David Matas: London Parliamentary Seminar, International Academic Forum European Conference on Education, Consilium Institute Forum, and The Liver Week – June and July 2026
Improving UK legislation on forced organ harvesting
- Parliamentary Seminar, London, UK, July 8, 2026
- International Academic Forum European Conference on Education, London UK, July 12, 2026
Hospital Ethics and Organ Transplant Abuse Abroad
- The Liver Week 2026, Seoul, South Korea
The development of Chinese law on forced organ harvesting
- Consilium Institute Forum July 21, 2026, Washington DC
Improving UK legislation on forced organ harvesting
(Revised remarks prepared for a Parliamentary Seminar, London, UK, July 8, 2026)
Click HERE for the full text and footnotes/citations
Excerpt below of the presentation:
The United Kingdom has extraterritorial legislation directed against forced organ harvesting. The legislation, in the area where it does exist, can be improved. There are several areas where the UK has no legislation and where, in principle, there should be.
The presentation goes through a list of areas where there could be improvement in the UK law or where gaps in the law could be filled. The presentation refers to examples in other jurisdictions where the improvements or gap filling suggested have occurred.
Evaluation of Institution Responses to Student Applications from Abroad for Training Which Could Be Used to Abuse Human Rights
(Presentation to the International Academic Forum European Conference on Education, London UK, July 12, 2026 )
Click HERE for the full text and footnotes/citations
Excerpt below of the conclusion:
There are reasons for training Chinese transplant surgeons abroad. One is helping to spread the technology of transplantation generally. As well, training institutions abroad receive substantial financial benefits from training fees. Yet, when one balances the benefits from training for transplantation in China against the potential harm of facilitating the mass killing of prisoners of conscience for their organs, the result should be no training at all.
In light of the financial benefits institutions reap from training as well as the sense that these institutions should not be hoarding technology, there is a temptation to accept Chinese assertions that their sourcing of organs is proper. Yet, those assertions should not be sufficient to justify training.
Chinese authorities have to do more than say they are acting properly. They have to show that this is so. Until they do so, training of transplant surgeons abroad for transplantation in China should stop. Training should recommence only after independent outside observers have been given full and complete access to all Chinese transplant records, after they report that the mass killing of prisoners of conscience for their organs has stopped and after they conclude that there is no realistic possibility of the recommencement of the abuse.
To address the general topic “Evaluation of Institution Responses to Student Applications from Abroad for Training Which Could Be Used to Abuse Human Rights” the lesson we get from the China experience is don’t train. Training facilitates the abuse. Training becomes complicity in the abuse. Refusing training incentives the end of the abuse. These factors outweigh the benefits training may bring.
Hospital Ethics and Organ Transplant Abuse Abroad
(Presentation given at The Liver Week 2026 in Seoul, South Korea)
Click HERE for the full poster
Excerpt below of the conclusion:
Foreign hospital complicity in organ transplant abuse abroad should be avoided. The question is how this can be done without compromising patient care. The examples where it has been done provide answers to this question
The development of Chinese law on forced organ harvesting
(Remarks prepared for presentation to a Consilium Institute Forum July 21, 2026, Washington DC)
Full panel link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe8DflWASGE
Click HERE for the full text and footnotes/citations
Excerpt below of the Conclusion:
Organ transplantation in China can be summed up by the 2014 words of Huang Jiefu, at the time the head of the organ transplantation system in China, and by the 2017 words of the nurse interviewed in the Korean documentary. According to Huang Jiefu, there is an unspoken rule in China that using the organs of prisoners without their consent or the consent of their family is acceptable to ease the demand in the market. According to the nurse, the Government pretends not to know about foreigners’ paying cash for organ transplantation on short notice.
The Constitution of China has 32 general principles. Justice is not one of them. Neither is the rule of law. In the Constitution, the leadership of the Communist Party and the State Council it directs is set out eight times.
In Communist China, the mass killing of prisoners of conscience for their organs – Falun Gong, Uyghurs, Tibetans and House Christians – is an unspoken rule. The Government pretends not to know about it. Anyone in China involved in organ transplant abuse who tells to outsiders the unspoken rule, speaks to outsiders what those in the health, detention and Party system all know is destined for State/ Party victimization.
Organ transplant abuse in China did not have to happen. The killing of prisoners sentenced to death for their organs did not have to spread to prisoners of conscience who were either given minor sentences or not sentenced at all.
Yet, once the spread occurred the damage was irreversible, not just the death of those killed, but also the credibility of Communist rule over China. It is impossible see how the Party could, on the one hand, acknowledge that this abuse has happened pervasively throughout China for decades and bring the perpetrators to justice and, on the other hand, maintain Communist rule over China. As well, the finances of the health system are dependent on the continuation of this abuse.
The result is we that get what we see. One expert investigation after another demonstrating the abuse, with certainty, beyond doubt, and one Chinese Communist Party attempt after another to make denial of the abuse more plausible through changes in laws and policies.
The message for outsiders is that they must do what they can to prevent complicity in Chinese organ transplant abuse. It falls to the Chinese in China to determine what happens in China. Yet, outsiders have complete control over their own involvement or non- involvement with what happens in China.
In China, for organ transplantation, there is no respect for the World Health Organization principles of transparency, traceability and openness to scrutiny. The fact that those principles are not respected demonstrates, on its own, cover up. China has a duty to show, not just tell. Instead, we get lots of telling, but no showing.
The onus rests on China to show that the abuse has stopped, not on outsiders to show that it is continuing. Because China has not shown and is unlikely to show that organ transplant abuse in China has stopped, every foreign country must do everything within its power to avoid complicity in that abuse.
