Genocide: Bringing Perpetrators to Justice

Baroness Goudie Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Goudie (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank my good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for arranging for this debate today and for the leadership he has given across party in the House of Lords on all these issues and on others.

Her Majesty’s Government are second to none in paying eloquent lip service to bringing the perpetrators of genocide to justice. The value of this question is that it focuses attention on accenting this in practice. The Government’s record is lamentable. The rights of victims are valueless without effective remedies. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and his four points, which the Government must look at clearly. There has to be effective machinery both to identify the perpetrators of genocide and to bring them before the courts, but this is not happening. We should ensure that we set up the Joint Committee, as promised by the Government recently, as soon as possible. Further, we should look at all trade deals so that we do not trade with countries that are committing genocide or about to do so. We know from various indexes when genocide is starting to be perpetrated. The killing of women and children by the perpetrators is always the first sign that something is wrong, because they are such cowards. I ask the Government to look again at the trade deals and to look at the four points of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. We cannot be a world leader and continue to let this go by.