Uyghur Tribunal

A London people's tribunal that found, beyond reasonable doubt, that China committed genocide against Uyghurs — through measures to prevent births, not mass killing.

Convened by

Established by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC at the June 2020 request of Dolkun Isa, President of the World Uyghur Congress. Members worked pro bono; funding for witness travel, venue hire and some staff came initially from the World Uyghur Congress.

Panel

Sir Geoffrey Nice QC (Chair), Nick Vetch (Vice Chair) and seven other members drawn from law, medicine, academia and business.

Question

Whether the People's Republic of China committed genocide, crimes against humanity and torture against Uyghur, Kazakh and other Turkic Muslim populations in Xinjiang.

Legal status

A people's tribunal with no legal force. In its own words, it had no power to enforce the provision of documents or the attendance of witnesses.

Website

uyghurtribunal.com

• #peoples-tribunal
• #genocide
• #crimes-against-humanity
• #china
• #london

What it found

As stated by the tribunal itself. These are its findings, not a court's, and not ours.

• Torture attributable to the PRC: established beyond reasonable doubt.
• Crimes against humanity attributable to the PRC, including deportation or forcible transfer, imprisonment, torture, rape and other sexual violence, enforced sterilisation, persecution, enforced disappearance and other inhumane acts: established beyond reasonable doubt.
• Genocide: the tribunal was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the PRC committed genocide by imposing measures to prevent births, intended to destroy a significant part of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
• Killing: evidence of killings, but not on a scale that could threaten the destruction of the group. Serious harm: established, but the tribunal could not conclude it was intended to destroy the group.

The nuance

The genocide finding rests on one of the five acts listed in the Genocide Convention: imposing measures intended to prevent births (Article II(d)). The tribunal noted this may be the first public, evidence-based determination of genocide on that basis alone.

The tribunal said it would, as a whole, prefer not to make such a finding, because it does not match the public understanding of genocide as mass killing. It made the finding anyway because, it said, the Convention's drafters had deliberately kept that act in.

It applied the criminal standard, beyond reasonable doubt, rather than the lower 'clear and convincing' standard used by an earlier independent report.

Timeline

1. JUN 2021First evidence hearings in London.
   Sources: Uyghur Tribunal Judgment (with appendices)
2. SEP 2021Second evidence hearings.
   Sources: Uyghur Tribunal Judgment (with appendices)
3. NOV 2021A third, live-streamed hearing on leaked Xinjiang government papers.
   Sources: Uyghur Tribunal Judgment (with appendices)
4. DEC 2021Judgment delivered at Church House, Westminster.
   Sources: Uyghur Tribunal Judgment (with appendices)

Responses

• People's Republic of China (MAR 2021): Announced sanctions on bodies and individuals including the tribunal and its Chair, describing UK sanctions over Xinjiang as based on lies and disinformation. Sources: Uyghur Tribunal Judgment (with appendices)
• Governments of the US, UK, Japan and the PRC (2021): Requests from the tribunal for information were not met, according to the judgment. Sources: Uyghur Tribunal Judgment (with appendices)

Primary sources

• Uyghur Tribunal Judgment (with appendices) — Judgment delivered at Church House, Westminster on 9 December 2021; corrected 10 January 2022; appendices added 20 September 2022. A people's tribunal judgment, not a court ruling.
• Uyghur Tribunal — The tribunal's own website: hearings, evidence, judgment and press.

Checked 2026-10-15 · JSON · source file · change history