Image: Attendees at the World Congress on Medical Law 2025.

Laws Enacted and Proposed Prohibiting and Remedying Transplant Tourism and Complicity in Organ Transplant Abuse Abroad

(Presentation to the World Congress on Medical Law 2025 , Istanbul, Türkiye, August 7th)

By David Matas

The evidence of mass killing in China of prisoners of conscience for their organs sold at high prices to transplant tourists or local wealthy Chinese, as well as to well-connected Chinese, is overwhelming. An independent people’s tribunal, the China Tribunal, after holding extensive hearings and accumulating a wealth of evidence concluded in 2020 that the mass killing of practitioners of the spiritually based set of exercises Falun Gong for their organs for transplants was certain, beyond doubt.(1) Twelve United Nations human rights experts in 2021 characterized the evidence about forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience generally in China as extremely alarming, of utmost concern.(2)

David Kilgour and I in July 2006 produced the first report on this subject.(3) One of the reasons, though far from the only, that we came to the conclusion we did about the mass killing of prisoners of conscience for their organs, practitioners of Falun Gong in particular, was that there were no laws to prohibit the abuse, neither in China nor anywhere else. Most countries had then laws prohibiting the sourcing of organs from persons without their consent or the consent of their family members. However, in July 2006 we could not identify any country which had such laws with extra-territorial effect.

Since 2006 and the publication of that report, there has been a raft of laws enacted or proposed in several jurisdictions directed to preventing complicity in extra-territorial organ transplant abuse. There have been twelve types of laws enacted or proposed. Given the limited time I have here, I will present only one example for each type of law.

1) prohibiting extra-territorial violation of domestic transplant laws

The Council of Europe Convention against Trafficking in Human Organs now has fifteen ratifying states and thirteen other states which have signed the Convention but not yet ratified it.(4) That Convention obligates states parties to prohibit its nationals and habitual residents from engaging in organ trafficking whether inside or outside the territory of the state party. There are five states not party to the Convention, including Canada,(5) which have also enacted the legislation the Convention requires.

2) banning entry to the country of those non-citizens complicit in organ transplant abuse

Canada is an example for this type of law as well. The Canadian law which enacted a prohibition against complicity in organ transplant abuse abroad also enacted a prohibition on entry into Canada of foreigners who have engaged in conduct contrary to the criminal prohibition.(6)

3) prohibiting health insurance coverage of transplantation in countries with forced organ harvesting

Israel has enacted such a prohibition. Israeli law prevents insurance coverage for any organ transplant abroad, if the transplantation, had it taken place in Israel, would not have been conducted in conformity with Israeli law.(7)

4) authorizing the sanctioning of foreigners who have engaged in forced organ harvesting

In the United States, the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act has passed the House of Representatives and is now before the Senate. The proposed Act requires the President of the United States to impose sanctions on any person listed by the President as facilitating forced organ harvesting or trafficking in persons for purposes of the removal of organs.(8)

5) giving government agencies the discretion to exclude any supplier if the supplier has been involved in forced organ harvesting

In the United Kingdom in the House of Lords, legislation was proposed which would give the Government of the UK a discretion to exclude any supplier if the supplier or a connected person has been involved in forced organ harvesting, or dealing in any device or equipment or services relating to forced organ harvesting.(9)

6) authorizing the government to deny passports to those convicted of purchasing an organ

Again here the United States proposed Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act provides an example. That proposed Act gives the Secretary of State power to refuse to issue a passport to any individual who has been convicted of an offense in the US of transferring an organ for valuable consideration for use in transplantation if the individual, in the commission of the offense, used a passport or crossed an international border.

7) requiring a government agency to produce country reports annually on the organ transplant policies and practices of designated countries

Another US proposed law is relevant here, the Falun Gong Protection Act. That Act too has passed the House of Representatives and is now before the Senate. That proposed Act provides that the Secretary of State must submit to the appropriate congressional committees, within a year of passage of the legislation, a report on the organ transplant policies and practices of the People’s Republic of China.(10)

8) requiring patients who receive transplants abroad or hospitals or doctors who provide aftercare to these patients to report the details of the transplantations to a designated government agency

The example here comes from France. A proposed French law requires any patient who obtains a transplant abroad to report that transplant to a health agency with a certificate that the organ was not purchased. Doctors are required to report to the same health agency the transplantation of any patient the doctor examines.(11)

9) requiring the government to make public aggregate figures of transplant tourism by country

A proposed Australian law requires any person entering Australia to report to the clearance authority whether the person has received a transplant outside Australia in the past five years, and, in the affirmative, the name and place of the medical facility where the transplant was received.(12) The proposed law further requires the Government to report yearly and publicly the number of times each place was mentioned.

10) authorizing a designated public authority to examine hospital transplant aftercare records

Again here the Israeli law is relevant. That law provides that health officials may examine the medical records maintained by any approved medical centre relating to organ removal and transplant, including material on the medical condition of an organ recipient, and also obtain any other pertinent information they require.(13)

11) prohibiting brokering in organs, even if the brokering is done entirely outside the country and does not violate the laws where the brokering took place

The example here is Taiwan. The Taiwan Human Organ Transplantation Act prohibits organ brokerage both within and outside Taiwan, whether the foreign laws prohibits organ brokerage or not.(14)

12) authorizing the revocation of licensing of medical personnel where the personnel have committed a serious violation of the prohibition against brokering.

The Taiwanese law is also relevant here. It provides that, if the person violated the law is a physician, the physician is to be subject to suspension of practice for from one month to one year, or revocation of their practice license.(15)

A few countries have laws enacted or proposed on cross border organ transplant abuse. Even fewer had enacted laws addressed to the abuse. No country has enacted the full legal slate of possible laws to prevent and remedy the abuse. The overall conclusion here is that, though several positive steps have been taken, much remains to be done to prevent and remedy transplant tourism and complicity in organ transplant abuse abroad.

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