LONDON, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Britain should not engage in free
trade with countries that abuse human rights, but proposals that
the country's courts should decide whether genocide has been
committed by trade partners is flawed, foreign minister Dominic
Raab said.
Last week, Raab said Britain would introduce new rules for
its companies to try to prevent goods linked to China's Xinjiang
region entering their supply chains.
Some British lawmakers want to go further and are due to
consider proposals passed in the upper house of parliament that
would give courts the power to stop free-trade agreements with
countries if they consider them to have committed genocide.
"The bar is being set incredibly high," Raab told BBC
television on Sunday. "I mean, frankly, we shouldn't be engaged
in free-trade negotiations with countries abusing human rights
well below the level of genocide."
He said the proposals in parliament were problematic because
Britain's High Court did not have the resources to investigate
allegations of genocide.
"I think there's a second issue, which is really in relation
to what we now know about what's going on in Xinjiang, the
question is whether, in relation to any country that engaged in
those human rights abuses, you engage in free-trade
negotiations," he said.
"We shouldn't really be delegating the political question of
who you engage in free-trade negotiations with to the courts,"
Raab said. "That's something MPs (members of parliament) should
hold government to account about and we absolutely embrace
that."
Addressing parliament last week, Raab said there was
evidence of forced labour among Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang after
the United Nations estimated at least 1 million members of the
minority among others were held in internment camps.
China denies the accusation. A foreign ministry spokesman
denounced the accusations of abuse in Xinjiang as Western lies.
Britain is hoping to strike its own trade agreements with
countries around the world following the expiry of a post-Brexit
transition period for leaving the European Union.
(Writing by William Schomberg; Editing by Pravin Char)