I move:
That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to give effect to the State's obligations arising under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, and under customary international humanitarian law; and for that purpose to make it an offence for a person to import or sell goods or services originating in a state alleged to be in violation of its obligations under the Convention or in an occupied territory or to extract resources from an occupied territory in certain circumstances; and to provide for related matters.
This Bill is co-sponsored by the Leas-Cheann Comhairle and Deputy Pringle. It arises out of Israel's response to the horrendous attack on its territory by Hamas on 7 October last. The attack was barbaric, in complete flagrant violation of all the norms of war and conflict and devoid of any shred of humanity. Israel is of course entitled to defend itself and to seek to weed out those who attacked it in that or any other manner. What Israel is not entitled to do is mount a campaign in violation of its commitments under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It is not entitled to act in violation of international humanitarian law and, in particular, it is not entitled to act in disregard of the International Court of Justice and its orders. Unfortunately, that is what has unfolded in Gaza. It is also is increasingly unfolding in the West Bank. As we speak, it is unclear whether Israel will mount an attack on Rafah. What is clear is that in the event that it does so, the gates of hell will open. There is little that anybody in this House can do other than to pass legislation preventing this State from trading with a state that acts in violation of its international commitments.
In the Bill, a state in violation of obligations to prevent genocide is rather tightly defined as:
A state in respect of which an application instituting proceedings against it has been submitted to the International Court of Justice concerning alleged acts within the scope of Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, where the International Court has concluded that it has jurisdiction to entertain the case and that some of the allegations are capable of falling within the provisions of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the International Court of Justice has ordered provisional measures under Article 41 of the statute of the court creating international legal obligations and which measures the International Court of Justice subsequently found necessary to reaffirm in an order of that court.
The Bill also states that a state shall not or shall no longer be, as the case may be, a state alleged to be in violation of its obligations under the genocide convention if the case in which it is alleged to be in violation of its obligations under the convention is removed from the general list of the court. Occupied territories are defined in a similar way as they were in the occupied territories Bill, which was previously dealt with in the House, which passed a number of Stages and which is inexplicably being held up and in respect of which, notwithstanding what we see unfold before our eyes, nothing is happening.
One of the reasons I have heard posited - I have never heard tell of an official reason from the Government - for that Bill being delayed is that trade is an exclusive competence of the European Union. That may be the case, but trade is only an exclusive competence of the Union insofar as it is in accordance with the treaties. The treaties allow states to take their own trade measures in pursuance of international law and their human rights obligations.
My colleagues in the Independent group and I wrote to the Commission asking that the EU trade association agreement be suspended in light of what was unfolding before our eyes. We provided various reports from international NGOs and UNRWA and also video footage. On 24 November, we wrote and received no reply. We wrote again on the 12 December to the Directorate-General for Trade. Again, we received no reply. We finally received a reply in February, which basically stated that the EU condemned Hamas in the strongest possible terms - as do I, for what it is worth - and that it was looking into the matter. Looking into the matter is not sufficient in light of what is unfolding.
The Bill involves extraterritorial jurisdiction. It provides for a prescription on the importation of goods from a state in violation of its international commitments or the occupied territories. It includes a prescription on the sale of goods, a prescription on the provision of services other than humanitarian services and a prescription for the extraction of resources from a relevant occupied territory.
