Mumbai-based lawyer files plea against China at International Criminal Court over failure to contain COVID-19 outbreak

Ashish Sohani, a lawyer based in Mumbai, has now filed a petition at the International Criminal Court (ICC) against China, alleging the country of failing to contain the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak and allowing it to spread to the rest of the world, where it is now affecting lives like wildfire.

In his 33-page plea, Solani also demanded Rs 190 lakh crore on behalf of the Government of India from China, as damages covering the cost of dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak.

This humble Complaint/Petition is being filed on account of the recent outbreak and ongoing disease namely, COVID-19 in China and soon engulfed the entire world in its flames. In this complaint/petition, we will establish, how China has been negligent criminally and has wilfully withheld information regarding the virus and the outbreak, due to which the world is suffering," Sohani said in his petition.

The petition added, "The People’s Republic of China must be punished for this treason towards humanity, for all those lives lost in the battle to overcome this disease and for the loss of all the precious resources and monetary damage to all other countries. On 31st December 2019, the WHO through its China office was informed about a “pneumonia-like” of unknown etiology (unknown cause) disease which is spreading in Wuhan City, China. It was later, on further inspection known that the disease may have started in the Huanan “Wet” market in Wuhan, where the disease may have “spilled over” from another species of animal, i.e jumped from another species of animal to human, just like SARS," he added. 

Sohani's petition casts a considerable degree of shade at certain culinary practices in some parts of China which exacerbates the risk of zoonotic diseases, such as the current pandemic outbreak that the world is witnessing.

The conditions of these “Wet” markets in China, have very questionable standards of hygiene, slaughtering live animals for fresh meat, and blood-soaked floors to keeping wild animals in captivity for slaughter in cages allowing them only defecate there itself. The “Wet” markets sell meats of animals like pangolins, dogs, bats (which is suspected to be the origin of COVID- 19), snakes, civets, etc., apart from the regular meats and seafood. It is highly suspected that the workers handling these wild animals are the transferees of the virus from the carrier wild animals, which then starts to spread to other humans via ‘contact’ transmission, i.e human-to-human transmission," noted Sohani. 

Highlighting that the 'wet' market in China was closed only on January 1, 2020, after it was revealed that the coronavirus had spread across the globe from this market, Sohani said, that the objective behind his filing the petition is bringing to light the fact that "China has misappropriated its power and authority on its own people" and has "wilfully neglected its duty towards humanity, through various treaties and conventions ratified by it internationally."

The petition also accuses China of flouting the International Health Regulation as well as the Rome Statute of the ICC. He also claimed that China has failed to act in a prudent manner, until it was too late, by the time they woke up from their lethargy, the disease was spread to many countries. 

"Today, the disease has spread to more than 180 countries around the world to over 1.5 Million people, with over 90,000 deaths and the cause and reason is only and only the political opacity and lack of prompt response at the behest of the Chinese authorities," read the petition.