UK High Court Hears Case on Govt's Failure to Investigate Imports Linked to Forced Labor in Xinjiang

The World Uyghur Congress and the Global Legal Action Network launched a case at the High Court in London accusing U.K. government agencies of breaking the law by not investigating the importation of cotton products made by forced labor in China's Xinjiang region. The court heard a trial on Oct. 25 in which the WUC challenged the British home secretary, HM Revenue and Customs and the National Crime Agency for refusing to investigate goods allegedly made by forced labor of the Uyghur Muslim minority in the region, The Guardian reported.

The WUC named four Chinese companies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region that were guilty of using forced labor, laying out how the corporations were linked to the U.K. “It can and should be reasonably inferred from the evidence that the vast majority of the cotton manufacturing done in facilities operated by these companies in the XUAR is carried out by labourers subject to conditions of detention and forced labour,” counsel for WUC said. “Accordingly, if a UK company sources any cotton products from one of the implicated Chinese companies, there is a high risk that the product in question was produced (wholly or partly) by prison and forced labour.”

The hearing in the High Court is believed to be the first time a foreign court weighs legal arguments from the Uyghurs over the forced labor issue in Xinjiang, the AP reported. The congress and the human rights group are concurrently launching several similar challenges across Europe to put pressure on the U.K. and EU governments to adopt a similar policy to the U.S.'s, which bars all cotton products suspected of being made in Xinjiang, the AP said.