, for good or ill, asserts its innocence of such crimes and the court is unlikely to have received direct evidence of guilt.

Arbitrating political arguments, as opposed to defining the hard facts and legal consequences of a given set of facts, would not be a welcome task for the court. Even if a United Kingdom court made a preliminary determination of a case of genocide, or that there existed a serious risk of genocide in, for example, the case of the Uyghurs, the relevant Secretary of State—for all sorts of good, bad and indifferent trade, political and diplomatic reasons—will have to ask whether, all things considered, it is in our national interest to make a reference under Clause 3 of the Bill. It does not take much imagination to work out what the answer is likely to be. The court will have been used to make a point over which it had no control and which it could not enforce. In reality, the court will have no power over the Secretary of State and even less over the international courts or bodies set out in Clause 3.

To take another regime, the military junta in Myanmar deserves nothing but vilification for what it has done to the Rohingya population. The Gambia brought a case to the International Court of Justice in November 2019, alleging that state-sponsored atrocities in 2017 which forced over 700,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh were committed with genocidal intent. In 2020, the ICJ unanimously ordered Myanmar to take provisional measures to prevent genocidal acts against the Rohingya and to preserve evidence. As far as I can tell, Myanmar has also been accused by rights groups of violating those orders, and it is highly unlikely that they have paid any attention to them at all. During hearings in January, the Gambia presented evidence, including testimony from Rohingya survivors, to demonstrate Myanmar’s genocidal policies. Of course, the Myanmar Government denied these allegations, arguing that the 2017 operations were legitimate counterterrorism measures rather than genocide. Eleven countries, beyond the Gambia, including the United Kingdom, have intervened in those proceedings against Myanmar. So far, so good—and all achieved, if anything has been, without the enactment of this Bill.

At the risk of being unhelpful or jumping on the cynical merry-go-round the noble Lord referred to a moment ago, neither China, Myanmar or any other possible candidate state or Government for censure will change their behaviour if this Bill becomes an Act. We need determined diplomatic, bilateral, internationally organised movement of power. What will affect China and Myanmar is sanctions, is trade being denied. The noble Lord referred to Lord Palmerston. He sent battleships to Piraeus and bombarded that city because one of our citizens had been treated in a disobliging way by the Greeks. We must get real about this. While I entirely accept what the noble Lord is trying to achieve—and yes, I can see the time—this is probably not the best way to do it.