UK ‘seeking to block ICJ ruling’ on Israeli occupation of Palestine
An Israeli soldier guards the entrance to the West Bank city of Hebron on 22 August 2023
Bethan McKernan reports in The Guardian:
The UK has been accused of “seeking to block the international court of justice (ICJ) from addressing important international humanitarian law matters” in a submission to the world court on the legality of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.
A 43-page legal opinion, seen by the Guardian, was submitted by the UK last month as part of the ICJ’s fact-finding stage before an expected advisory opinion from the court on the legal consequences of the “occupation, settlement and annexation” of Palestinian land.
The UK’s “amicus brief” opposes the hearing of the case in the ICJ altogether – a position shared by only a handful of the 57 opinions sent to the court by member states and non-governmental organisations.
The UK statement has been met with dismay by Palestinian diplomats, as well as international humanitarian law experts, who say it ignores not just the fact that Israel’s occupation is entrenched, but that the situation is rapidly deteriorating.
Sitting in The Hague, the ICJ is the top UN court for dealing with disputes between countries: its rulings are binding, although the court has no power to enforce them.
This legal action is seen as important by Israel and the Palestinians, however, because while various UN bodies have found that aspects of the occupation are illegal, to date there has never been a judgment on whether the occupation itself, now in its 56th year, either is or has become unlawful.
A UN general assembly resolution in December requested the advisory opinion from the ICJ on the “legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory”. The UK, along with Israel and western states such as the US and Germany, voted against it, on the grounds it would push the parties away from negotiations.
The UK opinion submitted to the ICJ rests on four main arguments:
- An advisory opinion would effectively settle Israel’s “bilateral dispute” without the state’s consent.
- The court is not equipped to examine a “broad range of complex factual issues concerning the entire history of the parties’ dispute”.
- An advisory opinion would conflict with existing agreements between the parties and negotiation frameworks endorsed by the UN.
- The request is not appropriate as it asks the court to “assume unlawful conduct on the part of Israel”.
“[Assuming that the document is authentic] … this is a rather weak and uninformed document that portrays Israel’s longstanding occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and its annexation of East Jerusalem, as a bilateral dispute between two states,” said Dr Victor Kattan, an assistant professor in public international law at the University of Nottingham who has written widely on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.