UK willing to trade with genocidal countries
- Sam Hardy
- Feb 20, 2021
- 3 min read
The Government has voted against an amendment that would allow UK High Courts to label countries as genocidal
In this article, I shall be reviewing the governments rejection of the attempted amendment to the Trade Bill that aimed to provide the UK's High Court with the power to label countries as being genocidal. I will then criticise the government for this decision and highlight the double standards they hold, relating to the consolidation of power.
On Tuesday the 19th of January, the British Government narrowly defeated a rebellion from Conservative MPs by voting against an amendment to the Trade Bill. The amendment proposed a clause for the government to reconsider any trade deal with countries that were deemed to be committing genocide. It also sought to give the UK's High Court the power to label countries as genocidal. Previously, the UK relied on the ruling of international courts on whether a country was committing genocide, but these institutions have recently failed to properly label countries as genocidal.
Shadow International Trade Secretary, Emily Thornberry remarked that many MPs will focus on the ongoing genocide of the Uighur population in China when considering this amendment. She highlighted the accounts of torture, concentration camps, forced sterilisation and slave labour that have been inflicted upon the Uighur people. The plight of the Uighur population in China can be dated back to 2014 and has lead to more than one million Muslim people being held in secretive detention camps without any legal proceedings. There have been many reports of human rights abuses in what has become the largest detention of ethnic and religious minorities since World War Two. The ongoing genocide in the Xinjiang region of China has become a major focal point for this amendment after the US accused China of committing genocide in January.
The main reason given by Minister of State for Trade, Greg Hands as to why the government couldn't pass this amendment was that the Judicial system should be entirely separate from the government. He stated that although the government does care about genocide, it would be "an unacceptable erosion of the royal prerogative and not something the government could support."
One of the most well known conservative MPs voting against the government on this amendment was Tom Tugendhat. Who highlighted how the UK currently relies on international courts to determine whether a country is committing genocide. He states that: the international institutions we are dependant on for genocidal rulings are being overwhelmed by obstacles. Tugendhat suggested that we can either, "allow the current system to stand and to say that in reality we will never again recognise genocide," or we can trust "our institutions and our judges," by recognising that our judicial system is renowned for its impartial rulings and is trusted worldwide.
However, these statements were not enough to sway the conservative vote and the amendment was narrowly defeated. On the 9th of February there was another, more watered down amendment to the Trade Bill that would still give UK courts the power to label countries as genocidal, but it would now only require parliament to debate the deals they hold with this country. This amendment appeared to have a large amount of support from conservative MPs; in an attempt to weaken the support for the amendment, the government bundled it with another amendment that was closely linked to the labour party. This tactic, ultimately, worked as many of the rebelling conservative MPs felt they couldn't support labours amendment.
Emily Thornberry provided a good criticism of the governments decision to bundle the amendments when she described the tactic as "shameful, shabby and shifty behaviour". Bundling two amendments together, from opposing parties, in order to achieve a vote that suits the governments agenda is undemocratic and unacceptable. It is ironic that a major theme of this government is the idea of "taking back control" and, yet, when an opportunity arises that would provide the UK High Courts with more power, no longer dependant on international institutions, the Government finds a way out of it. It is shameful for a government to claim that they take genocide seriously when they are actively against legislation that would result in the labelling of countries that are committing genocide. When also considering how the British Government responded to Myanmar committing genocide against the Rohingya people, it becomes clear that the Government is far more concerned with their economic relations than they are with up holding basic human rights for oppressed groups.
Sam Hardy
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Image Credits: Hasan Esen/Anadolu Agency via AFP
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