Thank you for the invitation to speak here today.
This is my first speech on international law as Attorney General, and I’m really glad to be giving it at the London Conference, in front of an audience who understands its importance and has contributed to its development.
Today is a day that I will look back on with pride. This morning I was at the Royal Courts of Justice, where I took my oath and was sworn in as Attorney General for England and Wales.
Taking part in that ceremony was a reminder of the history and significance of the job. I’m joining a long line of Attorneys General who have had to contend with the thorniest issues of their day.
Before entering politics, I spent more than a decade as an employment rights lawyer.
I represented trade unions and their members, before establishing my own consultancy to support women facing discrimination at work.
What that experience taught me is that law does not exist in a vacuum, just as international law is not some abstract concept we can do away with.
It determines whether people are treated fairly, whether they can provide for their families, and whether they can assert their rights when things go wrong.
Integral to my role as Attorney General is upholding the rule of law within government, including our obligations under international law. This is personal to me.
In 2007, and then again in 2012, I visited Colombia and I saw and heard about the grave human rights violations happening there.
Those conversations followed me through the doors of Parliament where I continued to advocate and speak up.
The experience only continued to strengthen my belief in the importance of standing up for human rights, and my support for international law.
But I am concerned in recent years those values and beliefs have come under repeated assault.
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The crises we face are spilling out on multiple fronts, and trust and public confidence in the institutions built to protect ordinary people are eroding. Whether it’s the ECHR, NATO or the UN, the rules-based order and international law are under threat.
Making the case for international law has never been more important, not least because we can no longer separate events happening around the world from their impact here at home.
We’ve seen it in the closing of the Strait of Hormuz raising prices at the petrol pumps, the ongoing war in Ukraine increasing the cost of the weekly shop, and foreign state-backed cyberattacks disrupting critical care and patient safety in our hospitals.
International law determines what happens here, just as much as domestic law does.
But it is no secret to anyone here that international law and the rules-based order face real challenges.
When international law enters public debate, people often question its relevance in today’s world, or even whether they believe in it at all.
I think that is an understandable reaction.
We have all turned on the news or checked our phones and seen the horrendous suffering in places like Sudan, Gaza and Ukraine.
When those responsible for that suffering appear to act with impunity, without fear or accountability, it is natural for people to question what role international law really plays.
It is vital that we take that criticism head on. We have to listen. But we also have to make the case for why international law matters, and why people should continue to believe in it.
One of the best routes to doing that is not through theory, but through evidence, by making the practical, pragmatic case for how international law affects people’s everyday lives.
So let me be clear: this government and I are steadfast in our commitment to institutions like the European Convention on Human Rights, the International Court of Justice and the UN, and to the treaties and multilateral agreements that allow people to get on with their everyday lives.
That commitment is partly pragmatic. We understand the material benefits of international law, the security it provides, the prosperity it creates.
But it is also about our values.
When Russia launched its illegal invasion of Ukraine, in flagrant breach of the UN Charter, it was a reminder of what is at stake when international law is cast aside.
Our commitment to international law speaks to who we are as a country and the role we want to play in the world, one that stands with Ukraine’s inalienable right to sovereignty, not with those who would trample on it.
So today, I don’t intend to labour the case for international law on principle alone.
I think that everyone in this room already agrees with me about why international law matters for its own sake.
Instead, I want to speak to its specific practical benefits – and I invite anyone who thinks we can do away with international law – or that we can discard multilateral frameworks to explain away the practical difference, it makes to millions of people every day.
There are four main points I want to speak about today: international law’s integral role in our prosperity; in enabling the opportunities people enjoy; in keeping the public safe on our streets; and in protecting individuals from the overreach of the state.
Prosperity:
I’ll begin with prosperity.
A few weeks ago, the Bank of England announced a rise of inflation to 3.1%.
The government is providing support to alleviate some of the financial pressure, such as cutting VAT on energy bills, but every house across the UK will feel the squeeze in their household budgets.
Part of that squeeze can be traced to events happening thousands of miles away.
The illegal invasion of Ukraine has thrown energy markets into turmoil, and the price of oil and gas spiked as supply from the region was disrupted.
Households up and down this country are feeling that impact directly, in higher petrol prices and in energy bills that pushed inflation to levels not seen in decades.
More recently, Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has resulted in a huge number of commercial ships being unable to navigate the Strait and continue their journeys across the globe.
Our financial security and prosperity depends on international banking systems, the WTO, and international trade law, but it also depends on multilateral regimes like the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz in contravention of international law has resulted in higher oil prices, higher household bills, and higher mortgage rates.
UNCLOS is a cornerstone of international commerce. It protects access to vital shipping routes that allow food to reach our supermarket shelves, British manufacturers to export their goods around the world, and the global economy to flourish.
Every day more than 400 commercial vessels pass unimpeded through the Dover Strait, exercising their right of transit passage guaranteed under UNCLOS.
Before the outbreak of the US-Iran conflict and the closure of the Strait, I imagine few people beyond law of the sea specialists spent much time thinking about that right – or about the extent to which it also exists in customary international law – or about whether a state which claims a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea can, at the same time, credibly deny rights of passage through an international strait which forms part of that sea.
Of course, many of those specialists are in this room. London remains one of the world’s leading centres for commercial shipping and expertise in the law of the sea.
But these legal issues have come to the fore this year because long-standing rules on the law of the sea have been violated.
But that does not mean we should question the relevance of those rules. If anything, it only reinforces their importance to our everyday lives.
So, whilst the UK will continue to work tirelessly with our allies to seek to restore freedom of navigation in the Strait.
There is no doubt that the blocking of commercial vessels from exercising their right of transit passage through the Strait of Hormuz has directly impacted millions of people across this country.
Things people enjoy:
My second point is opportunities.
International law is also vital for things that make our lives special. Like going on holiday.
Most people outside this room have never heard of the Chicago Convention, but millions of people rely on it every year.
Every time a family wheels a suitcase through an airport terminal.
Every time a boarding pass flashes green at the gate.
Every time a Jet2 flight lifts off for Corfu or Tenerife or Faro.
The Chicago Convention establishes the international legal framework for international civil aviation, governing everything from rights of overflight to safety standards for aviation.
And Air Services Agreements between States give our commercial airlines the certainty they need to operate – without the quiet operation of international law, families across Britain would not have been able to enjoy their holidays this summer.
And the same is true of many other legal frameworks that operate on the international or bilateral level.
They might seem quite mundane, even to us as lawyers. But their importance cannot be understated. After all, it is a treaty between the UK and France that allows us to get to Paris by Eurostar in less than two hours.
And when children set off on their school coach trip to France, it is made all the easier because States have agreed, as a matter of international law, for the mutual recognition of foreign driving licences.
International law provides the stability we need to get on with our lives.
This is my challenge to anyone who dismisses international law as some sort of ambiguous or foreign concept, where its only purpose is to constrain States’ freedom and stop them acting however they want.
Consider the practical difference it makes.
The ability to board a flight, cross borders, and travel with confidence depends on a framework of international rules and cooperation that most of us rarely think about but rely on every day.
Keeping us safe:
The same principle extends to criminal justice, which is my third argument, how international law keeps people safe on our streets.
The UK relies on a range of international criminal cooperation agreements, from UN-led treaties to Council of Europe, EU and bilateral arrangements, to extradite suspects, share evidence and pursue cross-border crime.
When I was appointed as Attorney General in July, the Prime Minister wrote to me and asked that I help deliver the government’s ambition to make our streets safer, halve violence against women and girls, and restore public confidence in the justice systems.
International law has a role in that too.
No one would accept a world where offenders could evade justice simply by hiding overseas.
Nor would anyone accept a world where criminals abroad could help commit crimes on our streets and get away with it.
But when it comes to criminal justice, successful prosecutions for cross-border crime cannot be achieved through ungoverned, sporadic dealings between States.
There is no point in seeking the extradition of an offender if they can evade prosecution because their extradition process was unfair.
And there is no point gathering evidence from abroad through mutual legal assistance if that evidence then gets thrown out of court because it was obtained unlawfully.
Due process underpinned by legal certainty is essential for securing the justice that victims of crime deserve.
And it is international law – in the form of those criminal justice treaties – that gives us the confidence that due process will be followed even when the crime, or the suspect, crosses borders.
We’ve recently seen this play out in practice.
Last year, ten members of a major organised crime gang were sentenced to a combined total of 207 years in prison.
Their operation was worth an estimated £26 million and involved drugs, firearms and money moving across borders.
The gang leader was directing parts of the enterprise from Spain, believing he could evade justice by using the encrypted messaging platform EncroChat.
But he was wrong.
Through cooperation between multinational law enforcement agencies, sharing intelligence, tracking suspects and working together, the organised crime gang was brought home to face justice.
International law was crucial to that outcome, resulting in safer communities here in Britain.
ECHR:
And finally, my fourth point, protecting individuals from the overreach of the state.
International law doesn’t just keep us safe, it protects our rights and freedoms too.
The European Convention on Human Rights, brought home to the UK from Strasbourg in 1998 through the Human Rights Act, has delivered benefits to people across this country that are all too often overlooked.
It has allowed people to object when doctors put “do not resuscitate” orders on their bed without their consent.
It has allowed people with learning disabilities imprisoned in locked units to be reunited with their families.
It has allowed elderly married couples in residential care to object when care home managers try to separate them.
And it is the reason victims of rapists such as John Worboys have been able to force the police to investigate cases of rape, rather than being turned away.
Of course, institutions like the ECHR are under strain. But they were never intended to stand frozen in time.
To remain effective, they must evolve alongside the societies they serve.
That is why this Government has worked with partners across Europe and through the Council of Europe to strengthen and modernise the Convention for the challenges of the twenty-first century.
West Bank
So far, I’ve spoken about the practical, everyday benefits that international law delivers.
But I also want to speak about its arguably most important role – maintaining peace and security.
The Prime Minister has made clear that, in a difficult and dangerous world, it is more important than ever that Britain stands for something.
Last month, we saw what that means in practice.
Alongside twelve other countries, the Foreign Secretary gave a statement to Parliament announcing UK’s shift in policy on Israel and Palestine.
The UK has long considered Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be a violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
But for the first time, the Foreign Secretary announced a formal change in the view of the British Government – that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is, itself, unlawful.
There was no requirement or legal obligation on the Government to make that view public.
As the Prime Minister said, that conclusion is in line with, but independent of, the conclusion of the International Court of Justice in its Advisory Opinion on the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
The Government reached this conclusion after considering all of Israel’s actions in the occupied territory, in particular their scope and intended permanence.
The unlawfulness of the occupation should be reflected in the economic relationships that the UK chooses to have with the occupied territories.
For that reason, the Government will introduce an import ban on goods from illegal settlements.
And we will ban the advertising in the UK of illegal settlements.
This is Britain standing for something.
It is about holding true to our values, supporting accountability, and upholding respect for international law.
I am proud to serve in a government that is prepared to do that.
And one that will work with our allies, to maximise our collective influence, uphold international law, and demonstrate the vital role that cooperation plays in our response to the challenges we face.
So, to finish, international law is not perfect.
And I am not here today to pretend that the challenges it faces are not real.
But imperfection does not mean unimportant.
Anyone who dismisses international law must also explain away the practical difference it makes to millions of people every single day.
Today, I have set out how international law helps make our country safer, more prosperous and stronger.
It gives Britain influence beyond our size.
It allows us to work with allies to pursue criminals, challenge aggression, uphold human rights and hold rogue actors to account.
But just as much, it matters to people at home.
To the parent worried about the bills arriving at the end of the month.
To the family looking forward to a holiday booked months in advance.
To the victim waiting for justice.
Law and legal certainty underpin so much of our daily freedoms, the fact that it operates in the background does not make it any less important.
Today we see conflict spreading, trade under strain, and trust in our institutions being tested, but the answer should never be to look inward or to do less.
It should be to do more… more cooperation, recommitting ourselves to our international obligations and to speak with absolute confidence about the benefits it brings.
And in an increasingly uncertain world it is one of the most practical, tangible and important responsibilities we share.
Thank you very much.
Source: www.gov.uk
