You have always been outspoken when defending Palestinian rights and in your defence of international law. Can you tell me when you first got involved with these issues?

I was brought up in Scotland. My grandparents were all Irish. I consider myself to be a Celt, and I consider myself to be a Scot. But I recognise my Irish origins very strongly. Now, part of my story is that people came and stole the land [in Ireland]. The treatment of Irish Catholics was discriminatory and took a terrible toll on the population. Many emigrated to the United States. But also many settled in the northern parts of England and in Scotland. My grandparents were in that category.

We always had a strong sense of injustice, especially when unjust things were done to people, such as throwing them off their land or denying them their language. I grew up as a Roman Catholic child from parents who were very much committed to the creation of a fairer society and who believed very strongly in the values that were espoused after World War II, when so many had been killed and when the Fourth Geneva Convention was created that set down the rules about how any kind of conflict should be conducted.

One of the things that is said very clearly in international law is that if you are at war with a people and you occupy any of their territory, you can have set-ups and military bases there, but you cannot build houses and take the land of the people you have been at war with. And that is very clear. For example, part of the sanctions that we [in Britain] have introduced to deal with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia is that anybody who buys land in the occupied territory, or seeks to build houses on it, any Russian who does that, is going to be sanctioned, will have their visas taken away, and will have their assets frozen.

I’m very good friends with a very fine retired judge, a man called Theodore Meron who is a Holocaust survivor. He suffered cruelly at the hands of the Nazis. His mother and his grandparents were taken off and shot and thrown into a mass grave; his brother was killed in a concentration camp, and his father was in a labour camp, and he, as a child, barely survived. He and his father went to Palestine, where they had some relatives, and he ended up going to university and got a law degree. Then he came to Cambridge for his doctorate and returned to become the senior lawyer at the Foreign Ministry of what had become Israel.

After the 1967 War, he wrote legal advice to the government of Israel saying that you cannot build settlements on the occupied land and the West Bank. He believed strongly in the Geneva Conventions and in humanitarian law, and he was very clear about what was not permissible. His advice was, of course, ignored.

But he went on to become part of the panel that I was part of, that looked at the evidence that was going to be put before the International Criminal Court (ICC) to apply for a warrant against Hamas for what it did on 7 October 2023. It was also to look at the evidence accumulated by the court against [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Galant for the failure to provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people in Gaza and how, as a consequence, people had died, and children were suffering starvation and malnutrition.

Many of the doctors who had been there from around the world, and who had given their services, sometimes had to operate without anesthetics, etc. So, the evidence was very clear – that the people were suffering horribly as a result of all that.

Why is it that there are only a few members of the UK House of Lords who come to the defence of international law when it comes to Israel and Palestine?

This is one of the things that I believe to be shameful. This is a shame that should be borne by any of the Western countries that remain silent about what is going on. Just last week during one of the sessions in the House of Lords, I stood up and said there is an omerta in this House. The word describes a Mafia concept that says you must keep silent about any knowledge you might have. Remaining silent is a position that many take across the upper echelons of British society. It is because they do not want to be accused of antisemitism.

We have got ourselves into a position in which we cannot criticise Israel at all. We are allowed to criticise our own government when they are not doing the right thing or when they are acting in contravention of the law. We must criticise governments, since otherwise you do not hold power to account.

Looking around today and assessing the state of international relations, do you believe that the rules-based international order is under threat?

I always try to stay optimistic when it comes to the human condition. I believe that enough people will see that you need to have observance of the law. You need to have certain things in order to have a world where freedom is protected. You need to have a free media. Authoritarian governments need to ensure the partisanship of the media by making sure that their friends are running it. They also attack journalists who are exposing bad conduct. The shock to me is to see this happen in such a rampant way in the United States, a country that was built on the idea of law.

How can Britain help to convince the international community, particularly America, that the rules-based international order is still valid?

I see the United Kingdom as having been, basically, one of the great champions of the rule of law. I know this may sound a bit nationalistic to say that Britain invented the Magna Carta, but it is true, going back all that way to 1215. A king was being oppressive, and the noblemen got together and said, ‘this is not good enough; he is conducting wars elsewhere and expecting us to provide armies who are being slaughtered.’ And he was not accountable, saying that God had ordained that he be the king. And so, the nobles responded by saying, “no, nobody can be above the law, nobody, not even a king.” So, that is one fundamental thing about the rule of law, that no one is above the law.

But the other thing is that you must have an independent judiciary. We all know that in many authoritarian countries, the judiciary itself is coerced by the control of the government. So, you must have a number of independent bodies for democracies to work. For fair societies to work, you need to have independent judges. Governments don’t like what they [the judges] are doing. You also must have a free and independent media. Journalists need to be able to denounce corruption and abuses. There are a few things that are vital. Even the United Kingdom has had its failings. I have often spoken about its failings.

How do you assess the former Starmer government’s performance in respecting international law vis-à-vis the Palestinian people in Gaza?

I was very disappointed when I heard [former UK prime minister] Keir Starmer, who is a friend for whom I have great fondness, and who was a young lawyer in my own law firm when I was a senior member… when I heard that he had failed to denounce Netanyahu for turning off the water and electricity in Gaza. People cannot survive without water. Yes, 7 October involved terrible atrocity crimes committed by Hamas. But that does not justify punishing the whole people.

I know there is a problem when there are people hiding undercover inside their own societies. But there is no intelligence agency more adept than the Mossad. And if you wanted to find the actual perpetrators, actual Hamas members, they could have done so. But they chose to punish ordinary people – women, babies, children – in the most shocking way.

Yes, it was shocking and disgraceful that 2,000 people suffered and died on 7 October, and many were taken hostage. But what is not acceptable is to punish the whole of the population for the wrongs done by some. Imagine if we [in Britain] had gone into Northern Ireland and bombed the whole of the Catholic community because of the activities of the IRA. The world would have been screaming. But happily, my country didn’t do that.

After Keir Starmer made those comments about cutting the water and electricity off from the Gazans, he tried to make up for his words, and, on reflection, tried to correct and explain his position. Richard Hermer, who was Starmer’s attorney general, later played a constructive role in pushing for greater compliance with international law and in preventing us [Britain] from going into that horrible debacle of the war with Iran. It’s not perfect, but it’s been far better than it would have been under the Conservative Party.

How important is it for new UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government to act on the recommendation of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) regarding the situation in Gaza and the illegality of the occupation of the West Bank?

I hope there will be a reset. I’m not involved directly in government. I’m one of those people who will try to persuade government to absolutely conform to international law. And I hope that [UK Foreign Minister] Ed Miliband, in his role at the Foreign Office, will be much more willing to take very active steps against the Israeli government.

I would certainly like to see someone like Marwan Barghouti released from prison and see someone sensible leading the Palestinian people. At the moment, it is as if there is no one speaking for the Palestinians. This whole nonsense of a Peace Board set up by [US President Donald] Trump; I’m shocked that [former UK prime minister] Tony Blair is participating in it. I don’t think that anybody with any sense should be participating in such a false entity, which has the intention of developing the beachfront [in Gaza] for American tourists. I really hope this idea will be washed down the sink. How can you have a peace process when there are no Palestinians involved in it? Or when one side is not a participant?

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