We urge the Committee to review the evidence of violations of Tibetan women's human rights in the context of China's illegal invasion of Tibet in 1949, its division of historical Tibetan territory, and China's failure to accord the Tibetans their right to self-determination. We will, throughout our Report, also place violations of women's rights in the context of violations of Tibetans' human rights generally.

The Chinese occupation of Tibet is illegal under international law because Tibet was a sovereign nation when China invaded. Extensive study by Tibet Justice Center and the International Commission of Jurists supports the conclusion that Tibet was a sovereign nation when it was invaded by China in 1949 and that the entry of China's armed forces into Tibet was an act of aggression under international law. This conclusion is also supported by the "London Statement on Tibet," formulated in 1993 by a large number of preeminent international legal scholars.

When we refer to Tibet, we mean the territory within the borders of Tibet in 1949: the Tibetan provinces of Kham, Amdo and U-Tsang. The Chinese authorities have divided Tibet into the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR)(about 40 percent of historical Tibet) and a number of Tibetan prefectures that have been subsumed into the Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Qinghai, Yunnan and Gansu. China's division of traditional Tibet is in itself a major international law violation and has had a devastating cultural impact on the Tibetan people. We also point out that, because China's invasion was illegal, all provisions of humanitarian law, including those relating specifically to women, are in force in Chinese-occupied Tibet. The application of humanitarian law in Tibet underscores our sense of the gravity of the violations carried out by China in Tibet, including the division of the Tibetan territory.

The Tibetan people also have a right to self-determination. By self-determination we mean the collective right of a people to determine freely their own political status and to pursue their own economic, social and cultural development. The scholars who drafted the London Statement also concluded that the Tibetan people have a legal right to self-determination. The group agreed that the Tibetans are a "people" (common history, racial or ethnic identity, distinct culture and language, definable territory and common economic ties) in terms of the right to self-determination. That Tibetans have a right to self-determination is the only reasonable conclusion that can be reached from an unbiased, impartial application of international law. Moreover, the General Assembly has not retreated from its recognition of the right to self-determination of the Tibetan people.

China's occupation of Tibet and its failure to honor the Tibetans' right to self-determination are the root cause of the human rights violations against Tibetan women that we report on here. We recognize that the principle of self-determination is widely considered a peremptory norm of jus cogens. Accordingly, we urge the Committee to give full legal weight to the principle of self-determination as it considers the evidence of gross violations of the Convention by China against Tibetan women.

<-- INTRODUCTION	III. CONVENTION ARTICLES 1 & 2: TORTURE -->

Table of Contents

Back to Reports list