It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, April 03, 2024
What is the genocide convention and how might it apply to the UK and Israel?
Haroon Siddique Legal affairs correspondent Wed, 3 April 2024 The ICJ ordered Israel to ‘take all measures within its power to prevent’ the killing of Palestinians, prevent and punish incitement to commit genocide and enable provision of humanitarian assistance.
In a letter to the British prime minister, hundreds of legal figures, including some who have held some of the land’s most senior judicial roles, have said the government is breaching its obligations under international law, including the genocide convention, when it comes to Israel’s war in Gaza. Here the Guardian explains what the genocide convention is, the responsibilities it confers on signatories and its relevance.
What is the genocide convention?
The convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide – otherwise known as the genocide convention – was approved in 1948 and came into effect in 1951 after the second world war and the Holocaust, in which Nazi Germany killed more than 6 million Jews. The concept of “genocide” was created by Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish law professor,and the convention created the first international legal definition of the term. How does it define genocide?
The convention, which has been ratified by 153 countries including the UK (in 1970) and Israel, defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.
The acts include killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, destroying their living conditions so as to bring about their destruction, preventing them from giving birth and forcibly transferring their children to other groups.
It is considered to be the most serious war crime.
What is punishable under the convention?
Naturally, genocide itself is an offence but there are other linked offences too, including complicity in genocide. Under article 1 of the convention, each state party is required to undertake to prevent and punish genocide. It is on this basis that South Africa, which has already brought a genocide case against Israel at the international court of justice (ICJ), has reportedly been preparing a lawsuit to file at the ICJ against the UK and US – which both supply arms to Israel – alleging complicity in genocide.
The letter/legal opinion sent to the prime minister by legal figures states: “Serious action is … needed to avoid UK complicity in grave breaches of international law, including potential violations of the genocide convention.”
One example it gives is: “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.
Has Israel been found to have committed genocide?
No. Following the case filed by South Africa against Israel and representations made by each side on consecutive days, the ICJ issued an interim judgment in which it said it was “plausible” that Israel was committing breaches of the genocide convention against Palestinians in Gaza. This was not a definitive ruling – genocide cases can take years to resolve – but the letter to the prime minister says: “The UK cannot wait until the court decides the case on the merits; it must act now in accordance with its obligation to prevent genocide.”
The UN’s top court was asked by South Africa to issue a provisional order because of the deemed urgency of the situation. In response, the ICJ ordered Israel, among other things, to “take all measures within its power to prevent” the killing of Palestinians, prevent and punish incitement to commit genocide and enable provision of humanitarian assistance. Last week, the court issued additional provisional measures including for Israel to allow unimpeded access of food aid into Gaza, as it said “famine is setting in”.
Former supreme court judges say UK arming Israel breaches international law
Haroon Siddique, Eleni Courea and Patrick Wintour Wed, 3 April 2024 The Guardian The letter adds further pressure on the UK government after three British citizens were killed in an Israeli strike on Monday
.Photograph: Mohammed Saber/EPA
Three former supreme court justices, including the court’s former president Lady Hale, are among more than 600 lawyers, academics and retired senior judges warning that the UK government is breaching international law by continuing to arm Israel.
In a letter to the prime minister, the signatories, who also include former court of appeal judges and more than 60 KCs, say 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 UK is legally obliged to act to prevent it.
The 17-page letter, which also amounts to a legal opinion, was sent on Wednesday evening and says: “While we welcome the increasingly robust calls by your government for a cessation of fighting and the unobstructed entry to Gaza of humanitarian assistance, simultaneously to continue (to take two striking examples) the sale of weapons and weapons systems to Israel and to maintain threats of suspending UK aid to Unwra falls significantly short of your government’s obligations under international law.”
It comes as Conservative MPs piled pressure on Rishi Sunak to act after seven international aid workers, including three British citizens, were killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza on Monday. Party sources believe that the foreign secretary, David Cameron, has been pushing for the government to harden its approach to Israel but has been met with resistance from Downing Street.
Three Tory backbenchers and one former minister now in the Lords said that the UK should stop exporting arms to Israel after the airstrike, while the findings of a YouGov poll, conducted before the strike, suggested that the government and Labour are out of step with public sentiment, with a majority of voters – by 56% to 17% – in favour of an arms ban.
The letter calls for the government to work towards a permanent ceasefire and to impose sanctions “upon individuals and entities who have made statements inciting genocide against Palestinians”. It says that restoring funding to Unrwa – which was withdrawn after Israel’s yet-to-be-substantiated allegations that 12 staff at the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees were involved in the 7 October attacks – is necessary for “effective entry and distribution of the means of existence to Palestinians in Gaza, and by extension the prevention of genocide”.
On arming Israel, it says: “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 Conservative MPs David Jones, Paul Bristow and Flick Drummond, and the Tory peer Hugo Swire, all called for the suspension of arms exports to Israel after Peter Ricketts, who was a government national security adviser during David Cameron’s premiership and now sits in the Lords, expressed similar sentiments.
Drummond, the MP for Meon Valley, said: “This has been concerning me for some time. What worries me is the prospect of UK arms being used in Israel’s actions in Gaza, which I believe have broken international law.”
Lord Ricketts told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think there’s abundant evidence now that Israel hasn’t been taking enough care to fulfil its obligations on the safety of civilians. And a country that gets arms from the UK has to comply with international humanitarian law. That’s a condition of the arms export licence.”
The Scottish first minister, Humza Yousaf, warned that by refusing to stop arms sales to Israel, “the UK is in danger of being complicit in the killing of innocent civilians”.
The letter’s significance lies not just in the number of signatories but the fact that it has been signed by senior retired judges, who normally shy away from commenting publicly on issues that are politically sensitive.
Prominent signatories include the former supreme court justices Lord Sumption and Lord Wilson, the former Lord Justices of Appeal Sir Stephen Sedley, Sir Alan Moses, Sir Anthony Hooper and Sir Richard Aikens, and the former chair of the Bar of England and Wales, Matthias Kelly KC.
They say in the letter: “The UK must take immediate measures to bring to an end through lawful means 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 UK state responsibility for the commission of an international wrong, for which full reparation must be made.”Interactive
The letter goes further – and has a more eminent list of signatories – than a previous one sent to Sunak in October, concerning the government’s obligations to avert and avoid complicity in serious breaches of international humanitarian law.
It says there have since been “significant developments” in relation to the situation in Gaza. These include the interim orders issued by the ICJ and the worsening situation in Gaza, with at least 32,623 Palestinians killed by the Israeli offensive, “imminent famine”, caused by Israel’s blocking of aid, the destruction of health facilities, killings of healthcare and humanitarian workers, and reports of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment.
One of the signatories, Phillippa Kaufmann KC, said: “That so many senior members of the UK legal profession are speaking with such force to urge the government to act upon its legal obligations, demonstrates the depth of our concern about the clear evidence of gross violations of international law in Gaza.”
The letter also calls on the government to continue to “use all endeavours” to secure the release of the Israeli hostages seized in the 7 October attacks in which Hamas and other militant groups killed approximately 1,200 people in Israel.
Sunak told the Sun on Wednesday night that arms licences were kept under “careful” review according to “regulations and procedures that we’ll always follow”.
Liberal Democrats leader calls on UK gov't to suspend arms sales to Israel
'For years Liberal Democrats called for far tougher control of arms exports, so that British arms are not being used in conflicts such as devastating one in Gaza,' says Ed Davey
Burak Bir |03.04.2024
Israeli military camp as Israel continues to deploy soldiers, tanks and armored vehicles near the Gaza border in Kibbutz Bar'am, Israel on October 14, 2023.
LONDON
The head of the Liberal Democrats party in the UK urged the government on Wednesday to end arms exports to Israel.
"For years Liberal Democrats have called for far tougher control of arms exports, so that British arms are not being used in conflicts such as the devastating one in Gaza," Ed Davey wrote on X.
His remarks came after seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen (WCK) were killed in an Israeli strike Monday in the Gaza Strip. They were nationals of Australia, Poland, the UK, Palestine, as well as a US-Canada dual citizen.
"The UK Government must take swift action to suspend arms exports to Israel," added Davey.
After the targeted attack, WCK said it was pausing operations in the region.
The attack has sounded international alarm bells, with many condemning the strike on aid workers and demanding a thorough investigation.
Britain summoned the Israeli ambassador to the Foreign Office on Tuesday for the strike because three of the victims were UK nationals.
Israel has waged a military offensive on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, 2023 cross-border attack by the Palestinian group, Hamas, which killed around 1,200 people.
Nearly 33,000 Palestinians have since been killed besides causing mass destruction and displacement.
Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which last week asked Tel Aviv to do more to prevent famine in Gaza. “Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine ... but that famine is setting in,” said the ICJ.
Plaid Cymru calls for recall of UK Parliament to stop sale of weapons to Israel
03 Apr 2024
IDF soldiers operating in Gaza. Photo by Israel Defence Forces is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.
Plaid Cymru has called for an immediate recall of the UK parliament following Israeli air strikes on Gaza aid workers which killed seven people.
On Monday, three UK citizens, an Australian, a Polish national, an American-Canadian dual citizen and a Palestinian died when an aid convoy was hit as it was leaving the Deir al-Balah warehouse.
They were all working for World Central Kitchen, a not-for-profit, non-governmental organisation that provides meals in the wake of natural disasters.
Plaid has also urged the UK Government to stop selling arms to Israel, saying that by continuing to do so it was “aiding in the killing of civilians”.
UK defence exports to Israel amounted to £42 million in 2022. Since 2008, the UK has licenced arms worth over £574 million to Israel, according to analysis of Government export data by Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), a UK based pressure group that seeks an end to the global arms trade.
Barbaric
Plaid Cymru’s Westminster leader, Liz Saville Roberts MP, said: “The barbaric killing of aid workers in Gaza, three of whom were British nationals, is the latest atrocity in Gaza where over 30,000 civilians have died in the last six months.
“We must now see an immediate recall of Parliament to scrutinise the continued support of this war and of the sale of arms by the UK Government and the Labour opposition. All political parties represented in Westminster should be in the Chamber to hold to account the government’s reluctant response to the growing evidence of Israel state enabled targeted killings of innocent people.”
“The UK Government must stop the sale of weapons to Gaza immediately and stop aiding in the killing of so many innocent lives.”
Careful
Defending arms sales to Israel, amid calls for a ban, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told the Sun Newspaper’s Never Mind the Ballots show: “I think we’ve always had a very careful export licensing regime that we adhere to.
“There are a set of rules, regulations and procedures that we’ll always follow, and I have been consistently clear with Prime Minister Netanyahu since the start of this conflict that while of course we defend Israel’s right to defend itself and its people against attacks from Hamas, they have to do that in accordance with international humanitarian law, protect civilian lives and, sadly, too many civilians have already lost their lives.
“Get more aid into Gaza. That’s what we’ve consistently called for and what we want to see actually is an immediate humanitarian pause to allow more aid in, and crucially the hostages to be released, and that’s what we’ll continue to push for.”
Lord Peter Ricketts, a former senior diplomat who chaired the Joint Intelligence Committee during the Blair government, had earlier said Israeli forces’ killing of the aid workers has sparked “global outrage” as he called for an “immediate ceasefire”.
The crossbench peer, who served as national security adviser between 2010 and 2012, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think there is abundant evidence now that Israel hasn’t been taking enough care to fulfil its obligations on the safety of civilians, and a country that gets arms from the UK has to comply with international humanitarian law, that is a condition of the arms export licensing policy.
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