A bill aiming to give the English high court power to make preliminary determinations on genocide passed its second reading in the House of Lords on Friday.
The private members’ bill, introduced by crossbench peer Lord David Alton of Liverpool, sailed through the stage unopposed despite the lack of government support.
The successive UK governments have maintained the position that the determination of genocide should be made by a “competent court” such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), but the two routes are effectively blocked in many cases, such as in the case of the alleged Uyghur genocide, which cannot be determined owing to China’s veto power in the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council and it not being a signatory to the Rome statute….