In winter 2022 will take place the Winter Olympics in Beijing. However, in the last few days state’s leaders from the different parts of the world announced a political boycott of this Olympics. It is linked, among others, to the genocide of the Uyghurs perpetrated by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which has been highlighted and unofficially found by the London tribunal last Friday. Despite this gross violation of international and human rights laws no common politics has been agreed on by big powers such as EU’s countries or the measures taken by the US, Canada and Australia are also controversial due to their lack of concrete impact.
The London tribunals’ findings
The Uyghur tribunal started its independent work on the 3rd of September 2020, and after two hearings, the tribunal gave its decision on the 10th of December 2021. It results from it that the PRC inflicted Uighur people from Xinjiang acts amounting to genocide, such as torture and births prevention, in order to reindoctrinate them and erase their culture. Moreover, the responsibility of PRC’s president Xi is engaged since the acts committed are a result of a governmental policy. Nevertheless, despite those findings non legal action can be brought against PRC and PRC’s president, since it is not a state parties to the ICC and is a signatory of the Genocide convention but with a reservation against ICJ jurisdiction. Therefore, it is up to States and international institutions to give outcomes to the tribunal’s decision and take action against the acknowledged culprit.
Is diplomatic action better than non-action?
This type of objective can only be met through meaningful actions taken collectively. However, even the EU member states do not succeed to reach an agreement on the policy to follow and would anyway not completely fit the US, Canada and Australia political and diplomatic actions. It is a matter of fact that France refused any boycott towards the winter Olympic, whereas Lithuania decided to take part to the boycott. The EU foreign ministers met and tried to settle a united front on Monday 13th of December but failed to do so. The lack of competence in sport has been raised in order to justify it, but is it fair to narrow the topic only to sport? On the other side, US gathered other powers with it for its diplomatic boycott and even is trying to pass a bill to prohibit importations of goods from forced labour in Xinjiang. It can be argued that actions are being taken, but does it make a difference at the end for China’s hegemony and the Uighur people? This cacophony and inability of finding a common position towards protection of human rights is saying a lot about the value of the protection of fundamental rights by them and is only contributing to PRC’s projection of positive image worldwide. Thus, diplomatic action is taken by some powers of the western world, and in addition it only entails the non-sending of a political delegation to Bejing, the athletes are still going to compete and represent their countries. So, is this action better than the non-action plan taken by France at the moment? The results are similar except maybe some diplomatically retaliations from China, but nothing would have been done in order to prosecute the genocide’s perpetrators and PRC will still continue its human rights’ abuses.
Striking a fair balance among rights
Despite the facts that some states’ representatives argue that Olympics shall not be politicised, it always has been the case in history from the 1936 Olympics in Germany legitimizing Nazi Germany, the temporary exclusion from South Africa during the apartheid or the boycott by the Americans of the Olympics in Russia in 1980. Olympics is purported to vehicle an image of peace, cohesion, and friendly sport competition. That is why it is astonishing that the IOC is not taking any action by not granting the privilege of hosting such competition to countries violating human rights. Indeed, athletes are under strict rules by using social media in order to protect the neutral image of the competition, but when it is about affiliating this competition to PRC’s atrocities, no action is taken by the committee.
Nonetheless, considerations shall be given to the athletes’ rights since their revenue depends on their performance to the Olympics and their participation is not guaranteed for the future competition four years later due to their performance and health. In conclusion a fair balance shall be stroke between human rights violation of the Uyghurs, which is not a minor one, and the right of the athletes to compete to exercise their passion and work. However, one shall not forget the reality of this world. On a pragmatic side, diplomatic actions are all that can be done in order to avoid escalation of an already existing conflict between the West and PRC, but at some point actions would have to be taken since, non-action mean for China, freedom to continue its policy violating many rights of many citizens and non-responsibility is not an answer on the twenty first century.
Bibliography:
BBC ‘Beijing Winter Olympics boycott is insignificant, says Macron’ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59599063 accessed on the 14th of December 2021
CNN ‘Uyghur tribunal rules that China ‘committed genocide’ against the Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities’ https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/09/china/uyghur-tribunal-judgment-intl/index.html accessed on the 14th of December 2021
Global News ‘Olympics boycott unpopular among many EU nations: ‘not useful’ https://globalnews.ca/news/8446335/beijing-olympics-boycott-europe/ accessed on the 14th of December 2021
Le Journal de Montréal ‘Jeux Olympiques: grosse parlotte, petit boycott’ https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2021/12/11/jeux-olympiques-grosse-parlotte-petit-boycott accessed on the 14th of December 2021
Politico ‘Eu countries skate around Winter Olympics boycott’ https://www.politico.eu/article/olympic-mess-eu-dither-winter-olympics-boycott/ accessed on the 14th of December 2021
The Guardian ‘Uyghurs subjected to genocide by China, unofficial UK tribunal finds ‘ <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/09/uyghurs-subjected-to-genocide-by-china-unofficial-uk-tribunal-finds> accessed on the 14th December 2021
The Star ‘diplomatic boycott of Beijing Olympics unlikely to help Uyghurs- and sure to hurt the athletes’ <https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2021/12/13/diplomatic-boycott-of-beijing-olympics-unlikely-to-help-uyghurs-and-sure-to-hurt-the-athletes.html> accessed on the 14th of December 2021
Uyghur tribunal https://uyghurtribunal.com/abouttribunal/ accessed on the 14th December 2021
USA Today ‘America’s diplomatic boycott of the winter Olympics isn’t enough’ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/12/11/winter-olympics-america-diplomatic-boycott-beijing/6426022001/ accessed on the 14th of December 2021
By The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
