On his last day in office, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a “determination” accusing China of committing “atrocities” against its Uighur minority in the country’s Xinjiang region. He alleged the government and Chinese Communist Party were responsible for crimes against humanity similar to those prosecuted at the Nuremburg Trials after World War II. He also leveled the charge of genocide, which he said was ongoing and described as “the systematic attempt to destroy” the Uighurs by the Chinese party-state. The practical impact of the determination is unclear.
The origin of the term is unclear but the concept first arose in the context of the slave trade and abuses under European colonialism in Africa. The 1998 Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court to investigate and prosecute such offenses defines it as crimes including murder, rape, torture and enslavement “when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack.” The U.S. signed the Rome Statute in 2000 but no president has submitted it to the Senate for ratification. China didn’t sign it.
