APRIL 5 — “There are limits to what people can do, even in self-defence.” So says Lord Sumption, the former Supreme Court judge, esteemed KC (King’s Counsel) and revered historian.
Considered one of Britain’s greatest public intellectuals, if not the cleverest man in Britain — he who has a “brain the size of a planet” — Sumption’s courtroom exploits have been described by colleagues in superlatives: “amazing”, “brilliant”, “a frightening opponent”, “icy analytical instinct”, “titanic”.
In 2012, Sumption was appointed to the Supreme Court — the highest court in the UK — straight from the Bar, without having served as a judge in lower courts and thus became the first barrister for 60 years to jump straight from the Bar to a seat on the UK’s highest court.
On the bench, Sumption was known as a conservative judge. On a personal note, he was said to be Delphic — that is, mysterious and without a single, clear, definite meaning — which he seemed to agree with as he once told the BBC in 2010: “I have a different philosophy every five minutes.”
On Wednesday (April 3), Sumption joined two other former Supreme Court judges, Lady Hale and Lord Wilson, and more than 600 lawyers, academics and retired senior judges warning that the UK government is breaching international law by continuing to arm Israel.
In a letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the signatories say that the present situation in Gaza is “catastrophic” and that given the International Court of Justice (ICJ) finding that there is a plausible risk of genocide being committed, the UK is legally obliged to act to prevent it.
The first of the signatories is none other than Lady Hale, the former President of the Supreme, the UK’s head of judiciary.
Following the letter, Sumption told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the UK has a duty to prevent genocide, adding that the “framework of international law around war” does not mean countries can act however they want, even if they have been provoked or attacked, “however outrageously”.
Accordingly, in Gaza, Israel cannot “indiscriminately slaughter innocent civilians and children” and cannot “attack aid convoys”. It cannot “spend two weeks flattening hospitals”.
There’s nothing Delphic in Sumption’s assertions.
An average of 108 Palestinians have been killed and another 178 injured each day in Gaza.
At least 32,623 Palestinians have now been killed and 75,092 injured in Gaza.
Seventy per cent of recorded deaths have consistently been women and children.
Stop arming Israel. Stop the complicity in serious breaches of international law in Gaza.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
