The China Tribunal, chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice, QC (lead prosecutor of Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia), conducted the world’s first independent legal analysis of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China. The Tribunal examined all available evidence in order to determine what criminal offences, if any, may have been committed by individuals affiliated to state or state-approved bodies, organisations or officials in China that may have engaged in forced organ harvesting.
Joining Sir Geoffrey Nice QC were six Tribunal members from the US, UK, Malaysia and Iran; bringing expertise in international human rights law, transplant surgery, international relations, Chinese history and business.
The China Tribunal Judgment incorporates all available evidence up to June 2019 and outlines the reasoning behind the China Tribunal’s findings. The Judgment is 160 pages, with extensive appendices that include details of all documents, reports, witness testimonies, and submissions reviewed by the Tribunal over 12 months. Public hearings were held in December 2018 and April 2019 in the course of which over 50 fact witnesses, experts and investigators contributed evidence. The China Tribunal also received expert legal opinions from Edward Fitzgerald QC and Datuk N. Savananthan.
The Tribunal’s members unanimously and beyond reasonable doubt, concluded that in China forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been practised for a substantial period of time involving a very substantial number of victims. While the PRC has changed its rhetoric about the sources of organs for transplantation, the Tribunal found that its claims are unbelievable and that official statistics have been falsified.
The Judgment includes the following conclusions:
“Forced organ harvesting has been committed for years throughout China on a significant scale and … Falun Gong practitioners have been one – and probably the main – source of organ supply.”
“In regard to the Uyghurs the Tribunal had evidence of medical testing on a scale that could allow them, amongst other uses, to become an ‘organ bank’.”
“Commission of Crimes Against Humanity against the Falun Gong and Uyghurs has been proved beyond reasonable doubt…”
“Governments and any who interact in any substantial way with the PRC [People’s Republic of China] …… should now recognise that they are, to the extent revealed above, interacting with a criminal state.”
Read/Download the Full China Tribunal Judgment HERE
Read/Download the Short Form Conclusion HERE
Documentary – China Tribunal Final Judgment (8 mins) HERE
ETAC initiated the China Tribunal
The China Tribunal was initiated by our organisation, the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC). Although multiple reports and testimonies have provided evidence that prisoners of conscience in China have been systematically killed for their organs in China since at least 2006, controversy has persisted. ETAC felt compelled to contact Sir Geoffrey Nice QC for a legal opinion on the evidence, so as to advance the debate about whether China has been killing innocent people for their organs. Though ETAC initiated the Tribunal, there was a necessary and scrupulous separation between ETAC and the Tribunal. All evidence was submitted via Counsel to the Tribunal, Hamid Sabi. ETAC was at no stage privy to the Tribunal’s work or its deliberations over the evidence it heard and assessed.