Plaid Cymru MPs back bid to press UK Government for response to ICJ Israel ruling

Plaid Cymru MPs have joined a cross-party initiative to put pressure on the UK Government to issue a response to last year’s groundbreaking International Court of Justice’s judgment on Israel’s activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).

Ben Lake, Liz Saville Roberts, Llinos Medi and Ann Davies are part of a group of a group of 112 parliamentarians who have written to the Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Attorney General Lord Richard Hermer.

They are demanding that the UK government immediately publishes its response to the ICJ’s advisory opinion published In July 2024, that ruled Israel should pay reparations to the Palestinian people and that their policies violate the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

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'Obligations'

Plaid Cymru Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Ben Lake MP said: “The ICJ issued its findings a year ago (19 July 2024) but the UK Government is yet to publish its response. The UK Government is currently failing to hold the Israeli Government to account, and we urge the Prime Minister and his Government to address the unlawful situation occurring in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as well as its own obligations under international law.”

The UK Government has promised parliament to publish its formal response to the advisory opinion, however, the only comment it has made on ICJ’s advisory opinion so far, is that it doesn’t disagree with its central findings.

In a statement on 22 October 2024, it said: “The UK does not disagree with the central findings of the International Court of Justice's Advisory Opinion on the 'Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”.

The Foreign Secretary, in his appearance in front of the International Development Select Committee on 16 July 2025, replying to a question asking why it had taken so long to publish the government’s response, said: “it's an 83-page opinion. So, it's right that the lawyers that you would expect within government assist and do the work that you would expect them to do.”

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'Utter nonsense'

Chris Doyle, Director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding (Caabu), which is behind the campaign, said: “It is an utter nonsense that a year on from this historic advisory opinion that the government has not issued its formal response. Sources have told Caabu that the legal response was drafted months ago. It is also not that complex a legal document based on many previous legal opinions.

“What it highlights is the government’s continued aversion to hold Israel to account, its failure to uphold international law and respect these international judicial institutions as it claims it does.”

16 civil society organisations, including Caabu, have also written to the government calling for it to take action to end UK complicity in violations of Palestinian rights, and to help bring the occupation to a rapid end.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive, which has destroyed large swathes of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.