Aboriginal Australian Senator Lidia Thorpe publicly accused King Charles of genocide on Monday for the continuing legacy of British colonization on the Aboriginal population of Australia.

Genocide, as a core crime with individual criminal responsibility, requires a mental element of intent and a corresponding physical element which includes the killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, the infliction of conditions designed to bring whole or partial destruction, measures designed to prevent births, or the forced removal of children, of a particular group of people.

When Australia was colonized, the British did not sign any treaties with the Aboriginal inhabitants. Consequently, Australian courts do not recognize any Aboriginal sovereignty based on their prior occupation of the land. In Mabo v Queensland, the court ruled that the Crown’s sovereignty over Australian land could not be challenged in court. This contrasts the approach taken in other former colonies such as Canada and the United States, which recognize a degree of indigenous sovereignty stemming from the continued presence of indigenous nations on the land which existed prior to colonization. Many members of the Aboriginal community, including Thorpe, assert that Aboriginal sovereignty persists to this day and that the Crown’s authority is illegitimate due to the absence of a treaty transferring sovereignty.

The British-Australian takeover of the land has been connected to the crime genocide by some, given that government authorities were directly responsible for 50 percent of the Aboriginal massacres during the period of settler control. Additionally, from the mid-1800s to the 1970s, various Australian governments implemented policies in which Aboriginal children were forcefully removed from their families, in an attempt to assimilate them. While these actions would likely meet the criteria for genocide under modern definitions, since they occurred before King Charles’ reign, it would be difficult to establish a legal connection to him.