Israel
Then there is
Britain's relationship with Israel, which is taking a battering
due to internal politics and finger-pointing over claims of
racism.
Fundamentally
though, the issue is about war crimes being committed against
the Palestinian people.
British arms
sales to Israel is at best questionable, especially the news
that British
made sniper rifles were used to kill and injure thousands of
Palestinians recently.
But Britain's
support in this genocidal war again goes against all
international norms where the conflict is described by Amnesty
International as an,
"abhorrent
violation of international laws."
It added that,
"This is
another horrific example of the Israeli military using
excessive force and live ammunition in a totally deplorable
way.
This is a
violation of international standards, in some instances
committing what appear to be willful killings constituting
war crimes."
In addition,
UK policy is allowing trade with 'Israeli' goods from illegal
settlements in the occupied territories.
The British
government has stated that it does not even keep a record of
imports into the UK from these illegal Israeli settlements.
Acquiescing in this illegal trade by an occupying power is a
violation of international law.
The December
2016 UN
Security Council Resolution, to which the UK agreed:
'reaffirms
that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the
Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East
Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant
violation under international law"
Libya
Mark Curtis, a British foreign policy expert and historian
writes about Britain's illegal attack of a sovereign state -
Libya:
"British
bombing in Libya, which began in March 2011, was a violation
of UN Resolution 1973, which authorized member states to
enforce a no-fly zone over Libya and to use 'all necessary
measures' to prevent attacks on civilians but did not
authorize the use of ground troops or regime change promoted
by the Cameron government.
That these
policies were illegal is confirmed by Cameron himself, who
told Parliament on 21 March 2011 that the UN resolution
'explicitly does not provide legal authority for action to
bring about Gaddafi's removal from power by military
means'."
Today, Libya
is a failed state and overrun by militant factions...
Extrajudicial assassinations and even a kill list
Reprieve's
report entitled Britain's
Kill List accused the Conservative government of extreme
deception of parliament.
Officially,
Britain has never had a so-called 'kill list' but David Cameron
had to admit to an extrajudicial
assassinations program in the Middle East, which we at
TruePublica reported.
All such
killings break the most fundamental of international laws and
norms as detailed HERE.
The Reprieve
introductory paragraph reads:
"On
September 7th, 2015, Prime Minister David Cameron came to
Parliament and announced a 'new departure' for Britain, a
policy of killing individuals the Security Services and the
military do not like, people placed on a list of individuals
who the UK (acting along with the US and others) have
identified and systematically plan to kill.
The mere
admission that there is a Kill List certainly should,
indeed, have been a 'departure' for a country that prides
itself on decency.
Unfortunately, it was not a 'new departure' at all, as we
had been doing it secretly for more than a decade."
Statelessness
Britain has
once again broken international norms.
The goals of
UNHCR's stateless campaign, a Global Action Plan to End
Statelessness 2014-2024 introduced a guiding framework
comprised of 10 Actions to be undertaken by states.
In the case of
high-profile 'ISIS Bride' runaway from Bethnal Green to Baghuz,
Shamima Begum, the UK disregarded Actions 4 and 9:
-
Action
4: Prevent denial, loss or deprivation of nationality on
discriminatory grounds.
-
Action
9: Accede to the UN Statelessness Conventions.
But Britain's
has its own laws.
Section 40(2) of the 1981 British
Nationality Act states the Home Secretary won't make any
individual rendered stateless as a result.
Under this,
the UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid's decision to
revoke Begum's citizenship breaks UK law and international
norms.
Political prisoner
Then, there is
the persecution of Julian Assange, the founder
of Wikileaks,
which is now seven years old.
Ecuador has
protected Assange for the past half decade from being turned
over to Washington until his arrest by British police yesterday.
By definition,
Assange is the only political prisoner in western Europe.
A United
Nations legal panel ruled that Assange should be allowed to walk
free and be compensated for his "deprivation of liberty" and
that his detention was illegal.
Assange has
been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize every year since 2010.
His really big crime was releasing film of an American
helicopter gunship killing civilians and journalists in Iraq.
Britain is
more than just complicit of it attack of fundamental and
important press freedoms in arresting him.
Assange's
lawyer criticized the British government for being poised to
arrest and extradite Assange to the United States.
"That a
government would cooperate with another state to extradite a
publisher for publishing truthful information outside its
territory sets a dangerous precedent here in the UK and
elsewhere," she said.
"No one
can deny that risk. That is why he sought asylum in the
Ecuadorian embassy."
Surveillance
The UK
government's record on bulk data handling for intelligence
purposes saw the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)
ruling that state surveillance practices such as those practiced
in Britain violated human rights law.
United
National Special Rapporteur on Privacy Joe Cannataci said
Britain was setting a bad example to the world and that
Britain's surveillance techniques on its own citizens was,
"worse
than
Orwell's 1984."
The highest
courts in Britain have ruled against the government on mass
surveillance.
In 2014,
British spies were (illegally) granted the authority to secretly
eavesdrop on legally privileged attorney-client
communications, according to documents.
The documents
were made public as a result of a legal
case brought against the British government by Libyan
families who allege that they were subjected to extraordinary
rendition and torture, where Britain was proven to be in
violation of international laws, in a joint British-American
operation that took place in 2004.
A lawyer, in
this case, said,
"It could
mean, amazingly, that the government uses the information
they have got from snooping on you, against you, in a case
you have brought.
This
clearly violates an age-old principle of English law set
down in the 16th century - that the correspondence between a
person and their lawyer is confidential."
In addition,
just one of the many operations carried out by the British state
was called Optic
Nerve.
It illegally
went about capturing images from webcams of millions of
completely innocent citizens accused of nothing. Between 3% and
11% of the images captured by the webcams were sexually explicit
in nature and deemed "undesirable nudity."
The public has
not been reassured that these files still exist or not that were
taken to build an illegal facial recognition system the
government had not declared.
Surveillance operations such as - Muscular, Socialist,
Gemalto, Three Smurfs, XKeyScore, Upstream and Tempora - are all
examples of extreme surveillance systems being used in Britain
that would be completely unknown if it had not been for
Edward Snowden... another political prisoner.
All such
operations would be deemed illegal in court and of breaking
international laws or norms in normal democratic countries.
Health
and Safety
In 2015, the
Government pushed
through a law that exempted a large number of self-employed
people from the protection of the Health and Safety at Work Act.
The Government
managed to get away with reducing the level of protection
because the self-employed are not covered by the European
"Framework Directive", which is the regulation that sets minimum
standards that countries have to comply with.
At the time
the TUC pointed out to the Government that there were other
international laws that the UK had signed up to in many other
non European countries that did cover the self-employed
including those of the International Labour Organisation
(ILO) and the Council of Europe.
Disability
The UN
Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities examined
the British government's progress in fulfilling its commitments
to the UN
convention on disabled people's rights, to which the UK has
been a signatory since 2007.
Its report concludes
that the UK has not done enough to ensure the convention, which
enshrines the rights of disabled people to live independently,
to work and to enjoy social protection without discrimination -
is reflected in UK law and policy.
Although it
praises some initiatives by the Scottish and Welsh governments
to promote inclusion, it is scathing of the UK government's
inconsistent and patchy approach to protecting disability rights
and its failure to audit the impact of its austerity policies on
disabled people.
Trust
Breaking
international laws and norms has a long-term effect, mainly that
of detriment to national security, long-term interests and
trust.
There is an
assumption, of course, that international law cannot be enforced
but in today's world, international sanctions can be as damaging
as using force. Those sanctions could be economic or diplomatic
in nature.
And if Britain
wants to be an international player, it very strongly needs to
appreciate and adhere to international laws and norms.
