Law professor says legal definition of genocide is being met in China with handling of Uygur population

Creighton University expert on International Criminal Law, Michael Kelly, says the legal definition of genocide is being met in China with the regard to detention and persecution of the Uygur population in Western China, which of course China is denying.

Professor Kelly says, in light of the new report by the Newlines Institute in Washington D.C.  the International Criminal Court in The Hague should open an investigation.  Although the prosecutor declined to do so last month due to the fact that China is not a party to the ICC’s Rome Statute, and therefore she did not have jurisdiction, new reporting about China rounding up Uygurs in neighboring countries that are ICC members, and placing them in internment in China, would provide the derivative jurisdiction necessary to open an investigation.  The new ICC Prosecutor, Karim Khan, takes office in June 2021 and would certainly make a strong case for international criminal justice if he were to overturn the prior prosecutor’s decision on this matter.

Professor Kelly can be reached at [email protected], 402-280-3455, or via zoom.

• Author of “Prosecuting Corporations for Genocide” (Oxford University Press 2016).
• Author of “Ending Corporate Immunity for Genocide: The Case Against China’s Stat-Owned Petroleum Company in Sudan” v.90 Oregon Law Review (2011).
• International Association of Genocide Scholars
• International Penal Law Association (Board of Directors)

  https://law.creighton.edu/faculty-directory-profile/495/michael-kelly