April 4, 2024 (EIRNS)—Apparently, the killing of three British subjects on April 1 by Israel’s armed forces has helped to clarify international law in Britain. Within 48 hours of the IDF’s air attack killing seven aid workers in Gaza, including three from Britain, more than 600 lawyers, academics, and retired senior judges warned Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that the U.K. government is in breach of international law by continuing to arm Israel. Three former supreme court justices, including the court’s former president, Lady Hale, are among the group.
Their 17-page letter, sent last evening, states that the present situation in Gaza is “catastrophic” and that, given the International Court of Justice (ICJ) finding that there is a plausible risk of genocide being committed, the U.K. is legally obliged to act to prevent it.” Hence, both “the sale of weapons and weapons systems to Israel” and threats made by the U.K. to suspend financing for the UNRWA fall “significantly short of your government’s obligations under international law.”
Further: “The ICJ’s conclusion that there exists a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza has placed your government on notice that weapons might be used in its commission and that the suspension of their provision is thus a ‘means likely to deter’ and/or ‘a measure to prevent’ genocide…. The U.K. must take immediate measures to bring to an end through lawful means to acts giving rise to a serious risk of genocide. Failure to comply with its own obligations under the genocide convention to take ‘all measures to prevent genocide which were within its power’ would incur U.K. state responsibility for the commission of an international wrong, for which full reparation must be made.”
