Gaza: Scots lawyers call on Scottish and UK governments to enforce law against genocide
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Scots lawyers have called for the international law against genocide to be enforced in Gaza in an open letter to the Scottish and UK governments.
Rachel Moon, partner at Govan Law Centre, explained what motivated her to draft the open letter with legal colleagues.
She said: “I read the UK lawyers letter and it felt like the answer to a question I hadn’t realised I had been looking for. We had watched for months videos of hospitals being bombed; read the statistics of journalists killed and watched with horror the number of child amputees rising; a man-made famine declared: the most unimaginable human suffering. And statements from the heart of the Israeli cabinet seemingly obvious in genocidal intent.
“It felt like international law was unable to hold fast against it, it didn’t feel like hyperbole to worry that the global rule of law was seriously at risk. The letter put in stark terms the legal answer: a red line had been crossed and the UK was under a legal obligation to act. It asked of our government practicable and necessary steps. I wanted my name on there. And I wanted to know what the Scottish government was actually doing about it.”
The full text of the open letter is below:
Dear prime minister, first minister of Scotland, lord advocate, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and Police Scotland,
We are members of the legal community in Scotland who call upon the UK and Scottish governments to uphold the rule of law and adhere to their legal obligations under international law to prevent and punish genocide; to ensure respect for international humanitarian law and to bring an end to violations of jus cogens norms of international law.
We endorse the UK lawyers letter published on 26 May 2025 and support its calls upon the UK government to take the following concrete actions:
- Use all available means to secure an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and to ensure the urgent, unconditional and unimpeded resumption of aid, at scale, to the population of Gaza;
- Use all available means to secure the lifting of Israel’s ban upon the United Nations Relief and Works Agency throughout the entire occupied Palestinian territory (“oPt”, Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem);
- Impose financial and immigration sanctions in relation to Israeli Ministers and other civil and military personnel reasonably suspected of involvement in unlawful conduct;
- Review existing trade ties with Israel; suspend the 2030 Roadmap for closer UK-Israel partnership; and impose trade sanctions upon Israel; and
- Confirm that the UK will adhere to its obligation to execute arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court in relation to the oPt.
We urge the Scottish ministers to use all available means to demand the UK government act in respect of reserved matters.
We support the motion agreed by the Scottish Parliament on 3 September 2025 and the Scottish government’s decision not to give any new funding to arms firms who deal with Israel (or any nation “where there is plausible evidence of genocide being committed”). We call upon Scottish Ministers to publish a detailed plan, with robust independent checks and balances, to ensure that no Scottish public money is used in contravention of international law or in complicity of genocide.
We endorse the letter by the Scottish Human Rights Commission, dated 4 August 2025, on policing of pro-Palestine protests and human rights. We call upon Police Scotland and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service to ensure that people’s Article 10 and Article 11 rights under the European Convention on Human Rights are fully safeguarded while peacefully protesting.
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