Genocide Determination Bill [HL]

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 28th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate, who, like other speakers, set out the route by which we arrived at this Second Reading of the Bill—it was painful and too long. I support the Bill for a very simple reason: it helps to fill a gap in the implementation of our British international obligations under the 1948 genocide convention, signed and ratified by this Parliament, but all too often overlooked when heinous crimes are actually being committed. It is thus an essential reform, if we mean it when we say that we are stalwart backers of the rules-based international order.

As other speakers have said, the 1948 convention was of course a response to the Holocaust, designed to give effect to the worldwide feeling of revulsion and to the cry of “never again”. Unfortunately, that cry has proved to be grossly overoptimistic and, since then, there has been a rising number of instances of genocide. Some of them—those in Rwanda and Cambodia and at Srebrenica—were tried and punished, however belatedly, in international courts, but many were left untried and unpunished. Most shamefully perhaps of these were the genocide against Iraqi Yazidis by IS and the treatment of Rohingya Muslims in Burma—and there have been others.

Unfortunately, and misguidedly in my view, our Government have, so far, declined to take any steps to define emerging acts of genocide, either ones in the making or even those that are under way. They have sheltered behind the excuse that the determination of genocide lies in the hands of international tribunals, even when they know perfectly well, as we all do, that in some instances—the Uighurs in Xinjiang, for example —such a determination by an international tribunal will likely never be forthcoming. As someone whose conscience was scarred by sitting as Britain’s representative on the UN Security Council during the Rwanda and Srebrenica genocides, I say that this excuse—that is what it is—is shameful. It has been called a Gordian knot, something to be cut with a knife, but I would call it a Catch-22: a convoluted way of ensuring that nothing is done to determine whether a genocide is taking place, even when we know that it is.

This Bill will remedy that lacuna in our performance of our obligations under the genocide convention. It will not in itself prevent further genocides, but it will be a building block in deterring them and provide a basis for taking action against those perpetrating such appalling crimes. For the benefit of those who have marshalled the arguments in the FCDO, for which I used to work, I add that it would also, incidentally, provide a safeguard against excessively loose accusations of genocide. I hope therefore that the Government will feel able to assist the Bill’s passage into law in both Houses.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his response. In his concluding remarks, I heard him say that the Government “are continuing to look at” this question, which at least leaves a door ajar. I therefore hope that the Government will support the committal of this Bill to a Committee of the Whole House, and that we can then start to look at the detail he has been discussing. I was very struck by his answer to my intervention, which was about the Human Rights Council but also the implications for the Security Council. Some countries veto any kind of action being taken on any issue concerning human rights, crimes against humanity, genocide or whatever it may be, on the “ladder” that the noble Lord, Lord Collins, was right to refer to.

We have heard a series of compelling and powerful speeches from all sides of the House on why our response to this horrific and grotesque crime of genocide must change. The noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, a former Minister, endlessly had to give the same arguments from the Dispatch Box that the current Minister has given today. We have heard these arguments as recently as this week, in a Procurement Bill Grand Committee debate about forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong and Uighurs in Xinjiang. In the Moses Room, the Minister said that this is a matter for the courts and not something on which the Government can decide. Yet little changes, even when the courts do decide—as in Germany recently, where, on the issue of the Yazidis in northern Iraq, the courts found that there was genocide. Why has that not changed the definition we are able to make, at least on that significant point, without there having to be further intervention?

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

Both the noble Lord, Lord Mann, and the Minister recognised that these are very complex matters. Surely, the answer to that is to say, “Yes, they are very complex matters, and that is why we need legislation such as that put forward by Lord Alton”. That would enable a court—not the Government, not Parliament—to say, “Yes, that is genocide”, or, “No, sorry, it isn’t genocide but it is a crime against humanity”. That is the case for this legislation and the very complexity of it.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

It is indeed. As our former distinguished ambassador to the UN has reminded us, we have had our consciences scarred so many times, whether in Rwanda, which my noble friend referred to earlier, or any of these other situations. We have a duty to act, yet, as he also said, what we have at the moment is a Catch-22 situation where we suggest that something is being done when we know that it is not.

The noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, with all the authority of a former Defence Secretary and Cabinet Minister, said that this is about not just good law but what we are compelled to do, and that it is consistent with our policy that this is a matter for the courts.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, quoted Raphael Lemkin’s role. More than 40 of his family were murdered in the Holocaust. He gave us this word “genocide” to answer the question that Winston Churchill posed about why this was a crime that we could not even describe.

The right reverend prelate the Bishop of Exeter reminded us of our commitment that we have to honour under recommendation 7 of the Truro report, which the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, referred to. He also reminded us of a quotation, which the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, referred to as well, from William Wilberforce: you can choose to look the other way but you cannot say that you did not know.

The noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, said that we should not even need to have this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Mann, quite rightly said that there will be detail that we need to resolve and that this is not an answer to all these problems—I never suggested that it is.

I was very struck by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Darzi. I have read The Forty Days of Musa Dagh by the Jewish writer, Franz Werfel. It is a novel about the experiences of the Armenians during their genocide. It is a very powerful account. It is not surprising that Adolf Hitler had that Jewish writer’s books burned, because, as the noble Lord told us, Hitler himself said, “Who now remembers the Armenians?”—effectively, “Why should we worry when nobody else seems to worry?”

I have been to Nagorno-Karabakh with my noble friend Lady Cox. I took my daughter with me, and said to her, “If ever you go into public life, speak up for those for whom there is no voice”. My grandfather gave me pictures that he brought back from the Holy Land during the First World War that showed executed Armenians who had been murdered as the Ottoman Turks retreated from Jerusalem. We saw those same photographs in the genocide museum in Yerevan. I was personally very taken not only by what the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, had to say but by what everyone has said in this debate.

This Bill should be committed to a Committee and we should have further discussion. We should thrash out the details and honour the promises that were given to me by two former Foreign Secretaries, who are also now former Prime Ministers. We should be as good as our word in politics. They said that this would be reformed. This Bill provides an opportunity for it to be reformed. I commend it to the House.