130 UK Legal Experts Tell Burnham Settlement Import Ban Falls Short of ICJ Occupation Ruling

More than 130 legal experts sent a six-page letter to British Prime Minister Andy Burnham on Tuesday, arguing that the UK government's new ban on imports from Israeli settlements does not meet Britain's obligations under the International Court of Justice's 2024 advisory opinion, which found Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory unlawful.

The letter followed Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband's announcement of the settlement import ban, a measure Israel criticized as a targeted move against settlements rather than the state itself. The lawyers pushed back on that framing directly.

"The obligations identified by the ICJ in the 2024 Advisory Opinion, and the subsequent General Assembly resolution endorsing it, however, attach to the occupation as a whole, and the Government has itself found that ethnic cleansing is taking place," the letter states, according to The New Arab.

The signatories drew a contrast with Britain's Russia sanctions regime, which they say extends beyond occupied Ukrainian territory to banks, energy firms, shipping networks and financial services tied to the war, rather than being confined to trade from occupied land alone. They also cited Article 6(3) of the Arms Trade Treaty, which bars arms transfers where a state knows the weapons would be used to commit genocide, crimes against humanity, or grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.

The letter further calls on the government to prevent UK-registered charities from funding settlement activity. Labour MP Melanie Ward has previously said Israeli settlements received at least £28 million in donations from 32 charities in England and Wales, a figure that prompted the Charity Commission to open a fact-finding inquiry in August.

"The occupation itself" is illegal, lawyer argues

Ralph Wilde, a UCL professor of international law who has served as senior counsel to the Arab League before the ICJ, told The New Arab that settlements and any findings of genocide are separate from what he called the more fundamental illegality of Israel's presence in the occupied territory at all.

"Even if there weren't settlements, and even if there wasn't a genocide, Israel would still be acting illegally because it doesn't even have a legal right to be there in the first place," Wilde said.

Wilde said Britain had long maintained that it was neither possible nor advisable to rule on the legality of the occupation itself, treating it as lawful pending a peace agreement. He called the UK's recent acknowledgment that the occupation is illegal a limited but significant shift, while noting London has not followed the ICJ's conclusion that an illegal occupation must end.

He argued Britain should end all military, intelligence, and other assistance to Israel, saying there is no way to be certain such assistance does not support the occupation.

SOAS law professor Nimer Sultany, another signatory, framed the underlying obstacle in blunter terms, stating that Israel's political consensus opposes Palestinian statehood and that the occupation "is not a bug, it's a feature."