Combating Atrocity Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, my great friend, for securing this debate and congratulate him on introducing his Genocide Determination Bill this morning. I will of course be supporting him.

Only a few years ago, I, too, promoted a genocide prevention and response Bill. It completed all its stages in this House and it was meant to proceed to the other place, but we then had an election. I remind the House that, at the time, when in opposition, my great friend the Minister supported my Bill. He said:

“The solution in the Bill is absolutely vital. It is to put on a statutory footing this special hub within the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, which will monitor and evaluate processes and keep in touch with developments taking place and research being done”.—[Official Report, 22/3/24; col. 456.]


As I said, my Bill did not go through. That is a warning to all who come up well in the Private Members’ Bills ballot.

I hope that the Government have not lost that support and that it has not dissolved, because a lot has changed in our world over the past two years, unfortunately for the worse. We witness not only the highest number of conflicts and atrocity crimes since World War II but a global unravelling of the international rules-based order—a dismantling that will cost us dearly in the long run.

I start with the United States. I am going to mention the inspiration from Elie Wiesel that shaped some of the approaches that were taken by the US before the current Administration. The late Elie Wiesel, who I had the good fortune of getting to know and to meet several times, was a survivor of the Holocaust and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and he understood better than most the consequences of indifference. His warning was simple but profound:

“Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim”.


That principle inspired the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act in the United States. The Act recognised that genocide and mass atrocities do not happen overnight. They are preceded by warning signs that slowly but surely progress into full-blown atrocities.

For many years, the United States played a leading role in building international mechanisms for atrocity prevention. The Elie Wiesel Act was the cornerstone of it. The US invested in expertise, early-warning systems and dedicated structures within government capable of identifying risks before they became catastrophes. I had the good fortune of working with many of the lawyers who were involved in that. These structures inside the State Department were not perfect but were far more advanced than anywhere else in the world. Today, however, many of these structures have, I am afraid, been dismantled.

As conflicts are multiplying and international norms are under strain, institutional capacity for atrocity prevention is being reduced. In the long term, the price we will pay for this is much higher than anything that can be saved in the short term.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is undergoing restructuring again in the name of cutting costs. There are concerns that the atrocity prevention hub—which already exists but is small—and the expertise that it contains may disappear or be absorbed into broader structures. That would be a serious mistake that we would feel for decades to come. For now, we are being told that those reports are incorrect. I hope that is true, but we are not provided with any information in relation to these changes and how they will affect the UK’s work on atrocity prevention and responses. What risk assessment was done before any of the proposed changes? How are the changes going to affect our ability to prevent and respond to atrocity crimes? How are they going to affect victims? Atrocity prevention requires dedicated expertise and it requires people engaged with identifying risks, analysing warning signs and ensuring that His Majesty’s Government act before the early warning signs turn into atrocities.

Without a clear and comprehensive mechanism for atrocity prevention and responses, we will be more prone to the mistake of politicising genocide. Our responses will depend not on the suffering of victims but on the identity of perpetrators, our strategic alliances—where we soft-pedal on whom we may be witnessing committing terrible crimes—or geopolitical interests. The result is a system marked by double standards. When genocide becomes a political label deployed selectively, its power is diminished. Victims notice the inconsistency and, even worse, perpetrators notice it too and feel empowered. This challenge is particularly visible in the example, already given by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, of China. The evidence relating to the persecution and genocide of the Uyghurs has been extensively documented by human rights organisations, yet too often our willingness to confront these abuses is constrained by economic dependence and trade relationships. I do not resile from my view that trade is important and prosperity matters, but economic interests cannot be an excuse for silence in the face of atrocity crimes.

Another warning sign that is too often ignored is the growing attack on journalists. Across numerous conflicts and atrocity situations, journalists are increasingly targeted, intimidated or killed. We have seen restrictions on reporting and attacks on independent media in places such as Gaza. Journalists from outside were not allowed in and still are not. In India, we get no coverage now of what is happening in Kashmir or Assam. Then there are Ethiopia and Afghanistan—the list goes on. This matters because atrocities thrive in darkness. Over 200 journalists in Gaza have been killed. Protecting journalists is therefore an essential component of atrocity prevention and accountability.

Throughout these crises, one reality remains painfully constant: children continue to be among the primary victims. We have spoken—this is close to my heart—about what happens to women, with the weaponising of sexual violence in conflict, but children too continue to bear the consequences of our collective failures. We see it in Gaza and in Russia in the war on Ukraine, with the abduction of children for forced adoptions. We are seeing serious war crimes across all conflicts, with children being a significant percentage of victims of conflict-related sexual violence and many other atrocities. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, mentioned Sudan, and sexual violence towards children has been one of the signatures of that terrible conflict.

I end by emphasising that we know more than ever before about how atrocities develop. We know the warning signs and we know that institutions can help to prevent them. We know the importance of independent journalism, strong diplomacy, international co-operation and political courage. The United Kingdom has the expertise, diplomatic reach and moral authority to lead. Are we prepared to show that leadership?