International experts delivered a stark warning to lawmakers from 28 countries at a recent Brussels summit, exposing the horrific reality of China’s systematic organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience—a practice that has transformed the nation into a premier destination for transplant tourism.
The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), representing hundreds of legislators worldwide who coordinate efforts to address Beijing’s authoritarian challenges, convened its fifth annual summit in November. Among the critical issues addressed was the urgent need to combat forced organ harvesting and international organ trafficking.
Wayne Jordash, president of Global Rights Compliance, an international law foundation, delivered a powerful address to the assembled lawmakers, emphasizing their “legal responsibility” under multiple frameworks of international law. He stressed that nations must utilize their executive, legislative, and judicial powers to “prevent, mitigate, and remedy” forced organ harvesting through comprehensive national measures and international cooperation.
“Forced organ harvesting is not just a crime—it is a grotesque violation of humanity,” Jordash declared, according to a transcript from The International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC).
“States and business should demonstrate their [resolve] through vigilance, hard law and enforcement. Transparency must be mandatory. Prosecution must be non-negotiable. Collaboration must be unyielding.”
In a direct challenge to the international community, Jordash characterized the crisis as “a test of [their] collective moral spine.”
“Will you allow this atrocity to persist in the shadows, or will you shine the light that will burn away impunity?” Jordash asked. “The answer must be action. The time to act is now.”
China’s emergence as a global transplant tourism hub stems from Chinese hospitals’ ability to offer extraordinarily short waiting times for organ matches. While Western countries typically require months or years for organ transplants, Chinese medical facilities can provide organs within days or weeks—a capability made possible through the systematic harvesting of organs from prisoners of conscience, according to multiple investigative reports, including findings from the landmark 2020 China Tribunal.
The China Tribunal, an independent London-based people’s tribunal, reached a devastating conclusion in 2020: the Chinese regime had been systematically harvesting organs from prisoners of conscience for years, with Falun Gong practitioners identified as the primary victims. The tribunal was chaired by Geoffrey Nice, renowned for his role as lead prosecutor in the war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic at the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Speaking at the IPAC summit, Nice revealed chilling evidence gathered by the tribunal, including undercover phone calls to Chinese hospitals where medical staff “offered organs for sale within days or a week or so,” according to ETAC transcripts.
“Those organs were from people who had [been] alive at the time of the calls for the offers by hospitals to be made of organs available to the callers at short notice,” Nice explained.
The tribunal’s comprehensive investigation led to the conclusion that China’s sustained forced organ harvesting operations constitute crimes against humanity—a legal designation with profound implications for international accountability.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, represents a spiritual discipline founded on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. After its public introduction in China in 1992, the practice spread rapidly through grassroots networks, attracting an estimated 70 million to 100 million adherents by official Chinese government counts. However, the Chinese Communist Party launched a brutal suppression campaign in 1999, systematically targeting practitioners for persecution that continues to this day.
The ongoing persecution has resulted in countless practitioners being detained in prisons, labor camps, and brainwashing centers, where reports of forced labor, torture, and deaths have been extensively documented. The tribunal’s investigation revealed that China conducts selective medical testing—including ultrasounds and blood work—on certain prisoners, particularly Falun Gong practitioners, apparently to assess organ viability for harvesting.
Matthew Robertson, a China studies research fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, presented disturbing evidence to the IPAC lawmakers that these medical examinations continue in 2025. Robertson cited cases documented by Minghui.org, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that tracks Falun Gong persecution in China.
“These examinations lack medical justification, are performed on individuals in custody for their beliefs and without consent, and are consistent with medical tests necessary for determining organ health for transplantation,” Robertson testified, according to ETAC transcripts.
Robertson’s research has contributed to groundbreaking academic work exposing China’s organ harvesting practices. A 2022 paper he coauthored, published in the prestigious American Journal of Transplantation, identified 71 Chinese medical papers describing how doctors harvested hearts and lungs for transplant without conducting brain death tests—clear evidence that patients were being killed for their organs.
The IPAC summit concluded with lawmakers reaching consensus on a comprehensive action plan to combat forced organ harvesting. The international coalition agreed to advance legislation designed to “prevent complicity by individuals, institutions, and governments” in what they condemned as an “abhorrent practice.”
“We deplore any such acts and affirm our solidarity with the victims and survivors,” the lawmakers declared in their joint statement.
The proposed legislative framework encompasses multiple strategic approaches: implementing comprehensive bans on transplant tourism, imposing targeted sanctions on individuals and entities involved in forced organ harvesting, requiring mandatory reporting of suspected cases by medical professionals, establishing transparent transplant registries, restricting public funding for institutions partnered with entities linked to organ harvesting, and mandating due diligence requirements for medical cooperation in the transplant sector.
The announcement received strong endorsement from advocacy organizations, including two New York-based groups: the Consilium Institute and the Falun Dafa Information Center.
“We call upon all responsible governments to urgently adopt and implement these policy measures,” declared Sean Lin, executive director of the Consilium Institute, in a November 12 statement.
“Protecting human dignity and stopping forced organ harvesting must be a global priority for the medical and legal communities.”
The Falun Dafa Information Center echoed these sentiments, calling for “urgent legislation” to end forced organ harvesting in a November 14 social media post.
In a subsequent interview, Lin characterized the IPAC’s announcement as “significant,” noting that the alliance had effectively endorsed the China Tribunal’s findings and provided international legitimacy to the evidence of systematic organ harvesting.
“The China Tribunal’s conclusions have now been formally recognized by lawmakers from so many different countries,” Lin observed.
“How the lawmakers choose to advance this issue will, of course, vary from country to country. But what the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China has done is essentially provide a legislative framework.
“As long as lawmakers are willing to introduce [legislative bills], the process will send reverberations through the entire transplant and medical community. At the same time, it will also serve as a deterrent to the Chinese Communist Party.”
The Brussels summit represents a pivotal moment in international efforts to confront one of the most heinous human rights abuses of the modern era. As lawmakers return to their respective nations armed with evidence and a unified framework for action, the global medical and legal communities await concrete legislative measures that could fundamentally disrupt China’s organ harvesting industry and provide justice for countless victims.
