Israel and Gaza

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The Government operate through other agencies as well as UNRWA. We have been very close indeed to the World Food Programme, through which an enormous amount of humanitarian aid is distributed. On UNRWA, we will go through the stages that I have set out clearly to the House. The hon. Gentleman can rest assured that, from my discussions with the United Nations Secretary-General in New York just over a week ago, UNRWA is funded for the moment, and we hope that our own funding, subject to the results of the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services inquiry and the implementation of the Colonna report, will be restored.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

On the jurisdiction of the ICC, the Government’s statement is out of step not just with the prosecutor but with the impartial independent panel of experts on international law from whom he sought advice. That panel consisted largely of lawyers from this jurisdiction—by which I mean England and Wales, and not my own in Scotland. Here is what they said, and I want the Deputy Foreign Secretary to tell me what part of it is wrong:

“The Panel agrees with the Prosecutor’s assessment that the ICC has jurisdiction in relation to crimes committed on the territory of Palestine, including Gaza…under article 12(2)(a) of the ICC Statute. It also agrees that the Court has jurisdiction over crimes committed by Palestinian nationals inside or outside Palestinian territory under article 12(2)(b) of the Statute. The ICC therefore has jurisdiction over Israeli, Palestinian or other nationals who committed crimes in Gaza or the West Bank. It also has jurisdiction over Palestinian nationals who committed crimes on the territory of Israel, even though Israel is not an ICC State Party.

The basis for the Court’s jurisdiction is that Palestine, including Gaza, is a State for the purpose of the ICC Statute. The ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber has already ruled that the Court’s jurisdiction extends to Palestine, as a State Party to the ICC Statute, on this basis.”

That is the opinion of an illustrious list of mainly English lawyers, with the exception of my dear colleague Baroness Helena Kennedy, who is of course a Scot, although she is at the English Bar. Can the Deputy Foreign Secretary, who I see has one of the Law Officers sitting beside him, tell me which part of that opinion is wrong?

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. and learned Lady is an immensely distinguished advocate and lawyer. She will have read the letter signed by no fewer than 600 lawyers that broadly agrees with what she has said, but she may also have read the letter from—I think—1,000 lawyers that disagrees with it. That shows that there are many different interpretations of this matter; hers is one, and as I have set out, the view of the Government is another.