Holocaust Memorial Day

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson]

I thank my hon. Friend for her praise for peacebuilders. Peacebuilding is not easy. It sounds like it is a nice, cuddly thing to do, but it is actually very difficult, especially in areas of conflict. I have seen how hard it is in different areas of Africa in which I have worked. It is hard here, it is hard anywhere, so we must thank, praise and support peacebuilders around the world,

There were clear risk factors in Srebrenica leading up to the day when 8,372 men and boys were taken out in July 1995 and killed. That was one day of horror, but many days led up to that event. Right now in Tigray, thousands have been killed and rape is being used as a systematic weapon of war, and people from Tigray are being taken off the streets of Addis Ababa and detained. It is all based on ethnicity, and it is happening right now. These things are preventable. The holocaust was preventable, and these disasters and crimes against humanity are preventable.

I want to highlight four things that we can do. First, we must fulfil existing obligations in the United Nations genocide convention and the International Criminal Court Act 2001. I remind the House that the UN genocide convention places on the UK these responsibilities: an obligation not to commit genocide; an obligation to prevent genocide, which, according to the International Court of Justice, has an extraterritorial scope, so it is not just about what happens here in the UK; and an obligation to punish genocide. We have been hearing that there are war criminals in the UK who are not being taken to justice—that must end. The UK also has an obligation to enact the necessary legislation to give effect to the provisions of the convention.

That is a profound and wide-ranging set of obligations. Can the UK honestly say that it is living up to them? Have we had a review of our obligations under the convention? Can we look at what we are doing and take action to increase our efforts?

Secondly, we need to approach genocide and crimes against humanity as actionable events, not just consequences of existing conflict and warfare. The action we can take includes establishing the means to identify risk factors and assess threat levels posed by genocide and crimes against humanity. We can monitor at-risk countries, acting swiftly when risk factors are identified, be that through trade, defence, foreign or domestic policies. We can also resource and take seriously our responsibility to investigate, arrest and try or extradite genocide suspects living at large in the UK.

Thirdly—this is what we have been learning about most in the all-party parliamentary group for the prevention of genocide and crimes against humanity—there is the need for a national atrocity prevention strategy, a national Government-wide strategy on the prevention of genocide that includes domestic and foreign policy, putting in place institutional infrastructure to prevent genocide happening in the future. America, for example, has the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018. It set up a mass atrocities taskforce, with mandates for an annual report to the President. We do not have an equivalent of that, but we should. Without such a strategy and without political leadership in the face of today’s genocides and campaigns of atrocity crimes, opportunities for the UK to influence, mitigate, prevent and protect will continue to be missed and Britain’s promises of “never again” remain unfulfilled. Fourthly, we need to support holocaust education and wider education about other crimes against humanity and genocides.

Finally, we need to equip the next generation to address the genocides of the future, but we also need to take action now. I have to believe that one day there will be no more genocide, but that means that this day we have to take more action.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

The hon. Lady mentioned the ceremony which starts at, I think, just after 4 o’clock. I have warned the Front Benchers that it might be appropriate for us to all be able to go to that, so perhaps just bear that in mind.