The UK\u2019s plan to recognise a Palestinian state is compliant with international law, a minister has said, after a group of peers raised concerns that it did not meet the legal bar.<\/p>\n
Gareth Thomas, a business minister, said it was a \u201cpolitical judgment\u201d that Palestine should be recognised and that the government believed it was compatible with the criteria for statehood under the Montevideo convention, a treaty signed in 1933.<\/p>\n
In a significant shift in the UK\u2019s approach, Starmer said on Tuesday<\/a> that recognition would take place before the UN general assembly in New York this September, unless Israel agreed to a series of conditions set out in the UK-led eight-point peace plan, which has been backed by allies.<\/p>\n The conditions included Israel taking \u201csubstantive steps\u201d to end the situation in Gaza<\/a>, reaching a ceasefire, committing to no annexation in the West Bank and a long-term peace process.<\/p>\n On Thursday, however, 40 members of the House of Lords, including high-profile lawyers, wrote to Richard Hermer<\/a>, the attorney general, challenging the prime minister\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n They said the move towards recognising Palestine may breach international law, questioning whether it met the conditions of having a defined territory, a permanent population, an effective government and the capacity to enter into relations with other states.<\/p>\n Asked whether recognising Palestine would be compliant with international law, Thomas told Times Radio: \u201cYes, we believe it is. In the end, recognition of another state is a political judgment and over 140 countries have already recognised Palestine, and we\u2019re determined to do so in September if Israel does not end the violence in Gaza, agree to a ceasefire and agree to a lasting route towards a two-state solution, and to no annexation in the West Bank.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Get the day\u2019s headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Gareth Thomas. Photograph: Chris McAndrew\/UK Parliament<\/p>\n In their letter to Hermer, the peers said there was no certainty over the borders of Palestine and no single government, as Hamas and Fatah were enemies.<\/p>\n Thomas told Times Radio there was a \u201cclear population\u201d in Palestine and \u201cwe have made clear that we think you would recognise the state of Palestine, and that state of Palestine would be based on the 1967 borders\u201d.<\/p>\n In their letter, the peers added: \u201cYou have said that a selective, \u2018pick-and-mix\u2019 approach to international law will lead to its disintegration, and that the criteria set out in international law should not be manipulated for reasons of political expedience.<\/p>\n \u201cAccordingly, we expect you to demonstrate this commitment by explaining to the public and to the government that recognition of Palestine would be contrary to the principles governing recognition of states in international law.\u201d<\/p>\n Among the peers to have signed the letter are David Pannick \u2013 who represented the previous government at the supreme court over its Rwanda scheme \u2013 as well as the KCs Guglielmo Verdirame and Edward Faulks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK\u2019s plan to recognise a Palestinian state is compliant with international law, a minister has said, after…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":107856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[99,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-107855","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-israel","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114948538651397672","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}