One year on from historic ICJ ruling

This week marked one year since the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled Israel was plausibly committing genocide in Gaza and instructed the Israeli authorities to take provisional measures to guarantee the rights of Palestinians.

The ruling, which was handed down on 27 January 2024, noted how Israel must “refrain from acts under the Genocide convention, prevent and punish… incitement to genocide, and take immediate and effective measures to ensure the provision of humanitarian assistance”.

The case pitted South Africa, a country which emerged from the ashes of apartheid over two decades ago, against Israel, one of the last remaining settler colonial projects which sustains itself through apartheid and illegal occupation.

Since the ruling, over a dozen countries have joined South Africa’s case against Israel, including Nicaragua, Belgium, Colombia, Mexico, Ireland, and Spain.

Absent from that list are the US, UK, and Germany, the main three countries sustaining Israel’s campaign in Gaza through military, intelligence, and diplomatic support.

To mark the anniversary of the ICJ ruling, Amnesty, which produced a landmark 296-page report on Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in December, has now issued an important statement on Britain’s complicity in Israeli atrocities.

Amnesty said on Monday that the UK government’s “disregard for its legal obligations to prevent genocide [has] contributed to Israel’s impunity and risked British complicity in serious crimes against international law”.

Sarah Deshmukh, Amnesty UK’s chief executive, noted that “Prime Minister Keir Starmer must accept the UK’s obligations to prevent Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and help ensure there is justice and accountability”.

She added that “to avoid the risk of itself being complicit in genocide, the UK should have ended all arms transfers to Israel long ago and committed full support to the ICJ and other important international accountability mechanisms”.

Amnesty’s statement was flanked by a new report by the British Palestinian Committee, which laid bare this week the extent of the UK government’s involvement in the Israeli assault on Gaza, focusing on arms sales, intelligence assistance, and logistical support.

The British Palestinian Committee’s recommendations echoed those of Amnesty, with the organisation demanding Britain impose a full two-way arms embargo, drop the 2030 roadmap for UK-Israel bilateral relations, and support South Africa’s ICJ submission.

But with Donald Trump entering the White House and Keir Starmer increasingly treating Britain as a vassal state of the US, it seems all but certain that the UK government’s support for Israel will grow over the forthcoming years.

Indeed, Starmer told Benjamin Netanyahu last week that he would evaluate arms suspensions to Israel, and his government has just appointed a new trade envoy to Israel, Lord Ian Austin

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