Richard Hurley The BMJ

Forced harvesting of organs from prisoners of conscience in China has been “substantial,” says an interim judgment of an independent “people’s tribunal” set up to determine whether the country’s transplantation practices breached international criminal law.

The former English judge Geoffrey Nice QC, the tribunal’s chair, said after a three day evidence gathering session, “We, the tribunal members, are all certain, unanimously, beyond reasonable doubt, that in China forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been practised for a substantial period of time, involving a very substantial number of victims . . . by state organised or approved organisations or individuals.”

The tribunal found that the practices breached the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including articles 3 (right to life), 6 (recognition as a person before the law), 7 (equality before the law), 9 (not to be subject to arbitrary arrest), 10 (full equality to a fair and public …