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Can Beijing Be Held Legally Responsible? Gina Shakespeare of Declassified reports that for months, Chinese authorities censored information coming from Wuhan doctors who were raising the alarm about a SARS-like virus. The CCP reprimanded them for "spreading rumors." The CCP's suppression of information and mismanagement during the early stages of the outbreak has resulted in worldwide human and economic devastation that is raising questions about whether the regime can be held legally accountable. Maritime law professor, James Kraska at the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, says he believes the Chinese regime will have to bear responsibility for violating its duty under international law. In March, he told The Epoch Times, "The People's Republic of China is a treaty party to the International Health Regulations ...which almost every country in the world is a party to and that treaty requires states to be very forthright or forthcoming, to expeditiously share information on a broad category of diseases, including new influenza-like illnesses, such as the coronavirus... It appears in this case, China did not fulfill its duty." Kraska said China's delays in providing information to the World Health Organization (WHO) and their false statements could be legally actionable under the law of state responsibility. David Matas, a former member of the Canada delegation to the United Nations General Assembly, agrees with Kraska, saying that the regime could be in violation of the Biological Weapons Conventions, to which it is a party. Matas told The Epoch Times that the convention not only deals with weapons but with biological agents. "Countries party to the convention are obligated not to retain biological agents other than for peaceful purposes," he said. "I would say that this coverup and repression is a form of retention of the virus, which is a biological agent. And so it's a violation of the convention, at least in my view," Matas said, also adding that such repression of information about the virus is not a 'peaceful purpose' under the convention. In order to enforce the convention, the United States could make a complaint to the UN Security Council for them to investigate and produce a report. Should the UN find Beijing responsible, the US could use the report to designate China as a "state sponsor of terrorism" under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSCA), adding China to the ranks of Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria. This terrorist designation would enable the US to sue the CCP for damages while side-stepping the rule of sovereign immunity, which would otherwise insulate China from being sued in a foreign court. Running Time 6 mins:

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