Over 600 jurists warn UK government arming Israel violates international law

By Ahmet Gencturk

ATHENS (AA) – Over 600 British jurists, including three former Supreme Court judges, lawyers, academics, and retired senior judges, warned that the UK's arming of Israel violates international law, Irish media reported on Wednesday night.

“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 the sale of weapons and weapons systems to Israel and to maintain threats of suspending UK aid to UNRWA falls significantly short of your government’s obligations under international law,” they stated in an open letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, according to Irish Times daily.

Drawing attention to the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) finding that there is a plausible risk of genocide being committed by Israel in Gaza, the letter said, “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.”

The daily underlined that the letter has been signed by senior retired judges who normally avoid publicly commenting on politically sensitive issues.

The letter's signatories include former Supreme Court justices Lord Sumption and Lord Wilson, former Lord Justices of Appeal Sir Stephen Sedley, Sir Alan Moses, Sir Anthony Hooper, and Sir Richard Aikens, and former Bar of England and Wales Chair Matthias Kelly KC.

The Israeli war, which is now in its 181st day, has forced 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which last week asked it to do more to prevent famine in Gaza.