By Tony O’Reilly-
A former appeal court judge has joined more than 130 lawyers and legal academics have warned Prime Minister Andy Burnham that the UK government’s newly announced sanctions against Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank fall far short of the action required of Britain under international law. In a six-page letter to the Prime Minister, the lawyers welcome the government’s decision to ban imports from illegal Israeli settlements, but argue that the measure represents only a limited response to a far wider set of legal obligations arising from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.
The intervention has been signed by 15 King’s Counsel, more than 30 solicitors and former Lord Justice of Appeal Sir Alan Moses, giving the challenge considerable weight within the legal profession. The signatories say they intend to come together as a coalition to support Palestinian rights and defend freedom of expression in Britain in relation to Palestine. Their central argument is that the government cannot acknowledge the illegality of Israel’s occupation and then confine its response to goods produced in settlements and sanctions against a limited number of settlers and organisations.
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The lawyers point specifically to the 2024 ruling of the International Court of Justice, which concluded that Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful and that states have obligations arising from that finding. They argue that those obligations require Britain to take much more comprehensive action to ensure that its own institutions and businesses are not contributing to the continuation of the occupation.
“We welcome the UK Government’s decision to act alongside its allies, Canada and France,” the letter says. But the signatories immediately qualify that welcome by warning that the measures announced by ministers “fall far short” of Britain’s obligations to oppose Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.
That criticism goes well beyond the question of whether Britain should permit the importation of settlement-produced goods. The lawyers argue that the economic infrastructure surrounding the settlements must also be examined. They are calling for British sanctions to be extended to services that can facilitate settlement activity, including insurance, accountancy and digital infrastructure. Their argument is that an occupation is not sustained by physical goods alone. Financial, professional and technological services can also enable economic activity, property transactions and the continued development of settlements. The lawyers are also demanding greater transparency over British public money.
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They want the government to confirm publicly that no UK public body, pension scheme or sovereign fund holds investments in Israeli settlements. Such a declaration would force a much wider examination of the relationship between British public finance and economic activity in territory that the government now accepts is unlawfully occupied. The issue is particularly significant because the lawyers argue that Britain already has a model for imposing broad economic restrictions when it considers an occupation unlawful.
Their letter, also featured in today’s Law Society Gazette draws a direct comparison with the sanctions regime imposed on Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. British sanctions against Russia have reached far beyond individual military personnel to encompass banks, energy companies, shipping networks, exports, investment activity and financial services. The principle behind those measures, the lawyers argue, is that economic structures can help enable and finance an unlawful military enterprise. They ask why the same reasoning has not been applied to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.
“The same logic has yet to be applied towards Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory,” the letter states. That comparison is likely to prove politically uncomfortable for the government. Ministers can point to the settlement import ban as evidence that Britain is taking action, but the lawyers contend that the response remains selective when compared with the breadth of measures imposed against Russia.
Professor Ralph Wilde, professor of international law at University College London, argues that the government’s decision to acknowledge the illegality of Israel’s occupation is an important development. But, he says, recognition of illegality brings with it consequences that extend well beyond the measures directed at settlements and settlers.
“The consequences of this illegality for the UK and other states,” Wilde argues, include special legal duties to take comprehensive action to bring the occupation and other unlawful conduct to an end.
That distinction is at the heart of the lawyers’ intervention. The collective group of legal academics are not dismissing the government’s latest measures, but are arguing that ministers have taken a first step without addressing the wider legal consequences of the position they have now adopted. The letter also places the issue within the wider context of developments in the West Bank. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband told Parliament on 8 September that the government agrees that ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is taking place in the West Bank. For the lawyers, that acknowledgement makes the government’s wider responsibilities even more pressing. Their argument is that Britain cannot simply make findings about serious violations of international law and then disregard the implications when considering its own economic, financial and military relationships.
The result is a growing legal challenge to the government’s emerging policy on Israel and Palestine. The question is no longer simply whether Britain should sanction Israeli settlements. It is whether Britain is taking sufficient steps to ensure that its own institutions, businesses and public funds do not contribute to an occupation that ministers themselves have acknowledged to be unlawful. The government’s settlement measures therefore represent only one part of a much larger dispute. The lawyers are demanding action across trade, professional services, finance, investment and military support. They want ministers to establish whether British money is invested in settlements, whether British companies are providing services that enable settlement activity and whether Britain’s wider economic relationship with Israel is compatible with its international legal obligations.
The letter presents a direct test for the prime minister of whether the government’s recognition of the illegality of the occupation will lead to substantive policy changes or remain confined to targeted sanctions. The signatories are making clear that they regard the current measures as insufficient. Their message is that once Britain accepts that an occupation is unlawful, international law does not permit the government to treat the consequences as a matter of political discretion. The legal battle over the government’s Israel policy may therefore only be beginning. The settlement import ban has answered one question, but the lawyers’ intervention raises a much larger one: how far is Britain prepared to go to ensure that its own economic and institutional activities do not help sustain an occupation it has recognised as unlawful?
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