Afrasianet - More than 800 lawyers, academics and judges sign a letter to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer demanding "sanctions against Israel" for genocide in Gaza, and asserting that "failure to take action will threaten the international legal order."
More than 800 lawyers, academics and retired senior judges, including former Supreme Court judges, have called on the UK to impose sanctions on the Israeli government and its ministers, and also consider suspending Israel's membership from the United Nations to meet its "fundamental international legal obligations."
In a letter to the prime minister, the signatories welcomed Kiir Starmer's joint statement last week with the leaders of France and Canada, which warned that they were ready to take "concrete measures" against Israel, but urged him to act without delay and "take urgent and decisive action to avoid the destruction of the Palestinian people in Gaza."
The signatories, including former Supreme Court Justices Lord Sumption and Lord Wilson, Court of Appeal judges and more than 70 KCs, said that "war crimes, crimes against humanity and serious violations of international humanitarian law are being committed in Palestine."
The letter asserted that there is "mounting evidence of genocide, which is being committed, or at least at risk of happening," highlighting recent comments by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who said that "the IDF will wipe out what is left of Gaza."
"All states, including the United Kingdom, are legally obliged to take all reasonable steps within their power to prevent and punish genocide, ensure respect for international humanitarian law, and end violations of the right to self-determination," the signatories stressed.
"The failure of the international community to uphold international law with regard to the occupied Palestinian territory contributes to the deterioration of the international climate and lawlessness, impunity, and puts the international legal system itself at risk," the letter said, addressing Starmer by saying: "Your government must act now, before it is too late."
Commenting on Foreign Secretary David Lamy's announcement last week to suspend negotiations on a new free trade deal with Israel, the two-page letter, backed by a 35-page legal memorandum, said it "must go further, faster, by reviewing existing trade relations, suspending the 2030 roadmap for a closer partnership between the UK and Israel, and imposing trade sanctions."
The legal experts called for Israeli ministers and senior IDF officials to be punished immediately for "inciting genocide, or supporting and sponsoring illegal settlements," noting that financial sanctions and travel bans "have so far been limited to individual settlers, outposts and settler organizations."
The letter, also signed by former Court of Appeal judges Sir Stephen Sidley, Sir Anthony Huber and Sir Alan Moses, former president of the Bar Association of England and Wales (Matthias Kelly KC) and the Bar Association of Northern Ireland (Brian VKC), said that "Israel was responsible for an unprecedented attack on the United Nations."
She pointed to Israel's ban on the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which it called the "backbone of aid" for the Palestinian people, from operating in the occupied territories, and "attacks on UN buildings, property and staff," stressing that these actions "go beyond isolated breaches and pose a broader challenge to the UN Charter regime itself."
Accordingly, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the signatories stressed that the UK "should consider commencing proceedings providing for the suspension of a member state."
The letter urged the UK to secure an immediate, unconditional and lasting ceasefire in Gaza, resume aid and lift the Israeli embargo on UNRWA.
It also noted that the UK "must confirm that it will implement the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former security minister Yoav Galant."
According to the Guardian, the letter "increases pressure on Starmer to act in the same week that the prosecutor, Lord Hermer K.C., is due to give an annual security lecture at a Russian think tank on the state of the rules-based international order."