Atrocity Crimes

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2026 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what mechanisms they have in place to evaluate the risk of potential atrocity crimes occurring, including crimes against humanity and genocide; and what measures they take when such risks are identified.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, in welcoming all noble Lords who are participating in this Question for Short Debate on preventing mass atrocities, I begin by thanking the Minister for the interest she has shown in the Standing Group on Atrocity Crimes report. I am a member of that group, and I am grateful too for the meeting she had with myself, the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, and Dr. Ewelina Ochab last week.

I have the honour to chair the Joint Committee on Human Rights and I am patron of the Coalition for Genocide Response. I co-authored a book on our failure to honour the 1948 convention on the crime of genocide, which gives us four obligations: to predict, prevent, protect, and punish. My fundamental complaint, and that of the standing group, is that we do none of these things well. We have no cross-government atrocity prevention strategy, which the Commons International Development Committee has called for.

We live in a world on fire, yet we often seem incapable of making the link between wars in places like Ukraine, Sudan, the Middle East, Burma and elsewhere, with the more than 117 million people forcibly displaced through conflict, violence and persecution, including the 14.3 million people who have been uprooted in Sudan. Those people often end up in small boats, either in the Mediterranean or coming across the English Channel to our shores. We seem incapable of linking the breakdown of international law, conventions and accountability with the emboldening of dictators and autocrats, and what happens when states believe they can get away with war crimes, the seizure of territory, the abduction of civilians, including children, and the bombing of hospitals and schools.

In 1948, foundations were laid for a new world order. The genocide convention and the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights were cornerstones, but we would be deceiving ourselves were we to suggest that this progress is not at risk in this world on fire. In 1959, Dag Hammarskjöld, the United Nations Secretary-General, confidently insisted

“the organization I represent … is based on a philosophy of solidarity”.

Some 80 years after its inaugural session, held just a stone’s throw away from here, Hammarskjöld’s successor says solidarity has been replaced by “powerful forces” that are undermining “global co-operation”.

To challenge this, we should use our place at the Security Council to champion the values of the United Nations charter and the cause of international justice. To do this, we will need to lead by example. We could begin by enacting the all-party amendment currently before the House to the Crime and Policing Bill on universal jurisdiction. We could lead by example by enacting measures to enable the High Court of England and Wales to determine whether a genocide is being committed. I hope the Minister will back these proposals.

Back in 2015, at col. 371, on 19 November, I warned the House of a likely genocide against the Yazidis. In 2019, in northern Iraq, I took first-hand evidence. Notwithstanding that, and 79 Questions and interventions, the Foreign Office declined to act, and it took until 2023 for the FCDO to accept that a genocide had occurred against the Yazidis, and only because a German court concluded that it had—something no British court is empowered to do.

I have repeatedly raised similar threats to Uyghur Muslims, Nigerian Christians, Tibetan Buddhists, North Koreans, Tigrayans, and Burmese Rohingya and Karen. Since the 2017 military coup in Burma, soldiers have butchered men, tortured women, and left over 1 million Rohingya refugees crammed into dilapidated camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar. I saw first-hand in Burma a village that had been torched and heard accounts of mass atrocities. Perhaps the Minister can give us her assessment of the role we are playing at the ICJ in bringing those perpetrators to justice.

Perhaps the Minister will also reflect on where impunity and a lack of justice has led in Sudan, a country which continues to bleed after 1,000 days of war. I first went to Sudan during a civil war which had claimed 2 million lives. After later going to Darfur in 2004, I said, “If this isn’t genocide, what is?” Some 2 million people were displaced and 300,000 people were killed. Omar al-Bashir, the author of these atrocities, although indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide, has never been brought to justice.

Early in 2023, there were reports of new outrages, and later of mass graves. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sudan and South Sudan asked me to chair a fresh inquiry. It led to our APPG report, Genocide: All Over Again in Darfur? It described the consequences of impunity and warned of the impending dangers of inaction. Luis Moreno Ocampo, the International Criminal Court prosecutor who indicted al-Bashir, told our inquiry that for as long as al-Bashir and people like him enjoy impunity, others will think they too can get away with genocide. The United Kingdom should now seek his arrest. In 2023, we concluded that, without justice:

“Whatever happens when the violence in Sudan ends, there will be no lasting and credible peace”.


We said that impunity had to end.

In these 1,000 days of war, 150,000 people have died, either caught in the crossfire or from disease or hunger. Millions are displaced. Christian Aid says that 34 million people are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance, more than 11 million children face a catastrophic crisis of hunger, and at least 770,000 people are at risk of dying from severe acute malnutrition. Last week, there were more deaths and displacements in North Darfur. The International Organization for Migration says that over 8,000 people were displaced from villages in Kernoi locality on Friday alone.

It is outrageous that these corrupt, marauding warlords from both sides, enabled by foreign quartermasters, are also preventing humanitarian aid reaching those most in need. We surely need additional targeted sanctions and a review of UK arms sales to countries that are supplying the SAF and the RSF. We need accountability and justice.

I know the Minister and the Foreign Secretary care deeply about this. I agree with them, but was therefore concerned to read reports that, according to a whistle- blower, Foreign Office officials removed warning of a possible genocide in Sudan from the UK risk assessment. Why and how did that happen?

I hope the Minister will talk about the cuts that are reported to be taking place in the unit dealing with atrocity crimes, and I hope she will look at ways in which joint analysis of conflict and stability reports are made available to Parliament. In our report, we called for early and urgent warning systems to equip local organisations to be able to alert communities to potential threats and provide information on safe routes and shelters.

Between 2000 and 2020, at least 37 countries experienced mass atrocities or had concerns that they could take place, with the highest number of armed conflicts since World War II. We must do more, and I hope our debate will help us to do that.