"Broken Promises, Trampled Freedoms:
The crisis in Hong Kong today and what the International Community should do"
Details:
Date: 4 February 2021 (Thursday)
Time: 12:00-13:00 (UK) / 20:00-21:00 (HK) / 07:00-08:00 (DC, Ottawa)
Location: Live-stream on Facebook
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A draconian new national security law, mass arrests, police brutality, serious human rights violations, the disqualification and resignation of the entire pro-democracy camp from the legislature, attacks on press freedom, academic freedom and the independence of the judiciary: this is the picture of the Chinese Communist Party regime’s flagrant dismantling of Hong Kong’s freedoms in grave breach of promises made in an international treaty, the Sino-British Joint Declaration. Some countries have responded with piecemeal measures – the United States imposed sanctions, the United Kingdom offered a generous pathway to citizenship under its new British National Overseas (BNO) policy, Canada has offered a lifeboat rescue scheme and some European countries have suspended their extradition agreements. But there is a need for a more robust, co-ordinated global response, bringing together punitive sanctions, humanitarian assistance to those who need to flee, and stronger diplomatic pressure.
What mechanisms within the United Nations could be used? Could a UN Special Rapporteur be appointed to monitor the situation in Hong Kong? What more could the European Union do? What could a new alliance of democracies as envisaged by President Biden and Boris Johnson do? What is the role of the Five Eyes and the G7? How can international justice mechanisms be used? What should be the response of lawyers and jurists around the world? What does the breach of a treaty mean for the international rules-based order?
To discuss these questions Hong Kong Watch has brought together a distinguished panel including the former British Foreign Secretary Lord Owen, the former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar Yanghee Lee, the Director of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, and the former Irish Member of the European Parliament John Cushnahan (who served as the European Parliament’s Rapporteur on Hong Kong 1997-2004).
