UK government agencies have broken the law by not investigating the importation of cotton products manufactured by forced Uyghur labourers in China, the high court has heard.

The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) is challenging the home secretary, HM Revenue and Customs and the National Crime Agency (NCA), claiming a failure or refusal to investigate imports from Xinjiang, allegedly home to 380 internment camps, was unlawful.

In London on Tuesday, Jenni Richards KC and Tom Forster KC, for the congress, said there were reasonable grounds to suspect breaches of criminal and civil law under the Foreign Prison-Made Goods Act 1897 and the Proceeds of Crime Act (Poca) 2002, which concerns money laundering.

In written arguments, they said 85% of Chinese cotton was grown in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR); named four Chinese companies they said were involved “on a very large scale”; and detailed those firms’ connections to the UK.

“It can and should be reasonably inferred from the evidence that the vast majority of the cotton manufacturing done in facilities operated by these companies in the XUAR is carried out by labourers subject to conditions of detention and forced labour,” they said.

“Accordingly, if a UK company sources any cotton products from one of the implicated Chinese companies, there is a high risk that the product in question was produced (wholly or partly) by prison and forced labour.”

In oral submissions, Richards went further, saying it was “inevitable”...

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