19th August 2025
More heat and a little light from a further exchange of letters
Following the post on this blog yesterday on recognition of Palestine, a further two letters have been published on the substack of Joshua Rozenberg.
These two further letters are to and from the Attorney General.
The letters do not take the discussion much further, but it is interesting to see that the government not only states that it will comply with international law but also – expressly – that the government considers that a decision to recognise Palestine would be “entirely” in accordance with international law.
The government does not state what international law rules and obligations are relevant.
The government does not even state that it will comply with the Montevideo criteria – or even if it sees that criteria are relevant to this decision.
And the government does not really need to do so, for it is a political decision.
If the government decides to recognise Palestine there is no court of competent jurisdiction that can gainsay it, unless such recognition is in breach of an applicable rule or obligation.
And even after all these letters, no applicable legal rule or obligation has yet been identified in any of the published letters of which the United Kingdom would be in breach if it recognises Palestine.
That is not to say that the government is proposing to take the recognition decision in a politically wise way (and the current approach of the government seems irrational) – but it is a decision that should be taken within the realm of politics, and not of law.
For the recognition of one polity by another is – literally – a political question.
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Could we not all agree to treat it as an ecumenical question and move on?
Have you noticed the strange punctuation in the Gov statement?
“We are determined to […] ; unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to […]”.
It’s even more obvious in the original, where there’s a blank line after the semicolon.
That’s not how conditional clauses are supposed to work. It’s such an important part of the statement that it’s unlikely to be sloppy drafting…
I noticed that too, and it hinted at a last minute deletion.
Doubtless other considerations apply – and to be clear, I don’t mean to make light of the underlying topic of DAG’s post – but I read the definitions of statehood covered by the Montivideo Convention with interest, thinking that an argument could be made, on the basis of its terms, to recognise SeaLand as a nation in it’s own right. The only slightly question element would be the fourth condition – the “capacity to enter in to relations with other states.” Perhaps deeper reading would clarify this – the Wikipedia article doesn’t qualify this element. and if SeaLand qualifies, I’m pretty sure that a Palestinian State can as well.
But there is a second element here that I’d like to note, which is that our recognition of international law should not be capricious in nature. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, dozens of nations – the “coalition of the willing” rushed to that country’s defense. When Russia invaded Ukraine – in a technically/politically similar context – the world yawned and looked the other way. During the Bosnian War, Serbia committed ethnic cleansing against Bosnian Muslims, prompting a massive international response and the sending of peace-keeping forces backed by the UN. Meanwhile, this year, Israel has conducted the indiscriminate slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, the flattening of most of the Gaza Strip, effectively committing genocide.
I understand and accept that international law is always going to be a complex, difficult and sometimes intangible thing, but the mass murder of innocent children throughout Gaza is not difficult to understand.
If international law cannot deal with these most egregious atrocities, then it is worthless. Worse, it is a falsehood – a fig leaf nations hide behind, busy condemning others while they commit atrocities of their own.
If a UK police force ticketed motorists caught speeding in Audis and BMWs, while ignoring drivers of Porsches and Mercedes, there would be uproar – and rightly so. Yet what we are seeing on the international stage is the equivalent level of subjective and abritray recognition of international law.
The reason that humanity developed the concept of law – going back, perhaps, to the Code of Ur-Nammu – was to ensure that people could live in a peaceful society, in harmony with their neighbours. If we can’t have that, what’s the point in having international law in the first place?
Addenda – I appreciate that the chances of this happening are so remote as to be nonexistent, but you may recall that after the conclusion of hostilities in the Bosnian War, a total of 161 individuals, including Milan Martic, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, were indicted for War Crimes at the Hague. In 2013, 6 leaders were convicted of persecution and murder.
The attack October attack on Israel was a heinous and criminal act and the perpetrators should be found and prosecuted.
But “two wrongs don’t make a right”.
In response to a terrorist attack, Israel has committed genocide.
Where is the justice for the dead and the starving of Gaza? Where is internal law now?