More than 130 lawyers and legal academics, including 18 king’s counsel (KCs), wrote to the prime minister on 15 September 2026 [1] that the sanctions on Israeli settlements announced on 8 September [2] fall far short of Britain’s obligations under the international court of justice’s (ICJ’s) finding that the occupation is unlawful [3].

Their letter includes the following:

We welcome [the measures announced] as a necessary corrective to a position long overdue for revision. However, we do not consider that they discharge the obligations international law imposes on this country, and we write to say so at a moment of acute and accelerating violation.

In its Advisory Opinion [3], the International Court of Justice (‘ICJ’) found that Israel’s legislation and measures impose and maintain what it described as a “near-complete separation” between settler and Palestinian communities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, in breach of the prohibition of racial segregation and apartheid under Article 3 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

However, the court’s ruling has not had an impact on Israel’s apartheid practices…

In the 2024 Advisory Opinion, the ICJ also held that Israel’s continued presence in the [occupied Palestinian territory] is unlawful as a violation of Palestinian self-determination and the prohibition on the annexation of territory through the use of force, and should be brought to an end as rapidly as possible…

We note that in September 2024 the UN General Assembly endorsed, by a large majority, the ICJ’s findings of both illegality and the special suppression obligations borne by third states in consequence of this illegality. While the UK Government has recognised that the occupation is unlawful, the suppression obligations it is subject to, as explained by the ICJ and endorsed by the General Assembly, go way beyond simply acknowledging this reality; they require changes in policy and practice to fulfil the negative duties of non-recognition and non-aid and non-assistance, and the positive duty to end Israel’s non-compliance, including, fundamentally, by bringing the illegal occupation to an end.

We welcome the UK Government’s decision to act alongside its allies, Canada and France, but the action covered in the recent announcement falls far short of what these suppression obligations require. We ask it to commit to further and more rigorous measures to ensure that no part of the UK’s economic relationship with Israel continues to sustain the illegal occupation itself, and the settlements and other serious violations of fundamental rules of international law perpetrated through its conduct, and to build on this to adopt robust coercive measures to seek to bring all these serious violations of international law, and the practices they sustain, including, fundamentally, the occupation itself, to an end.

UK cannot maintain that the occupation is unlawful, sanction those who build and finance the settlements, and at the same time sustain them through its own market and its own procurement. We ask the UK Government to close that gap, and to do so because the law requires it. The Foreign Secretary has undertaken to establish a comprehensive sanctions regime. If it is to have any bearing on E1, it must be in force before the tender closes on 19 October.

References

[1] UK Judges’ and Lawyers’ Open Letter Concerning the UK Government’s Sanctions on Illegal Settlements_15_9_2026: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BG06rgxwnZrHl-mHWDUhEb3kp3xUSz3q/edit

[2] Foreign Secretary Oral Statement on Israel-Palestine: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/foreign-secretary-oral-statement-on-israel-palestine

[3] The International Court of Justice (ICJ) Advisory Opinion on “Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”: https://www.un.org/unispal/icj-and-question-of-palestine/#eb030129d06f86bbb