Saleh Hasan & Others v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs

PIL has recently been granted funding to bring a case on behalf of a number of Palestinian civilians who have lost their livelihoods as a result of Israeli oppression and, in particular, the building of the Israeli Partition Wall. We intend to argue that the UK is in breach of its own Consolidated Criteria in granting export licences for the sale of weapons to Israel, contrary to the July 2004 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice The Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Each client has suffered human rights violations as a result of the construction of the wall and its associated regime including settlement activity which is contingent on the annexation of land for the wall, and the gate/identity card system that prevents agricultural and other workers from reaching their place of employment or agricultural land. These include the annexation or confiscation of land, deprivation of property/possessions and/or loss of livelihood, the destruction of property (including olive trees), demolition of property and homes (including administrative demolitions), damage to their families and communities and inability to access medical help.

We intend to argue that that the UK government should immediately review the legality and rationality of its arms related trading activities with Israel. We submit there is a particular need to review the legality and rationality of its present and continuing policy of these activities in the light of what appears to be a systematic and continuing breach of the UK government’s own Consolidated Criteria. This is in the light of the clear recent evidence that arms related products from UK based companies are implicated in indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as Lebanese civilians. The intensity of the review required now by the UK government must also reflect the clear international obligations it owes, as made clear in the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion.