On 19 July 2024, the International Court of Justice delivered a landmark advisory opinion: Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful; its settlement policies breach international law, including the Palestinian people’s peremptory right to self-determination; and third states are obliged not to recognise the illegal situation or render aid or assistance in maintaining it. Almost two years on, the UK has done little beyond saying it ‘respects’ the ICJ and that Israel should leave ‘as rapidly as possible’. The chair of the International Development Committee has warned that this position is ‘no longer sustainable’.

That evasion compounds a deeper failure. Last September, the government received a legal petition from 14 Palestinians directly harmed by British conduct, alleging a series of internationally wrongful acts including: unlawfully transforming Ottoman Palestine as an occupying power; constructing an illegal mandate in violation of article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant; committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Arab Rebellion; and abandoning Palestinians in 1948 when massacres and expulsions by Zionist paramilitary forces were already under way.

The link to today’s occupation is direct. The ICJ noted that Israel’s punitive house demolitions in the West Bank have been justified by the British 1945 Palestine Defence Emergency Regulations, which were themselves built upon successive ‘collective punishment’ ordinances and systemic discrimination. Britain imposed those regulations without democratic oversight and in violation of what inter-war jurists referred to as ‘elementary considerations of humanity’. The occupation Britain is now obliged to help end was built with British legal architecture.

According to the International Law Commission’s guidance, where responsibility is established for an internationally wrongful act, the responsible state must make reparation for the injury caused. Despite 45 parliamentarians calling for a response, the government has not replied to the petition. Last year’s recognition of Palestinian statehood and the sanctioning of isolated individuals cannot substitute for acknowledgement of these specific wrongs. The ICJ’s conclusions are clear. The petition’s legal case is detailed. The government has evaded both. It is time to act.

Ben Emmerson KC CBE and Danny Friedman KC, London

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