House of Lords: Lord Alton’s Debate on Atrocity Prevention

On 20 January, the House of Lords held a debate on Lord Alton’s short question:

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.

Opening the debate, Lord Alton of Liverpool said:

‘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 (…).’

The whole speech (and the debate) can be accessed via Hansard.

The debate can be watched here [starting at 19:37].